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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13946 ***
+
+Camp and Trail
+
+A Story of the Maine Woods
+
+by Isabel Hornibrook
+
+[Illustration]
+
+TO
+
+J.L.H.
+
+[Illustration:  The Moose Was Now Snorting Like a War-Horse Beneath]
+
+Preface
+
+
+In adding another to the list of stories bearing on that subject of
+perennial interest to boys, adventures in camp and on trail among the
+woods and lakes of Northern Maine, one thought has been the inspiration
+that led me on.
+
+It is this: To prove to high-mettled lads, American, and English as
+well, that forest quarters, to be the most jovial quarters on earth,
+need not be made a shambles. Sensation may reach its finest pitch,
+excitement be an unfailing fillip, and fun the leaven which leavens the
+camping-trip from start to finish, even though the triumph of killing
+for triumph’s sake be left out of the play-bill.
+
+“There is a higher sport in preservation than in destruction,” says a
+veteran hunter, whose forest experiences and descriptions have in part
+enriched this story. I commend the opinion to boy-readers, trusting
+that they may become “queer specimen sportsmen,” after the pattern of
+Cyrus Garst; and find a more entrancing excitement in studying the live
+wild things of the forest than in gloating over a dying tremor, or
+examining a senseless mass of horn, hide, and hoofs, after the
+life-spring which worked the mechanism has been stilled forever.
+
+One other desire has trodden on the heels of the first: That Young
+England and Young America may be inspired with a wish to understand
+each other better, to take each other frankly and simply for the
+manhood in each; and that thus misconception and prejudice may
+disappear like mists of an old-day dream.
+
+ISABEL HORNIBROOK.
+
+
+Contents
+
+ Chapter I. Jacking For Deer
+ Chapter II. A Spill-Out
+ Chapter III. Life in a Bark Hut
+ Chapter IV. Whither Bound?
+ Chapter V. A Coon Hunt
+ Chapter VI. After Black Ducks
+ Chapter VII. A Forest Guide-Post
+ Chapter VIII. Another Camp
+ Chapter IX. A Sunday Among the Pines
+ Chapter X. Forward All!
+ Chapter XI. Beaver Works
+ Chapter XII. “Go It, Old Bruin!”
+ Chapter XIII. “The Skin Is Yours.”
+ Chapter XIV. A Lucky Hunter
+ Chapter XV. A Fallen King
+ Chapter XVI. Moose-Calling
+ Chapter XVII. Herb’s Yarns
+ Chapter XVIII. To Lonelier Wilds
+ Chapter XIX. Treed By a Moose
+ Chapter XX. Triumph
+ Chapter XXI. On Katahdin
+ Chapter XXII. The Old Home-Camp
+ Chapter XXIII. Brother's Work
+ Chapter XXIV. “Keeping Things Even”
+ Chapter XXV. A Little Caribou Quarrel
+ Chapter XXVI. Doc Again
+ Chapter XXVII. Christmas on the Other Side
+
+List Of Illustrations
+
+ The Moose Was Now Snorting Like A War-Horse Beneath.
+ “There Is Moosehead Lake.”
+ Dol Sights A Friendly Camp.
+ In The Shadow Of Katahdin.
+ “Go It, Old Bruin! Go It While You Can!”
+ “Herb Heal.”
+ A Fallen King.
+ The Camp On Millinokett Lake.
+ “Herb Charged Through The Choking Dust-Clouds.”
+ Greenville,—“Farewell To The Woods.”
+
+
+
+
+Camp And Trail
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter I. Jacking For Deer
+
+
+“Now, Neal Farrar, you’ve got to be as still as the night itself,
+remember. If you bounce, or turn, or draw a long breath, you won’t have
+a rag of reputation as a deer-hunter to take back to England. Sneeze
+once, and we’re done for. That means more diet of flapjacks and pork,
+instead of venison steaks. And I guess your city appetite won’t rally
+to pork much longer, even in the wilds.”
+
+Neal Farrar sighed as if there was something in that.
+
+“But, you know, it’s just when an unlucky fellow would give his life
+not to sneeze that he’s sure to bring out a thumping big one,” he said
+plaintively.
+
+“Well, keep it back like a hero if your head bursts in the attempt,”
+was the reply with a muffled laugh. “When you know that the canoe is
+gliding along somehow, but you can’t hear a sound or feel a motion, and
+you begin to wonder whether you’re in the air or on water, flying or
+floating, imagine that you’re the ghost of some old Indian hunter who
+used to jack for deer on Squaw Pond, and be stonily silent.”
+
+“Oh! I say, stop chaffing,” whispered Neal impetuously. “You’re enough
+to make a fellow feel creepy before ever he starts. I could bear the
+worst racket on earth better than a dead quiet.”
+
+This dialogue was exchanged in low but excited voices between a young
+man of about one and twenty, and a lad who was apparently five years
+his junior, while they waded knee-deep in water among the long, rank
+grasses and circular pads of water-lilies which border the banks of
+Squaw Pond, a small lake in the forest region of northern Maine.
+
+The hour was somewhere about eleven
+o’clock. The night was intensely still, without a zephyr stirring among
+the trees, and of that wavering darkness caused by a half-clouded moon.
+On the black and green water close to the bank rocked a light
+birch-bark canoe, a ticklish craft, which a puff might overturn. The
+young man who had urged the necessity for silence was groping round it,
+fumbling with the sharp bow, in which he fixed a short pole or
+“jack-staff,” with some object—at present no one could discern what—on
+top.
+
+“There, I’ve got the jack rigged up!” he whispered presently. “Step in
+now, Neal, and I’ll open it. Have you got your rifle at half-cock?
+That’s right. Be careful. A fellow would need to have his hair parted
+in the middle in a birch box like this. Remember, mum’s the word!”
+
+The lad obeyed, seating himself as noiselessly as he could in the bow
+of the canoe, and threw his rifle on his shoulder in a convenient
+position for shooting, with a freedom which showed he was accustomed to
+firearms.
+
+At the same time his companion stepped into the canoe, having first
+touched the dark object on the pole just over Neal’s head. Instantly
+it changed into a brilliant, scintillating, silvery eye, which flashed
+forward a stream of white light on a line with the pointed gun, cutting
+the black face of the pond in twain as with a silver blade, and making
+the leaves on shore glisten like oxidized coins.
+
+The effect of this sudden illumination was so sudden and beautiful that
+the boy for a minute or two held his rifle in unsteady hands while the
+canoe glided out from the bank. An exclamation began in his throat
+which ended in an indistinct gurgle. Remembering that he was pledged to
+silence, he settled himself to be as wordless and motionless as if his
+living body had become a statue.
+
+From his position no revealing radiance fell on him. He sat in shadow
+beside that glinting eye, which was really a good-sized lantern, fitted
+at the back with a powerful silvered reflector, and in front with a
+glass lens, the light being thrown directly ahead. It was provided also
+with a sliding door that could be noiselessly slipped over the glass
+with a touch, causing the blackness of a total eclipse.
+
+This was the deer-hunters’ “jack-lamp,” familiarly called by Neal’s
+companion the “jack.”
+
+And now it may be readily guessed in what thrilling night-work these
+canoe-men are engaged as they skim over Squaw Pond, with no swish of
+paddle, nor jar of motion, nor even a noisy breath, disturbing the
+brooding silence through which they glide. They are “jacking” or
+“floating” for deer, showing the radiant eye of their silvery jack to
+attract any antlered buck or graceful doe which may come forth from the
+screen of the forest to drink at this quiet hour amid the tangled
+grasses and lily-pads at the pond’s brink.
+
+Now, a deer, be it buck, doe, or fawn in the spotted coat, will stand
+as if moonstruck, if it hears no sound; to gaze at the lantern,
+studying the meteor which has crossed its world as an astronomer might
+investigate a rare, radiant comet. So it offers a steady mark for the
+sportsman’s bullet, if he can glide near enough to discern its outline
+and take aim. There is one exception to this rule. If the wary animal
+has ever been startled by a shot fired from under the jack, trust him
+never to watch a light again, though it shine like the Kohinoor.
+
+As for Neal Farrar, this was his first attempt at playing the part of
+midnight hunter; and I am bound to say that—being English
+born and city bred—he found the situation much too mystifying for his
+peace of mind.
+
+He knew that the canoe was moving, moving rapidly; for giant pines
+along the shore, looking solid and black as mourning pillars, shot by
+him as if theirs were the motion, with an effect indescribably weird.
+Now and again a gray pine stump, appearing, if the light struck it,
+twice its real size, passed like a shimmering ghost. But he felt not
+the slightest tremor of advance, heard no swish or ripple of paddle.
+
+A moisture oozed from his skin, and gathered in heavy drips under the
+brim of his hat, as he began to wonder whether the light bark skiff was
+working through the water at all, or skimming in some unnatural way
+above it. For the life of him he could not settle this doubt. And,
+fearful of balking the expedition by a stir, he dared not turn his head
+to investigate the doings of his comrade, Cyrus Garst.
+
+Cyrus, though also city bred, was an American, and evidently an old
+hand at the present business. The Maine wilds had long been his
+playground. He had studied the knack of noiseless paddling under the
+teaching of a skilled forest guide until he fairly brought it
+to perfection. And, in perfection, it is about the most wizard-like art
+practised in the nineteenth century.
+
+The silent propulsion was managed thus: the grand master of the paddle
+gripped its cross handle in both hands, working it so that its broad
+blade cut the water first backward then forward so dexterously that not
+even his own practised hearing could detect a sound; nor could he any
+more than Neal feel a sensation of motion.
+
+The birch-bark skiff skimmed onward as if borne on unseen pinions.
+
+To Neal Farrar, who had been brought up amid the tumult of rival noises
+and the practical surroundings of Manchester, England, who was a
+stranger to the solitudes of primitive forests, and almost a stranger
+to weird experiences, the silent advance was a mystery. And it began to
+be a hateful one; for he had not even the poor explanation of it which
+has been given in this record.
+
+It was only his third night in Maine wilds; and I fear that his friend
+Cyrus, when inviting him to join in the jacking excursion, had
+refrained from explaining the canoe mystery, mischievously promising
+himself considerable fun from the English lad’s bewilderment.
+
+Neal’s hearing was strained to catch any sound of big game beating
+about amid the bushes on shore or splashing in the water, but none
+reached him. The night seemed to grow stiller, stiller, ever stiller,
+as they glided towards the head of the pond, until the dead quiet
+started strange, imaginary noises.
+
+There was a pounding as of dull hammers in his ears, a belling in his
+head, and a drumming at his heart.
+
+He was tortured by a wild desire to yell his loudest, and defy the
+brooding silence.
+
+Another—a midnight watchman—broke it instead.
+
+“Whoo-ho-ho-whah-whoo!”
+
+It was the thrilling scream of a big-eyed owl as he chased a squirrel
+to its death, and proceeded to banquet in unwinking solemnity.
+
+“Whoo-ho-ho-whah-whoo!”
+
+Neal started,—who wouldn’t?—and joggled the canoe, thereby nearly
+ending the night hunt at once by the untimely discharge of his rifle.
+
+He had barely regained some measure of steadiness, though he felt as if
+needles were sticking into him all over, when at last there was a
+crashing amid the bushes on the right bank, not a hundred yards
+distant.
+
+Noiselessly as ever the canoe shot around, turning the jack’s eye in
+that direction. A minute later a magnificent buck, swinging his antlers
+proudly, dashed into the pond, and stooped his small red tongue to
+drink, licking in the water greedily with a soft, lapping sound.
+
+Neal silently cocked his rifle, almost choking with excitement; then
+paused for a few seconds to brace up and control the nervous terrors
+which had possessed him, before his eye singled out the spot in the
+deer’s neck which his bullet must pierce. But he found his operations
+further delayed; for the animal suddenly lifted its head, scattered
+feathery spray from its horns and hoofs, and retired a few steps up the
+bank.
+
+In its former position every part of its body was visibly outlined
+under the silver light of the jack. Now a successful shot would be
+difficult, though it might be managed. The boy leaned slightly forward,
+trying to hold his gun dead straight and take cool aim, when the most
+curious of all the curious sensations he had felt this night ran
+through him, seeming to scorch like electricity from his scalp to his
+feet.
+
+From the stand which the deer had taken,
+its body was in shadow. All that the sportsman could discern were two
+living, glowing eyes, staring—so it appeared to him—straight into his,
+like starry search-lights, as if they read the death-purpose in the
+boy’s heart, and begged him to desist.
+
+It was all over with Neal Farrar’s shot. He lowered his rifle, while
+the speech, which could no longer be repressed, rattled in his throat
+before it broke forth.
+
+“I’ll go crazy if I don’t speak!” he cried.
+
+At the first word the buck went scudding like the wind through the
+forest, doubtless vowing by the shades of his ancestors that he never
+would stand to gaze at a light again.
+
+“And—and—I can’t shoot the thing while it’s looking at me like that!”
+the boy blurted out.
+
+“You dunderhead! What do you mean?” gasped Cyrus, breaking silence in a
+gusty whisper of mingled anger and amusement. “You won’t get a chance
+to shoot it or anything else now. You’ve lost us our meat for
+to-night.”
+
+“Well, I couldn’t help it,” Neal whispered back. “For pity’s sake, what
+has been moving this canoe? The quiet was enough to set a fellow mad!
+And then that buck stared
+straight at me like a human thing. I could see nothing but two burning
+eyes with white rings round them.”
+
+“Stuff!” was the American’s answer. “He was gazing at the jack, not at
+you. He couldn’t see an inch of you with that light just over your
+head. But it would have been a hard shot anyhow, for his nose was
+towards you, and ten to one you’d have made a clean miss.”
+
+“Well,” he added, after five minutes of acute listening, “I guess we
+may give over jacking for to-night. That first cry of yours was enough
+to set a regiment of deer scampering. I’m only half mad after all at
+your losing a chance at such a splendid buck. It was something to see
+him as he stooped to drink in the glare of the jack, a midnight forest
+picture such as one wants to remember. Long may he flourish! We
+wouldn’t have started out to rid him of his glorious life if we weren’t
+half-starved on flapjacks and ends of pork. Let’s get back to camp! I
+guess you felt a few new sensations to-night, eh, Neal Farrar?”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter II. A Spill-Out
+
+
+Indeed, shocks and sensations seemed to ride rampant that night in
+endless succession; a fact which Neal presently realized, as does every
+daring young fellow who visits the Maine wilderness for the first time,
+whatever be his object.
+
+Ere turning the canoe towards home, Cyrus drove it a few feet nearer to
+shore, again warily listening for any further sound of game. Just then
+another wild, whooping scream cleft the night air; and, on looking
+towards the bank, Neal beheld his owlship, who had finished the
+squirrel, seated on an aged windfall,[1] one end of which dipped into
+the water. The gray bird on the gray old trunk formed a second
+thrilling midnight picture, but at this moment young Farrar was in no
+mood for studying effects. He felt rather unstrung by his recent
+emotions; and, though he was by no means an imaginative youth, he
+actually took it into his head half seriously that the whooping,
+hooting thing was taunting him with making a failure of the jacking
+business. Without pausing to consider whether the owl would furnish
+meat for the camp or not, he let fly at him suddenly with his rifle.
+
+ [1] A forest tree which has been blown down.
+
+The fate of that ghostly, big-eyed creature will be forever one of
+those mysteries which Neal Farrar would like to solve. Whether the
+heavy bullet intended for deer laid him open—which is improbable—or
+whether it didn’t, nobody had a chance to discover. Being unused to
+birch-bark canoes, the sportsman gave a slight lurch aside after he had
+discharged his leaden messenger of death, startled doubtless by the
+loud, unexpected echoes which reverberated through the forest after his
+shot.
+
+“Hold on!” cried Cyrus, trying to avert a ducking by a counter-motion.
+“You’ll tip us over!”
+
+Too late! The birch skiff spun round,
+rocked crazily for a second or two, and keeled over, spilling both its
+occupants into the black and silver water of the pond.
+
+Of course they ducked under, and of course they rose, gurgling and
+spluttering.
+
+“You didn’t lose the rifle, Neal, did you?” gasped the American
+directly he could speak.
+
+“Not I! I held on to it like grim death.”
+
+“Good for you! To lose a hundred-and-fifty-dollar gun when we’re
+starting into the wilds would be maddening.”
+
+Then, just because they were extremely healthy, happy, vigorous
+fellows, whose lungs had been drinking in pure, exhilarating ozone and
+fragrant odors of pine-balsam and were thereby expanded, they took a
+cheerful view of this duck under, and made the midnight forest echo,
+echo, and re-echo, with peals and gusts and shouts of laughter, while
+they struggled to right their canoe.
+
+The merry jingles rang on in challenge and answer, repeating from both
+sides of the pond, until they reached at last the wooded slopes and
+mighty bowlders of Old Squaw Mountain, a peak whose “star-crowned head”
+could be imagined rather than discerned against the horizon, near the
+distant shore from which the hunters had started. Here
+echo ran riot. It seemed to their excited fancies as if the ghost of
+Old Squaw herself, the disappointed Indian mother who had, according to
+tradition, lived so long in loneliness upon this mountain, were joining
+in their mirth with haggish peals.
+
+The canoe had turned bottom uppermost. On righting it they found that
+the jack-staff had been dislodged. The jack was floating gayly away
+over the ripples; its light, being in an air-tight case, was
+unquenched.
+
+“Swim ashore with the rifle, Neal,” said Cyrus. “I’ll pick up the jack.
+Did you ever see anything so absurdly comical as it looks, dodging off
+on its own hook like a big, wandering eye?”
+
+With his comrade’s help young Farrar succeeded in getting the gun
+across his back, slinging it round him by its leather shoulder-strap;
+then he struck out for the bank, having scarcely twenty yards to swim
+before he reached shallow water.
+
+Now, for the first time to-night, the moon shone fully out from her
+veil of cloud, casting a flood of silver radiance, and showing him a
+scene in white and black, still and clear as a steel engraving, of a
+beauty so unimagined and grand that it seemed a little awful. It
+gave him a sudden respect for the unreclaimed, seldom-trodden region to
+which his craving for adventure had brought him.
+
+The outline of Old Squaw Mountain could be plainly discerned, a dark,
+towering shape against the horizon. A few stars glinted like a diamond
+diadem above its brow. Down its sides and from the base stretched a
+sable mantle of forest, enwrapping Squaw Pond, of which the moon made a
+mirror.
+
+“My! I think this would make the fellows in Manchester open their eyes
+a bit,” muttered Neal aloud. “Only one feels as if he ought to see some
+old Indian brave such as Cyrus tells about,—a Touch-the-Cloud, or
+Whistling Elk, or Spotted Tail, come gliding towards him out of the
+woods in his paint and feather toggery. Glad I didn’t visit Maine a
+hundred years ago, though, when there’d have been a chance of such a
+meeting.”
+
+Still muttering, young Farrar kicked off his high rubber boots, and
+dragged off his coat. He proceeded to shake and wring the water from
+his upper garments, listening intently, and glancing half expectantly
+into the pitch-black shadows at the edges of the forest, as if he might
+hear the stealthy steps and see
+the savage form of the superseded red man emerge therefrom.
+
+“Ugh! I mind the ducking now more than I did a while ago,” he murmured.
+“The water wasn’t cold. Why, we bathed at the other end of the pond
+late last evening! But these wet clothes are precious uncomfortable. I
+wish we were nearer to camp. Good Gracious! What’s that?”
+
+He stood stock-still and erect, his flesh shrinking a little, while his
+drenched flannel shirt clung yet more closely and clammily to his skin.
+
+A distant noise was wafted to his ears through the forest behind. It
+began like the gentle, mellow lowing of a cow at evening, swelled into
+a quavering, appealing crescendo cadence, and gradually died away.
+Almost as the last note ceased another commenced at the same low pitch,
+with only the rest of a heart-beat between the two, and surged forth
+into a plaintive yet tempestuous call, which sank as before. It was
+followed by a third, terminating in an impatient roar. The weird solo
+ran through several scales in its performance, rising, wailing,
+booming, sinking, ever varying in expression. It marked a new era in
+Neal’s experience of sounds, and
+left him choking with bewilderment about what sort of forest creature
+it could be which uttered such a call.
+
+He began to get out some bungling description when Cyrus joined him
+shortly afterwards, but the American had had a lively time of it while
+recovering his jack-light and righting the canoe on mid-pond. He was in
+no mood for explanations.
+
+“Keep the yarn, whatever it is, till to-morrow, Neal,” he said. “I
+didn’t hear anything special. Perhaps I was too far away. I’m so wet
+and jaded that I feel as limp as a washed-out rag. Let’s get back to
+camp as fast as we can.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter III. Life in a Bark Hut
+
+
+It was two o’clock in the morning when the tired, draggled pair
+stumbled ashore at the place where they embarked, hauled up their birch
+skiff, leaving it to repose, bottom uppermost, under a screen of
+bushes, and then stood for some minutes in deliberation.
+
+“I’m sure I hope we can find the trail all right,” said Cyrus. “Yes, I
+see the blazes on the trees. Here’s luck!”
+
+He had been turning the jack-lamp on either side of him, trying to
+discover the “blazes,” or notches cut in some of the trunks, which
+marked the “blazed trail”—in other words, the spotted line through the
+otherwise trackless forest, which would lead him whither he wanted to
+go.
+
+It required considerable experience and unending watchfulness to follow
+these “blazes”; but young Garst seemed to have the instinct of a true
+woodsman, and went ahead unfalteringly, if vigilantly, while Neal
+followed closely in his tracks.
+
+After rather a lengthy trudge, they reached a point where the ground
+sloped gently upward into a low bluff. Still keeping to the trail, they
+ascended this eminence, finding the forest not so dense, and the
+walking easier than it had been hitherto. Gaining the top, they emerged
+upon an open patch, which had been cleared of its erect, massive pines,
+and the long-hidden earth laid bare to the sky by the lumberman’s axe.
+
+Here the eagerly desired sight—that sight of all others to the tired
+camper; namely, the camp itself, with its cheery, blazing
+camp-fire—burst upon their view, sheltered by a group of sapling pines,
+which had grown up since their giant brothers went to make timber.
+
+Now, a Maine camp, as every one knows, may consist of any temporary
+shelter you choose to name, according to the tastes and
+opportunities of its occupants, from a fair white canvas home to a log
+cabin or a hastily erected canopy of spruce boughs. In the present
+instance it was a “wangen,” or hut of strong bark, such as is sometimes
+used by lumbermen to rest and sleep in when they are driving their
+floats of timber down one of the rivers of this region to a distant
+town, which is a centre of the lumber trade.
+
+Cyrus and Neal were making across the clearing in the direction of the
+camp-fire with revived spirits, when the American suddenly grabbed his
+friend by the arm, and drew him behind a clump of low bushes.
+
+“Hold on a minute!” he whispered. “By all that’s glorious, there’s
+Uncle Eb singing his favorite song! It’s worth hearing. You never
+listened to such music in England.”
+
+“I don’t suppose I ever did,” answered Neal, suppressed laughter making
+him shake.
+
+Upon a gray pine stump, beside the blaze, which he was feeding with a
+hemlock bough, sat a battered-looking yet lively personage. Had he been
+standing upright upon the remnant of trunk, he would certainly, in the
+bright but changeful firelight, have deceived an onlooker into
+believing him to be a continuation
+of it; for the baggy tweed trousers which he wore on his immense legs,
+and which partially hid his loose-fitting brogans, or woodsman’s boots,
+his thick, knitted jersey, his mop of woolly hair, with the cap of
+coon’s fur that adorned it, were a striking mixture of grays, all
+bordering upon the color of the stump. His skin, however, was a fine
+contrast, shining as he bent towards the flame like the outside of a
+copper kettle. In daylight it would be three shades darker, because the
+thick coral lips, gleaming teeth, and prominent, friendly eyes of the
+individual, betrayed him to be in his own words, “a colored gen’leman;”
+that is, a full-blooded negro, and a free American citizen.
+
+Beside him, squatting upon his haunches and wagging his shaggy tail,
+was a good-sized dog, not of pure breed, but undoubtedly possessed of
+fire and fidelity, as was shown by the eye he raised to his master. His
+red coat and general formation showed that his father had been an Irish
+setter, though he seemed to have other and fiercer blood in his veins,
+mingling with that of this gentle parent.
+
+To him the negro was chanting a war-song,—some lines by a popular
+writer which he
+had found in an old newspaper, and had set to a curious tune of his own
+composition, rendering the performance more inspiriting by sundry wild
+whoops, and an occasional whacking of his teeth together.
+
+Here are two verses, under the influence of which the dog worked
+himself up to such excitement that he seemed to feel the ghosts of
+rabbits slain—for he could smell no live ones—hovering near him:—
+
+“I raise my gun whar de rabbit run—
+    Ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!
+En de rabbit say:
+    ‘Gimme time ter pray,
+Fer I ain’t got long fer to stay, to stay!’
+    Oh, ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!
+
+“Ketch him, oh, ketch him!
+Run ter de place en fetch him!
+De bell done chime
+Fer de breakfast time—
+    Oh, ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!”
+
+
+“If there are any more verses, Uncle Eb, keep them until we’ve had
+supper, or breakfast, or whatever you like to call a meal at this
+unearthly hour. I’m so hungry that I could chew nails!” cried Cyrus,
+springing from behind the bushes, and reaching the, camp-fire with a
+few strides, Neal following him.
+
+“Sakes alive! yonkers; is dat you?” cried the darkey, uprearing his
+gray figure. “I’se mighty glad to see you back. Whar’s yer meat? Left
+it in de canoe mebbe? De buck too big to drag ’long to camp—eh?”
+
+There was a wicked rolling of Uncle Eb’s eyes while he spoke. Evidently
+from the looks of the sportsmen he guessed immediately what had been
+the result of their excursion.
+
+“No luck and no buck to-night!” answered Garst. “But don’t roast us,
+Uncle Eb. Get us something to eat quicker than lightning or we’ll go
+for you—at least we would if we weren’t entirely played out. It isn’t
+everybody who can manage a hard shot as cleverly as you do, when he can
+only see the eyes of an animal. And that was the one chance we got.”
+
+No man living ever heard a further word from Cyrus as to how his
+English friend bore the scares of a first night’s jacking.
+
+“Ya-as, dat’s a ticklish shot. Most folks is skeered o’ trying it,”
+drawled out Ebenezer Grout, a professional guide as well as “colored
+gen’leman,” familiarly called by visitors to this region who hired the
+use of his hut and his services, “Uncle Eb.”
+
+“There’s some comfort for you,” whispered Cyrus slyly into Neal’s ear.
+Aloud he said, addressing the guide, “We had a spill-out, too, as a
+crown-all. I’m mighty glad that this is the second of October, not
+November, and that the weather is as warm as summer; otherwise we’d be
+in a pretty bad way from chill. I feel shivery. Hurry up, and get us
+some steaming hot coffee and flapjacks, Uncle Eb, while we fling off
+these wet clothes. The trouble is we haven’t got any dry ones.”
+
+“Hain’t got no oder suits?” queried the woodsman. “Den go ’long, boys,
+and rig yerselves up in yer blankets. Ye can pertend to be Injuns fer
+to-night. Like enough dis ain’t de worst shift ye’ll have to make ’fore
+ye get out o’ dese parts.”
+
+As the draggled pair were making towards the hut, which stood about six
+feet from the fire, to follow his advice, its bark door was suddenly
+pushed wide open. Forth stepped, or rather staggered, another boy,
+younger and shorter than Neal. His tumbled fair hair was here and there
+adorned with a green pine-needle, which was not remarkable, considering
+that he had just arisen from a bed of pine boughs. Sundry others were
+clinging to the surface of the warm, fleecy blankets in which he was
+wrapped, and his feet were thrust into a pair of moccasins. He had the
+appearance and voice of a person awaking from sound sleep.
+
+“I say, you fellows, it’s about time you got back!” he said, rubbing
+his heavy eyes, and addressing the hunters. “I hope you’ve had some
+luck. I dreamt that I was smacking my lips over a venison steak.”
+
+“Smack ’em w’en you git it, honey!” remarked Uncle Eb, while he mixed a
+plain batter of flour, baking-powder, and cold water, which he dropped
+in big spoonfuls on a frying-pan, previously greased, proceeding to fry
+the mixture over his camp-fire.
+
+The thin, round cakes which presently appeared were the “flapjacks”
+despised by Cyrus as insufficient diet.
+
+Without waiting to answer the new boy’s greeting, the hunters had
+disappeared into the bark shanty. When next they issued forth they were
+rigged up Indian fashion in moccasins and blankets, the latter being
+doubled and draped over their underclothing,—of which luckily they had
+a dry supply,—and gathered round their waists with leather straps.
+Knitted caps, usually worn when sleeping, adorned their heads.
+
+“You see, we followed Dol’s example and your advice, Uncle Eb,” said
+Cyrus, as they seated themselves by the camp-fire. “And I tell you
+these make tip-top dressing-gowns when you’re feeling a little bit
+chilly after a drenching. We didn’t bring along a second suit of tweeds
+for the simple reason that we mean to do some pretty rough tramping
+with our packs on our backs, and then a fellow is likely to grumble at
+any unnecessary pound of weight he carries.”
+
+“Shuah—shuah!” assented Uncle Eb.
+
+“And that is why we left our fishing-rods behind,” continued Garst.
+“You see, our main object this trip is neither hunting nor fishing. But
+a creel of gamey trout from Squaw Pond would come in handy now to
+replenish our larder.”
+
+“Wal, I b’lieve I’ll fix up a rod to-mo-oh an’ hook a few, fer de
+pork’s givin’ out. Hain’t got mich use fer trout meself. Dey’s kind o’
+tasteless eatin’ if a man can git a bit o’ fat coon or a fatty [hare],
+let ’lone ven’zon. Pork’s a sight better’n ’em to my mind.”
+
+While Uncle Eb was giving his views on food, he was hurriedly “bilin’”
+coffee, frying unlimited flapjacks, and breaking up some
+crystal cakes of maple sugar, which he melted into a sirup, and poured
+over them.
+
+“De bell done chime
+Fer de breakfast time!”
+
+
+he shouted gleefully when all was accomplished. “Heah, yonkers! I guess
+we may call dis meal breakfast jest as well as not, fer it’s neah to
+dawn now.”
+
+And the trio fell to voraciously, as he handed them each a steaming tin
+mug and an equally steaming plate. The newly awakened youngster, who
+had been cuddling his head sleepily against Neal’s shoulder (a glance
+showed that they were brothers), had clamored for his share of the
+banquet.
+
+“You haven’t been lonely, Dol, I hope, have you?” said Cyrus, as a
+whole flapjack, doubled over and drenched in sirup, disappeared down
+his capacious throat.
+
+“Not I,” answered Dol (Adolphus Farrar, ladies and gentlemen), shutting
+and opening a pair of steel-gray eyes with a sort of quick snap. “Uncle
+Eb and I sat by the fire until twelve o’clock. He sang songs, and told
+tip-top stories about coon hunts. I tell you it was fun! I’d rather see
+a coon hunt than go out at night jacking, especially if I
+got a ducking instead of a deer, like some bungling fellows I know.”
+
+“Don’t be saucy, Young England, or I’ll go for you when I’ve finished
+eating,” laughed Cyrus good-humoredly. “Who told you what we got?”
+
+Dol winked at Uncle Eb, who had, indeed, entertained him with giggling
+jokes about the unsuccessful hunters while they were stripping off
+their wet garments.
+
+Adolphus, being the youngest of the camping-party, was favored with the
+softest pine-bough bed and the best of the limited luxuries which the
+camp possessed, with unlimited nicknames,—from “Young England” to
+“Shaver” or “Chick,” according to the whims of his comrades.
+
+“Say, Uncle Eb, we’re having a fine old time to-night—all sorts of
+experiences! I guess you may as well finish that song we interrupted
+while we’re finishing our meal.”
+
+“All rightee, gen’lemen!” answered the jolly guide and cook.
+
+The dog Tiger had retreated to the back of the camp-fire, where he lay
+blissfully snoozing; but at a booming “Whoop-ee!” from his master,
+which formed a prelude to the following verses, he shot up like a
+rocket, and
+manifested all his former signs of excitement.
+
+“Dey’s a big fat goose whar de turkey roos’—
+    Ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!
+En de goose—he say,
+    ‘Hit’ll soon be day,
+En I got no feders fer ter give away!’
+    Oh, ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!
+
+“Ketch him, oh, ketch him,
+Run ter de roos’ en fetch him!
+He ain’t gwine tell
+On de dinner bell—
+    Ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!”
+
+
+“Scoot ’long to bed now, you yonkers, or ye’ll look like spooks
+to-mo-oh! Hit’s day a’ready,” cried the singer directly he had whooped
+out his last note.
+
+And the “yonkers,” nothing loath, for they had finished their repast,
+sprang up to obey him.
+
+“Isn’t it a comfort that we haven’t any trouble of undressing and
+getting into our bedclothes, fellows?” Cyrus said, as they reached the
+wangen, and prepared to throw themselves upon the fragrant camp-bed of
+fresh green pine-boughs, which made the bark hut smell more healthily
+than a palace.
+
+The natural mattress was wide enough to accommodate three. The boughs
+were laid
+down in rows with the under side up, and overlapped each other. To be
+sure, an occasional twig might poke a sleeper’s ribs, but what mattered
+that? To the English boys especially—having the charm of entire
+novelty—it was a matchless bed, wholesome, restful, and rich with
+balsamic odors hitherto unknown.
+
+The trio were stupidly tired; but on the American continent no happier
+or healthier youths could have been found.
+
+It had, indeed, been a night big with experiences; and there was one
+still to come, which, to Neal Farrar at any rate, was as novel as the
+rest. He had thrown himself upon his bough couch, too weary to offer
+anything but the gladness of his heart for worship, when Cyrus touched
+his arm.
+
+“Look there!” he said. “If a fellow could see that without feeling some
+sensations go through him which he never felt before, he wouldn’t be
+worth much!”
+
+He pointed through the open door of the hut at the sky above the
+clearing, over which was stealing a pearly hue of dawn, shot with a
+tinge of rosy light, like the fire in the heart of an opal.
+
+This made a royal canopy over the towering
+head of Old Squaw Mountain,—near by now and plainly visible,—which had
+not yet lost its starry diadem, though the gems were paling one by one.
+The shoulders of the peak wore a mantle of purple, and the forest which
+clothed its bulk was changing from the blackness of a mourning robe to
+the emerald green of a sea-nymph’s drapery.
+
+The shutters of Night were rolling back, and young Day was stepping out
+to cast her first smile on a waiting earth.
+
+As the watchers in the hut caught that smile, every thought which rose
+in them was a daybreak song to the God who is light, and the secret of
+every dawning.
+
+With the day-smile kissing their faces they fell asleep, feeling that
+they were wrapped in the embrace of the invisible King.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IV. Whither Bound?
+
+
+“Where from? Whither bound?” It is not often that a man or boy burns to
+put these questions—which ships signal to each other when they pass
+upon the ocean—to some individual who hurries by him on a crowded
+thoroughfare, whose name perhaps he knows, but whose hand he has never
+clasped, of whose thoughts, feelings, and capabilities he is ignorant.
+
+But just let him meet that same fellow during a holiday trip to some
+wild sea-beach or lonely mountain, let an acquaintance spring up, let
+him observe the habits of the other traveller, discovering a few of his
+weak points and some of his good ones, and then he wishes
+to ask, “Where do you hail from? Whither are you bound?”
+
+Therefore, having encountered three fairly good-looking, jovial,
+well-disposed young fellows amid the solitudes of a Maine forest,
+having spent some eventful hours in their company, learning how they
+behaved in certain emergencies, it is but natural that the reader
+should wish to know their ordinary occupations, with their reasons for
+venturing into these wilds, and the goal they wish to reach, before he
+journeys with them farther.
+
+Just at present, being fast asleep, dreaming, and—if I must say
+it—snoring like troopers, upon their mattresses of pine boughs, they
+are unable to give any information about themselves. But the friend who
+has been authorized to record their travels will be happy to satisfy
+all reasonable curiosity.
+
+To begin, then, with the “boss” of the party, Cyrus Garst, the writer
+would say that he is a student of Harvard University, and a brainy,
+energetic, robust son of America. Among his college classmates he is
+regarded as a bit of a hero; for, in spite of his comparative youth, he
+is an enterprising traveller and a veteran camper, whose camp-fire has
+blazed in some of the wildest solitudes of his native
+land. For his hobby is natural history, and his playground the “forest
+primeval,” where he studies American animals amid the lonely passes
+which they choose for their lairs and beats.
+
+Every year when Harvard’s learned halls are closed for the long summer
+vacation,—sometimes at other seasons too,—he starts off on a trip to a
+wilderness region, with his knapsack on his back, his rifle on his
+shoulder, and often carrying his camera as well.
+
+Once in a while he has been accompanied by a bosom friend or two. More
+frequently he has gone alone, hiring the services of a professional
+guide accustomed to the locality he visits. Now, such a guide is the
+indispensable figure in every woodland trip. He is expected to supply
+the main part of his employer’s camp “kit”; namely, a tent or some
+shelter to sleep under, cooking utensils, axes, etc., as well as a boat
+or canoe if such be required. And this son of the forest, whose foot
+can make a bee-line to its destination through the densest wooded maze,
+is not only leader, but cook and general-utility man in camp as well.
+The guide must be equally grand-master of paddle, rifle, and
+frying-pan.
+
+For these tireless woodland heroes Cyrus Garst has a general
+admiration. He has always agreed with them famously—save on one point;
+and he has never had to shorten his wanderings for fear of lengthening
+their fees. For Cyrus has a millionnaire father in the Back Bay of
+Boston, who is disposed to indulge his whims.
+
+The one point of variance is this: while all guides admire young Garst
+as a crack shot with a rifle, he frequently dumfounds them by letting
+slip stunning chances at game, big and little. They call him “a queer
+specimen sportsman,”—understanding little his love for the wild
+offspring of the woods,—because he never uses his gun save when the
+bareness of his larder or the peril of his own life or his chum’s
+demands it.
+
+Nevertheless, feeling the need of fresh meat, the naturalist was for
+the moment hotly exasperated because his English comrade, Neal Farrar,
+missed even a poor chance at a buck during the midnight excursion on
+Squaw Pond.
+
+His friends are proud of stating that up to the present Cyrus had
+proceeded well in his friendly acquaintance with wild creatures, his
+desire being to study their habits when alive rather than to pore over
+their anatomy when dead. And he has always reaped a plentiful harvest
+of fun during his trips, declaring that he has “the pull over fellows
+who go into the woods for killing,” seeing that he can thoroughly enjoy
+the escape of a game animal if he can only catch a sight of it, and
+perceive how its pluck or cunning enables it to baffle pursuing man.
+There are those who call Cyrus a sportsman of the best type. Perhaps
+they are right.
+
+Yet in the year of our story, when he had just attained his majority,
+this student of forest life is still unsatisfied, because he has not
+been able to obtain a good view of the behemoth of American woods, the
+_ignis fatuus_ of hunters,—the mighty moose.
+
+Once only, when paddling on a still pond with his experienced guide for
+company, the latter suddenly closed the slide of the jack-lamp, hiding
+its light. At the same moment a dark, splendid monster, tall as a horse
+and swinging a pair of antlers five feet broad, suddenly appeared upon
+the bank, near to which the canoe lay in black shadow. The hunters
+dared not breathe. It was at a season of year when the Maine law exacts
+a heavy fine for the killing of a moose; and even the guide had no
+desire to send his bullets through the law, though he might have
+riddled the game without compunction.
+
+For a minute or two the creature halted at the pond’s brink, magnified
+in the mirror of moonlit water into a gigantic, wavering shape. Then
+with slow, solemn tread he walked along the bank ahead, gave a loud
+snort something like the snort of a war-horse, made a crunching,
+chopping noise with his jaws, resembling the sound of a dull axe
+striking against wood, plunged into the lake, and swam across to the
+opposite shore.
+
+“If we had fired, he might have come for us full tilt,” whispered the
+guide so softly that his words were like a gliding breath. “And then I
+tell you we’d have had a narrow squeak. He’d have kicked the canoe into
+splinters and us out o’ time in short order.”
+
+“But a moose won’t charge unless he’s attacked, will he?” asked Cyrus,
+later in the night, when a couple of quacking black ducks which had
+received a dose of lead were lying silent at his feet, and the hunters
+were returning to camp with food.
+
+“Not often,” was the reply. “Only at this time o’ year, if they’ve got
+a mate to defend, you can’t say for sure what they’ll do. They won’t
+always fight either, even if they’re
+wounded, when they can get a chance to bolt. But a moose, if he has to
+die, will be sure to die game, with his face to his enemy; and so will
+every wild animal that I know. I’ve even seen a shot partridge flutter
+up its feathers like a game-cock at the fellow who dropped it.”
+
+Well, this memorable glimpse of his mooseship was obtained in the year
+before our story. And now, in the beginning of October, young Garst was
+off into Maine wilds again, having arranged to “do” the forest
+thoroughly after his usual fashion, seeing all he could of its
+countless phases of life, and finally to meet this same guide—a
+dare-devil fellow who was reported to have had adventures in
+moose-hunting such as other woodsmen did not dream of—at a log camp far
+in the wilderness. Thence they could proceed to solitudes where the
+voice of man seldom echoed, where the foot of man rarely trod, and
+where moose signs were pretty sure to be found.
+
+But there was one very unusual feature in his present expedition. The
+student of nature, who generally started forth alone, was this year,
+owing to a freak of fate and to his natural good-nature, accompanied by
+two English lads.
+
+Early in the summer of this same year, Francis Farrar, a wealthy
+cotton-merchant of Manchester, England, visited America on a
+business-trip, and became the guest of Cyrus’s father. He brought with
+him his two sons, Neal, aged sixteen and a half, and Adolphus,
+familiarly called Dol, who was more than a year younger.
+
+Both boys had been at a large public school, and physically, as well as
+mentally, were well developed. They were accustomed to spending long
+vacations with their father at wild spots on the seashore, or amid
+mountains in England and Scotland. They could tirelessly do a
+sixty-mile spin on their “wheels,” were good football players,
+excellent rowers, formed part of the crew of their father’s yacht,
+could skilfully handle gun and fishing-rod, but they had never camped
+out.
+
+They knew none of the delights of sleeping in woodland quarters, with
+only a canvas or bark roof, or perhaps a few spruce boughs, between
+them and the sky—
+
+“While a music wild and solemn
+    From the pine-tree’s height
+Rolls its vast and sea-like volume
+    On the wind of night.”
+
+
+Small wonder, then, that when they heard Cyrus Garst tell of his
+camping excursions, of his jolly times, long tramps, and hairbreadth
+escapes, their hearts swelled with a tremendous longing to accompany
+him on the trip into northern Maine which he was then projecting for
+the following October.
+
+Now, Cyrus at the first start-off conceived a liking for these English
+fellows, to whom, for his father’s sake, he played the part of genial
+host. With a lordly recognition of his superior years he pronounced
+them “first-rate youngsters, with lots of snap in them.” And as the
+acquaintance progressed, Neal Farrar, with his erect figure, broad
+chest, musical voice, and wide-apart gray eyes,—so clear and honest
+that their glance was a beam,—proved a personage so likable that the
+student adopted him as “chum,” forgetting those five years which had
+been a gulf between them.
+
+Dol, whose eyes were of a more steely hue than his brother’s, striking
+fire readily and showing all manner of flinty lights, who had a
+downright talent for mimicry, and a small share of juvenile
+self-importance, came in for regard of a more indulgent and less equal
+nature.
+
+Directly he got an inkling of the desire for a forest trip which
+stirred in the boys’ breasts, making them yearn all day and toss all
+night, Cyrus gave them both a cordial invitation to accompany him into
+Maine. Mr. Farrar did not purpose returning to Europe till midwinter.
+His consent was easily obtained. He presented each of his sons with a
+new Winchester repeating rifle, with which they practised diligently at
+a target ere the eventful day of the start dawned, though their leader
+emphatically insisted that the prime pleasures of the trip were not to
+be looked for in the slaughter done by their hands.
+
+Wearing the camper’s favorite dress of stout gray tweed, the trio left
+Boston on a lovely September evening towards the close of the month,
+taking a fast night train for Maine, brimful of enthusiasm about the
+wild woods and free camp-life. The hue of their clothes was chosen with
+a view to making their figures resemble the forest trunks, so that they
+would be less likely to attract the notice of animals, and might get a
+chance to creep upon them undetected.
+
+About their waists were their ammunition belts, with pouches well
+stocked. Their large
+knapsacks contained blankets, moccasins, and various other necessaries
+of a camper’s outfit, including heavy knitted jerseys for chill days
+and nights, and rubber boots reaching high on the legs for wear in
+wading and traversing swampy tracts.
+
+About twenty-four hours later they dropped off the rattling, jingling
+stage-coach which bore them over the latter part of their journey, at
+the flourishing village of Greenville, on the borders of the Maine
+wilds.
+
+Here they were greeted by a view, the loveliness of which made the
+English boys, who had never looked on it before, experience strange
+heart-leaps.
+
+A magnificent sheet of water nearly forty miles long and fourteen broad
+lay before them, studded with islands, girt with evergreen forests and
+wooded peaks. Under the rays of the setting sun its bosom was shot with
+arrows of pale, quivering gold. Banners of gold and flame-color floated
+over the crests of the hills, flinging streamers of light down their
+emerald sides.
+
+“Fellows, there is Moosehead Lake; and I guess you’ll find few lakes in
+America or elsewhere that can beat it for beauty,” said Cyrus, with a
+patriotic thrill in his voice, for
+he had a feeling that he was doing the honors of his country.
+
+His English comrades were warm with admiration, and here, in view of
+the forest-land which was their El Dorado, tingled with anticipation of
+the unknown.
+
+The three rested that night at Greenville, and began their tramping on
+the following morning. They trudged a distance of seven miles or so to
+the camp of Ebenezer Grout, which, as Garst knew, was situated between
+Squaw Pond and Old Squaw Mountain, the latter being one of the finest
+peaks near Moosehead Lake.
+
+“Uncle Eb” was an old acquaintance of Cyrus’s, a dusky, lively
+woodsman, who spent a great part of the year in his lone bark hut, with
+his dog Tiger for company. He subsisted chiefly on what he brought down
+with his rifle, and sometimes earned three dollars a day for guiding
+tourists up Old Squaw or through the adjacent forests.
+
+
+Illustration: There Is Moosehead Lake.
+
+
+He was not an ambitious hunter, and rarely pushed far into the
+solitudes of the wilderness in search of moose or other big game. A
+coon hunt was to him the climax of all fun. It was chiefly with a hope
+that his comrades might enjoy some novel entertainment of this kind
+that Cyrus made his first stoppage at Uncle Eb’s camp, purposing to
+sojourn there for a few days.
+
+He was not disappointed.
+
+The stupidly tired trio had slept for about two hours, while the reader
+has been receiving information second-hand about their past and future,
+when a scratching, scraping, boring noise on the outside of their bark
+roof temporarily disturbed their slumbers. Dol called out noisily, and,
+as was the way of that youngster on sundry occasions, talked some
+gibberish in his sleep. The scraping instantly ceased.
+
+A renewed and blissful season of snoring. Another awakening. More music
+on the roof, evidently caused by the claws of some wild animal, while
+each of the campers was startled by a loud “Cluck!”
+
+“Lie still, fellows! Don’t budge. Let’s see what the thing is,”
+breathed Cyrus in a peculiarly still whisper which he had learned from
+his moose-hunting guide of whom mention has been made.
+
+Dead silence in the hut. Redoubled scraping and rattling above, with a
+scattering of bark chips.
+
+Then light appeared through a jagged hole
+just over a string which was stretched across one corner of the cabin,
+and from which dangled sundry articles of camp bric-a-brac, mostly of a
+tinny nature, with Uncle Eb’s last morsel of “pork.
+
+“By all that’s glorious! it’s a coon,” breathed Cyrus, but so softly
+that his companions did not hear.
+
+As for the two Farrars, they were working up to such a heat of
+excitement that they felt as if life were now only beginning. They had
+heard of the thievish raids made by the black bear on unprotected
+camps, and of his special fondness for pork. Not knowing that there was
+no chance of an encounter with Bruin so near to civilization as this,
+they peered at that hole in the roof, expecting every moment to see a
+huge, black, snarling snout thrust through it.
+
+It was a pointed gray muzzle which warily appeared instead—appeared and
+disappeared on the instant. For at this crisis Tiger’s shrill
+bugle-call resounded without, giving warning of an attack on the camp.
+The thing, whatever it was, scrambled from the roof, and with a
+strange, shrill cry of one note made towards the woods. The dog
+followed it, barking for all he was worth.
+
+Now, too, Uncle Eb’s booming “Whoop-ee!” was heard.
+
+The hardy old woodsman, after his visitors had gone to roost, instead
+of stretching himself as usual upon his pine mattress, had started off,
+accompanied by Tiger, to visit some traps which he had set in the
+forest, hoping to catch a marten or two. He took the precaution of
+closing the door of the hut when he saw that its inmates were soundly
+sleeping, thinking meanwhile, that, as day was dawning, there was
+little chance of any wild “critter” coming round the camp during his
+absence.
+
+But a greedy raccoon, which had been prowling near in the woods during
+the night, and had been tantalized to desperation by the smell of the
+late meal, especially by the odor of flapjacks frying in pork fat, had
+stolen from cover after the departure of his natural enemy, the dog.
+
+Finding the coast clear and the camp unguarded, he made himself quietly
+at home, rooted among some potato parings which the guide had thrown
+aside a day or two before, devoured a cold flapjack, and cleaned the
+camp frying-pan as it had never been cleaned before, with his tongue.
+But his
+appetite was whetted, not glutted. Scent or instinct told him that
+pork, molasses, and other eatables were hidden in the bark hut. Here
+was a golden opportunity for Mr. Coon. No one molested him. Meditating
+a feast, he climbed to the roof, and began cautiously to scrape off
+portions of the bark. The rising sun ought to have warned him back to
+forest depths; but he persisted in his scratching, repeating now and
+again a satisfied cluck.
+
+His hole was made. His keen nose told him that pork was almost within
+reach, when the bugle-call of his enemy—Tiger’s challenging bark—smote
+upon his ear. Guide and dog were opportunely returning to camp.
+
+Of course, as soon as the marauder scrambled off the roof, Cyrus and
+the boys sprang from their couch. Barefooted, and in night costume,
+they were already at the door of the hut before Uncle Eb was heard
+booming,—
+
+“Boys! Boys! Tumble out—tumble out! Dere’s a reg’lar razzle-dazzle
+fight goin’ on heah. Tiger’s nabbed de coon.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter V. A Coon Hunt
+
+
+A razzle-dazzle fight it surely was! On one side of the camp, between
+the camping-ground, which Uncle Eb had cleared with many a backache,
+and the woods, was a narrow strip covered with a stunted, prickly
+growth of wild raspberry bushes and tiny cherry-trees. These had sprung
+up after the pines had been cut down, as soon as the sun peeped at the
+long-hidden earth.
+
+Into it the bare-legged trio dared not venture, knowing that they would
+get a worse scratching and tearing than if the coon itself mauled them.
+
+But they could see and hear a whirling, howling, clawing, spitting,
+rough-and-tumble
+conflict going on in the midst of this miniature jungle.
+
+“Whew! Whew!” gasped Cyrus. “Here’s your first sight of a wild coon,
+boys. I wish to goodness it had been a different sight, but I suppose
+he must pay for his thieving.”
+
+“Tiger’ll make him do dat. Bet yer life he will! He’s death on coons,
+if ever a dog was,” yelled Uncle Eb, gambolling with excitement, his
+eyes bulging and widening until they looked like oysters on the shell.
+
+The soft, battered, gray felt hat which replaced his fur cap in the
+daytime surged off his gray wool, and frisked gently away towards the
+camp-fire. There, coming in contact with a red ember, it scorched and
+shrivelled into smoking, smelling ashes, all unnoticed in the tumult of
+the fight.
+
+Whirling round and round, now under, now over, dog and coon rolled
+presently forth from the bushes, nearer to the feet of the spectators.
+Then Neal and Dol could get a clearer view of the strange animal. A
+breeze of exclamations came from them, mingling with the yelping,
+snarling, and clucking of the combatants.
+
+“Good gracious! Look at the stout body and funny little legs of the
+fellow!”
+
+“Doesn’t he fight like a spitfire?”
+
+“I’m glad he’s not clawing me!”
+
+“He’s not much like any picture of a raccoon I ever saw in a Natural
+History!”
+
+“I guess he wouldn’t resemble them greatly, especially in that
+attitude, Dol,” said Cyrus, as soon as there was a lull in the boys’
+comments.
+
+The raccoon had now rolled on his back, and was fighting so fiercely
+with teeth and claws that a despairing cry broke from Uncle Eb,—
+
+“Yah! He’s makin’ Tiger’s wool fly!”
+
+It was then that the old guide began to deliberate about rushing
+forward and despatching his coonship with the butt end of his rifle.
+Cyrus would gladly have stopped the tussle long before, for there was
+too much savagery about it to suit him; but he could only have done so
+by stunning or killing one of the combatants.
+
+A heart-rending howl from Tiger. The coon had caught him by his lower
+jaw. Uncle Eb, clutching his empty rifle like a club, was starting to
+the rescue, when the dog with a sudden, desperate jerk freed himself.
+Mad with rage and pain, he tried to seize the raccoon’s throat. But his
+enemy managed to
+elude the strangling grip, and getting on his feet, again caught Tiger,
+this time by the cheek, causing another agonizing yelp.
+
+Now, however, the undaunted dog whirled round and round with such
+rapidity as to make Mr. Coon relax his hold, and, gathering all his
+strength, flung the wild animal off to a distance of several feet.
+
+Probably the raccoon felt that he had enough of the conflict, and was
+doubtful about its final issue. He seized the chance for escape. While
+the spectators gasped with excitement, they beheld him, with his head
+doubled under his stomach, roll over and over like a huge gray
+India-rubber ball, until he reached the nearest tree, which happened to
+be one of the young pines that shaded the camp. Quick as lightning he
+climbed up its trunk, uttering a second shrill, far-reaching cry of one
+note.
+
+“Listen! Listen, fellows!” cried Cyrus. “That raccoon is a
+ventriloquist. The cry seemed to come from somewhere far above him. I
+had a tame coon long ago, and I often heard him call like that. I tell
+you he’s a ventriloquist, and a mighty clever one too.
+
+“The one piercing note was to warn his mate,” went on the naturalist,
+after a moment’s
+pause; “or in all probability, though we have been speaking of the
+animal as ‘he,’ it is really a female, for I have heard that peculiar
+call given more frequently by a mother to warn her cubs.”
+
+All that could now be seen of the animal—on whose gender new light had
+been cast—was a gray ball curled up on a tasselled bough near the top
+of the pine-tree, and a glimpse of a black nose over the edge of the
+limb.
+
+“Wal! ’tain’t no matter wedder de critter is a male or a fimmale; I’m
+a-goin’ to bring it down from dar mighty quick,” said Uncle Eb,
+fumbling with the cartridge-box which was attached to his broad leather
+belt, and preparing to load his rifle, while he cast murderous looks
+aloft.
+
+“No, you don’t, then!” said Cyrus hotly. “The creature has fought
+pluckily, and it deserves to get a fair chance for its life. I’ll see
+that it does too. You oughtn’t to be hard on it for liking pork, Uncle
+Eb.”
+
+“Coons will be gittin’ into eatin’ order soon,” murmured the guide,
+smacking his lips, and handling his gun undecidedly. “Roast coon’s a
+heap better’n roast lamb.”
+
+“Well, they’re not in eating order yet, and
+won’t be till next month,” answered Garst. “Come, you’ve got to let
+this one go, Uncle Eb, to please me.”
+
+“Tell ye wot: I’ll call Tiger off” (Tiger was alternately licking his
+wounds and baying furiously for vengeance about the tree which
+sheltered his enemy), “den, wen de coon finds de place clear, bime-by
+he’ll light down from dat limb, I’ll start off de dog, and let ’em
+finish de game atween ’em.”
+
+Cyrus considered for a minute, then decided that on the coon’s behalf
+he might safely accept the compromise.
+
+“Let’s get into our clothes, fellows!” he cried to Neal and Dol. “Now
+we’re going to have some fair fun! I guess there won’t be any more
+fighting; and I want you to see how cunningly the raccoon will cheat
+the dog and escape, if he gets an even chance.”
+
+In five minutes the trio were out of their blankets and in their
+ordinary day apparel. The old guide had hung the wet tweeds to dry by
+the blazing camp-fire before he started out to visit his traps,
+carefully stretching them to prevent their “swunking” (shrinking). Thus
+they were again fit for wear.
+
+A half-hour of waiting ensued, during which every one was on the tiptoe
+of expectation. They had all withdrawn to some distance from the tree.
+Uncle Eb had been obliged to drag Tiger away, and was bathing his cuts
+out of the camp water-bucket in a shady corner. The dog, recognizing
+that he was a patient, submitted without a growl or budge, until his
+master, who had been keeping a keen eye on that pine-tree, suddenly
+loosed him, and started him off afresh with a loud “Whoop-ee!” and a—
+
+“Ketch him, Tiger! ketch him!”
+
+
+The coon had “lighted down.”
+
+Away went the wild creature into the woods. Away after him, went dog,
+guide, student, and boys, plunging, tumbling, rushing along
+helter-skelter, with a yell on every lip.
+
+“There he is! See him? That gray ball rolling over and over!” shouted
+Cyrus. “I’ll tell you what, now; he’s going to resort to his clever
+dodge of ‘barking a tree.’ There never was a general yet who could beat
+a coon for strategy in making a retreat.”
+
+The forest surrounding the eminence on which Uncle Eb’s camp was
+situated consisted mostly of pines, with here and there the brilliant
+autumn foliage of a maple or
+birch showing amid the evergreens. The trees down the sides of the hill
+were not densely crowded, but grew in irregular clumps instead of an
+unbroken mass. This, of course, afforded a better opportunity for the
+pursuers to catch glimpses of the fugitive animal.
+
+On finding that it was again chased, the raccoon at first took shelter
+in a dense thicket of scrub oak, which formed in places a tangled
+undergrowth. Tiger quickly followed up its trail, and it was driven
+thence.
+
+Then Cyrus and the boys caught sight of it spinning over and over like
+a ball, towards a maple-tree with widely projecting limbs and thick
+foliage; for it knew well that in speed it was no match for the dog,
+and therefore resorted to a neat little stratagem. The next minute,
+being hotly pressed, it scrambled up the friendly trunk.
+
+“He’s treed again, yonkers! Come on!” shouted the guide, indifferent to
+the creature’s probable gender.
+
+Tiger sat on his haunches at the foot of the maple, setting up a slow,
+steady bark.
+
+“Keep where you are, fellows! Watch the other side of the tree!”
+whispered Cyrus, his face twitching with excitement.
+
+In his character of naturalist he had managed
+to find out more about the coon’s various dodges than even the old
+guide had done.
+
+In breathless wonder the Farrars presently beheld that ingenious
+raccoon steal along to the end of the most projecting limb on a
+different side of the tree from the one it had climbed, so that a
+screen of boughs and the trunk were between it and its adversary.
+
+Then it noiselessly dropped from the tip of the branch to the ground,
+alighting, like a skilled acrobat, on its shoulders, doubled its
+pointed black nose under its stomach, and again rolled over and over
+for a considerable distance, when it got on its short legs and scurried
+away, while Tiger still bayed at the foot of the maple-tree, thinking
+the vanished prey was above.
+
+“That’s what I called the coon’s dodge of ‘barking a tree,’” said
+Cyrus. “Don’t you see, when hard pressed, he runs up the trunk, leaving
+his scent on the bark; then he creeps to the other side under cover of
+the foliage, and drops quietly to the ground. So he breaks the scent
+and cheats the dog.”
+
+“Good gracious!” exclaimed Neal with an expressive whistle.
+
+“Perhaps it’s because of his long gray hairs that he has so much
+wisdom,” Dol suggested.
+
+“A bright idea, Chick!” chuckled the student, tapping the boy’s
+shoulder.
+
+“We keep on speaking of him as ‘he’ when you said the thing was
+probably a female,” put in Neal.
+
+“That doesn’t matter. I’m not certain. Look at old Tiger! He’s having
+fits now that he has discovered how he’s been tricked.”
+
+The dog was circling out from the tree, with wild, uncertain movements,
+nosing everywhere. Presently he struck the scent again, and darted off
+like a streak.
+
+But the raccoon had by this time reached a dark stream of water which
+coursed through the over-arching forest at the foot of the hill, as if
+it was flowing through a tunnel. Here this astute animal crossed and
+recrossed under the gloom of interlocking trees, mid dense undergrowth,
+until its trail was altogether lost.
+
+Tiger, having further “fits,” nosing about, darting hither and thither,
+venting short, baffled barks, finally gave up in despair.
+
+The pursuing party turned back to camp.
+
+“Did ye ever see ennyting to ekal de cunnin’ o’ de critter,” said Uncle
+Eb gloomily; “runnin’ up dat tree on’y to jump off, so as he’d break de
+scent an’ fool de dog? Ye’ll learn a heap o’ queer tings in dese woods,
+chillun, ’fore ye get t’rough,” he added, addressing the English lads.
+
+“We’ve learned queerer things than we ever imagined or dreamed of,
+already, Uncle Eb,” Neal answered.
+
+Meanwhile, Cyrus and Dol had begun to discuss the size of the escaped
+coon.
+
+“I should think it measured about two feet from the tip of its nose to
+the beginning of the tail, and that would add ten or eleven inches.
+Probably it weighed over thirty pounds,” said the experienced Garst.
+
+“A fine tail it had too!” answered Dol; “all ringed with black and
+buff—not black and white as the books say. There was hardly an inch of
+white about the animal anywhere. Its thick gray hair was marked here
+and there with black; wasn’t it, Cy?”
+
+“Rather with a darker shade of gray, bordering on black. I think old
+Tiger can testify that the creature had capable teeth; and it possesses
+a goodly number of them—forty in all; that’s only two less than a bear,
+an animal that might make six of it in size.”
+
+“Whew! No wonder it’s a good fighter!” ejaculated Dol.
+
+“But the funniest of the coon’s or—to give the animal its proper
+name—the raccoon’s
+funny habits is, that while it eats anything and everything, it souses
+all meat in water before beginning a feed. That’s what it would have
+done with our bit of pork,—dragged it to a stream, and washed it well
+before swallowing a morsel.
+
+“I caught glimpses of a raccoon chasing a jack-rabbit in this very
+section of the woods, last year,” went on the student, seeing that Dol
+was breathlessly listening. “The big animal killed the little one under
+a dead limb; and I traced its tracks through some mud, where it tugged
+the rabbit to the brink of the nearest brook to be dipped and devoured.
+
+“After the meal, Mr. Coon halted on an old bit of stump as gray as
+himself, close to where I lay under cover, trying to get a peep at his
+operations, but, unluckily, in my excitement I touched a bush, and
+broke a twig not as big as my little finger. I tell you he just jumped
+off that stump as if it scorched him, and disappeared.”
+
+“What about that tame coon you owned, Cy?” Dol asked. “You haven’t got
+him now.”
+
+“Bless your heart, I should think not!” Here the student indulged in a
+chuckle of mirth. “That coon was the fun and bane
+of my life. No fear of my being dull while I had him! I had him as a
+present, when he was only a cub, from a man out here who is my special
+chum among woodsmen, Herb Heal, the guide in whose company we’re going
+to explore for moose, and the soundest fellow in wind, limb, and temper
+that ever I had the luck to meet. I guess you English boys will say the
+same when you know him.
+
+“Well! when my friend Herb bestowed upon me that baby raccoon, I called
+the little innocent ‘Zip,’ and kept him in-doors, letting him roam at
+will. But after he grew to manhood, I was obliged to banish him to our
+yard and chain him up; and there his piteous, sky-piercing calls, which
+seemed to come from the roof of a house near him, first showed me what
+a ventriloquist the animal can be.”
+
+“Why on earth did you banish him?” asked Neal.
+
+“Because his plan of campaign, when loose, was to follow me about like
+a devoted cat, climbing over me whenever he got the chance, with
+slobbery fondness. But as soon as I was out of the way he’d steal every
+mortal thing I possessed, from my most precious instruments to my
+latest tie and handkerchiefs. I never saw anything to equal his
+ingenuity in ferreting out such articles, and his incorrigible mischief
+in destroying them. I chained him in the yard after he had torn my
+father’s silk hat into shreds, and made off with his favorite
+spectacles. Whether he wore them or not I don’t know; he chewed up the
+case; the glasses no man thereafter saw. I couldn’t endure his piteous
+cries for reconciliation while he was in banishment, so I gave him away
+to a friend who was suffering from an imaginary ailment, and needed
+rousing.
+
+“Talking of fathers, boys, reminds me that I feel responsible to
+Francis Farrar, Esq., for the welfare of his lusty sons. Neal had a
+pretty tiring time last night, and only about two hours’ sleep since. I
+don’t suppose any of us are outrageously hungry, seeing that we had
+some kind of breakfast at an unearthly hour. Here we are at camp! I
+propose that we turn in, and try to sleep until noon. What do you say?”
+
+Their leader having wound up his talk, thus, neither of his comrades
+ventured to oppose his suggestion, though they felt little inclined for
+slumber.
+
+“Pleasant day-dreams to you, fellows!” said Cyrus three minutes
+afterwards, flinging off his coat, and throwing himself on his mattress
+of boughs, while he wiped the steady drip of perspiration from his
+forehead and cheeks. “This day is going to be too warm for any more
+rushing. Our variable climate occasionally gives us these hot spells up
+to the middle of October; but they don’t last. So much the better for
+us! We don’t want sizzling days and oppressive nights, with mosquitoes
+and black flies to make us miserable. October in this country is the
+camper’s ideal—month”—
+
+The last sentence was broken by a great yawn, followed presently by a
+snort and an attempt at a shout, which quavered away into a queer
+little whine. Garst had passed into dreamland, where men revel in
+fragmentary memories and pell-mell visions.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VI. After Black Ducks
+
+
+If Cyrus’s dreams were ruffled after the morning’s excitement, those of
+his comrades were a perfect chaos.
+
+A slight wind hummed wordless songs through the tasselled tops of the
+pine-trees about the camp. The music was tender and drowsy as a
+mother’s lullaby. Contrary to their expectations, Neal and Dol were
+lulled to sleep by it like babies, with a feeling as if some guardian
+spirit were gliding among the tree-tops.
+
+But when slumber held them, when the murmur increased to a surge of
+sound, sank to a ripple and again rolled forth, in their dreams they
+imagined it the scurrying of a
+deer’s hoofs along some lonely forest deer-path, the rustling of a buck
+through bushes, the splashing of a mighty moose among lily-pads and
+grasses at the margin of a dark pond, the startled cluck of a coon. In
+fact, that rolling music of the pines was translated into every forest
+sound which they had heard, or expected to hear.
+
+The excitement of wild scenes, new sensations, strange knowledge, still
+thrilled them even in sleep. Their visions were accordingly wild,
+rushing, jumbled, yet all set in a light so bright as to be
+bewildering—a sign that health and happiness as great as human boys can
+enjoy were the possession of the dreamers.
+
+By and by their pulses grew steadier. Out of this confused rush of
+imaginings grew in the mind of each one steady, absorbing dream. Neal
+fancied that he was on the top of Old Squaw Mountain, and that beneath,
+above, around him, sounded the strangely prolonged weird call, which he
+had heard at a distance on the previous night while Cyrus was
+recovering the jack-light. Owing to the ever-changing excitements of
+camp-life, he had not questioned his comrade again about it.
+
+Dol’s visions resolved themselves into a
+mighty coon hunt. He tossed on his pine boughs, kicked and jabbered in
+his sleep, with sundry odd little cries and untranslatable mutterings,—
+
+“Go it, Tiger! Go it, old dog! There he is—up the tree! Ah”
+(disgustedly), “you’re no good!”
+
+A lull. Then the dreamer rolled out a string of what may be called
+gibberish, seeing that it consisted of fragments of words and was
+unintelligible, followed by,—
+
+“The coon’s eating the pork—no, he’s b-b-b-barking it! Hu-loo-oo!”
+
+“Oh, say, Chick, give us a chance! We can’t sleep with you chirping
+into our ears.”
+
+It was Cyrus who spoke, shaking with drowsy laughter, and Cyrus’s big
+hand gently shook the dreamer’s arm.
+
+“What? what? wh-wh-at?” gasped Dol, awaking. “I wasn’t talking out
+loud, was I?”
+
+“Not talking aloud! Well, I should smile!” answered the camp captain.
+“You were making as much noise as a loon, and that’s the noisiest thing
+I know. Go to sleep again, young one, and don’t have any more crazy
+spells before dinner-time.”
+
+Cyrus removed his hand, shut his eyes, and in a minute or two was
+breathing heavily. Neal, who had been aroused too, followed his
+example, laughing and mumbling something about “it’s being an old trick
+of Dol’s to hunt in his sleep.”
+
+But the junior member of the party remained awake. After his dreams had
+been dissipated he cared no more for slumber. When he could venture it
+without disturbing his companions, he rose to a sitting posture, and,
+after squatting for a while in meditation, got on his feet, picked up
+his coat and moccasins, and, stealthily as an Indian, crept out of the
+hut.
+
+The rolling music among the pine-tops had died down; only at long
+intervals a soft, random rustle swept through them. It was nearly
+midday. The camp-fire was almost dead, quenched by the dazzling
+sunlight which fell in patches on the camping-ground, and flooded the
+clearing beyond the shadow of the pines.
+
+Moreover, the camping-ground was deserted. Neither Uncle Eb nor Tiger
+could be seen, though Dol’s eyes sought for them wistfully. But
+something caught his attention. It was a ray of light filtering through
+the pine boughs and glinting on the trigger of an old-fashioned
+muzzle-loading shot-gun,
+which leaned against a corner of the hut. An ancient, glistening
+powder-horn and a coon-skin ammunition pouch hung above it.
+
+Dol lifted the antiquated weapon, withdrew to a short distance, and
+examined it closely. He knew it belonged to the guide, but was rarely
+used by him since he had purchased the 44-calibre Winchester rifle,
+with which he could do uncommon feats in shooting.
+
+The shot-gun interested the boy mightily. There was a facsimile of it,
+swathed in green baize, stowed away somewhere in his father’s house in
+Manchester. The first time he had ever used fire-arms was on a
+memorable day when his fingers pulled its trigger in his father’s
+garden under Neal’s direction, and a lean starling fell before his
+shot. After that he had often taken out a fowling-piece of a newer
+style, and had done pretty well with it too.
+
+As he handled the shot-gun, which the guide had bought away back in the
+year ’55, musing about it under the pines, the thought suddenly tumbled
+out of a corner of his brain that at present there was a brilliant
+opportunity for him to use the gun and all the shooting skill he
+possessed for the benefit of his comrades and himself.
+
+There was no meat in the camp for dinner or supper save the pork on
+which they had feasted since they arrived there, and that was fast
+giving out. Cyrus, in addition to his knapsack, had hauled over from
+Greenville, where articles of camp fare could be procured in abundance,
+a goodly supply of tea, coffee, condensed milk, flour, salt, sugar,
+etc., in a stout canvas bag, Neal at intervals helping him with the
+burden. For the rest he had trusted to Nature’s larder, and such food
+as he might purchase from his guides, desiring to go into the woods as
+“light” as possible.
+
+Uncle Eb had baked bread for his guests after a fashion of his own on
+the camp frying-pan, setting the pan on some glowing coals a foot or so
+from the fire; he had fried unlimited flapjacks, and had cheerfully
+placed what stores he had at their disposal. His three luxuries were
+novelties to the English lads, being pork, maple sugar,—drawn from the
+beautiful maple-trees near his camp,—and a small wooden keg of sticky,
+dark molasses. The sugar was the only one which Dol found palatable;
+and he knew that the Bostonian, Cyrus, shared his feeling. To tell the
+truth, the juvenile Adolphus was not fastidious, but
+he was suddenly seized with an ambitious desire to vary the diet of the
+camp.
+
+“Uncle Eb said that I could use this ‘ole fuzzee,’ as he called it,
+whenever I liked,” he muttered, looking wistfully at the shot-gun; “and
+I’ve a big mind to give those lazy fellows in there a surprise. They
+spent the night out jacking, and didn’t get any meat because Cyrus let
+Neal do the shooting, and he bungled it. It’s my turn next to go after
+deer, but I’m not going to wait for that.”
+
+Here his steel-gray eyes fell on the moccasins which he had not yet put
+on, and struck fire instantly. His ambition was doubled. For if there
+is one thing more than another which in the forest will stir the pluck
+of a novice, and make him feel like an old woodsman, it is the sight of
+his Indian footwear. Dol put his on, admired their light, comfortable
+feeling, their soft buckskin, and rashly decided that he could dispense
+with the loose inner soles which Cyrus had fitted into them to protect
+his feet.
+
+Then, being very much of a stranger to American woods, he communed with
+himself after this fashion,—
+
+“Cyrus says that different tribes of Indians wear differently made
+moccasins, and one redskin, if he sees the tracks of another in soft
+mud or snow, can tell what tribe he belongs to by his footmarks. That’s
+funny! I suppose if any old brave was knocking about and saw my tracks
+in a boggy spot, he’d think it was a Kickapoo who had passed that
+way—not Dol Farrar of Manchester, England. These are of the shape worn
+by the Kickapoo tribe—so Cy says.
+
+“I’m the kid of the camp, I know,” he went on, with another flash in
+his eyes, as if there was a bit of flint somewhere in his make-up which
+had struck their steel. “But I’ll be bound I can do as well or better
+than the others can. I’m off now to Squaw Pond. I think I can follow
+the trail easily enough. Uncle Eb showed me yesterday where he had
+spotted some of the trees all the way along to the water. And if I
+don’t shoot a couple of black ducks for dinner or supper, I’m a duffer,
+and not fit for camping.”
+
+He took down the powder-horn and slung it round him, saw that there was
+plenty of meat in the ragged coon-skin ammunition pouch which hung
+beside it, fastened that to his belt, slipped on his coat, and started
+off, with the “ole fuzzee” on his shoulder.
+
+Never a sound did he make as he crossed the clearing, passing the clump
+of bushes behind which Cyrus and Neal had lingered on the previous
+night to hear Uncle Eb’s song. Owing to his Indian footwear, silently
+as the gliding redskin himself he entered the woods at a point where he
+saw a tree with a fresh notch carved in it. He knew this marked the
+beginning of the “blazed trail,” and that he must be very wide-awake
+and show considerable “gumption” if he wanted to follow that line to
+the pond.
+
+Not every tree was spotted. Only at intervals of fifteen or twenty
+yards he came upon a trunk with two small pieces chopped out of it on
+opposite sides. These were Uncle Eb’s way-marks. One set of notches
+would catch his eye as he went towards the water, the other would lead
+him back to camp. Once or twice Dol got away from the trail, but he
+quickly found it again; and in due time emerged from the forest
+twilight into the broad glare of the sun, to see Squaw Pond lying
+before him like a miniature mother-of-pearl sea, so protected by its
+evergreen woods that scarcely a ripple stirred it.
+
+He heard the shrill, wild call of a loon, the noisy bird to which Cyrus
+had likened him, and saw its white breast rising above the water, as it
+swam about among the reeds near the opposite bank. The cry was oft
+repeated, making an unearthly din, now joyous, now dreary, among the
+echoes around the lake.
+
+Dol paused for a minute to listen; but he was bent on business, and did
+not want to be very long away from camp lest his absence should cause
+alarm. He took a careful survey of the scene. Not beholding any fleet
+of black ducks as yet, he loaded his gun, and warily proceeded along
+the bank towards the head of the pond.
+
+Keeping a sharp lookout, he by and by detected something moving among
+the water grasses a little way ahead, and heard a hoarse, squalling
+“Quack! quack!”
+
+Immediately afterwards a flock of half a dozen ducks sailed forth from
+their shelter, nodding and quacking inquisitively.
+
+A wild drumming was at Dol’s heart, and a reckless singing in his ears,
+as he raised his gun to his shoulder, and fired among them.
+Nevertheless, his aim was sure and deadly. Two quackers were killed
+with one shot! The others rose from the water, and with much fluttering
+and hoarse noise winged their way to safety.
+
+“How’ll they be for meat, I wonder? Won’t I have a crow over those
+fellows?” shouted Adolphus aloud, with a yell entirely worthy of a
+Kickapoo Indian, when he had recovered from surprise at the success of
+his own shot.
+
+He laid down the gun, pulled off his moccasins and socks, rolled up his
+trousers, and waded in for the prize. Truly luck was with him—so far—in
+his first venture in this region of the unknown. The water was so
+shallow that, having grabbed the ducks, he splashed out of it, kicking
+shiny drops from his toes, without wetting an inch of his garments.
+
+“I’m the kid of the camp, I know; but I’ll be the first fellow to bring
+any decent meat into it. Hooray!” he whooped again. “Shouldn’t wonder
+if these moccasins brought me wonderful luck; one can steal about so
+quietly in them.”
+
+He had hit upon the supreme advantage which the Indian footwear
+possesses over every other for the woodsman. A little later he was to
+learn its disadvantage, having, with foreign inexperience, disdained
+the extra soles because they were not “Indian” enough for his taste;
+for the soft buckskin could not
+protect from roots and stones a wearer whose flesh was not hardened to
+every kind of forest travelling.
+
+But at present Dol bepraised his moccasins; for they had enabled him to
+sneak upon his birds, the wildest of the duck tribe, who generally, at
+a single hoarse “Quack!” from their leader, will cease their antics in
+lake or stream, and disappear like a skimming breeze before a sportsman
+can get a fair shot at them.
+
+For a quarter of an hour Dol Farrar sat by this forest pond engaged in
+the cheerful occupation of “booming himself,” as his friend Cyrus would
+have said. He told himself that he had made a pretty smart beginning,
+not alone in shooting a brace of black ducks, but in successfully
+following a difficult trail on his fourth day in the woods. Henceforth,
+he thought, there would be little reason for him to dread the unknown
+in this great wilderness.
+
+He reclothed his legs, gathered the stiffening claws of the defunct
+quackers in his left hand, picked up his empty “ole fuzzee,” which had
+done such good service despite its age, and set forth on his return to
+camp.
+
+Retracing his steps along the bank, after some searching he found the
+beginning of the
+trail, and started along it with a know-it-all, cheerful confidence in
+the little bit of wood-lore which he had acquired. Hence he now found
+it considerably more difficult to follow the spotted trees. His brain
+was excited and preoccupied; and when once in fancied security he
+suffered his eyes and thoughts to stray for a minute from the trail,
+every unfamiliar woodland sight and sound tempted them to wander
+farther.
+
+First it was an old fox, which poked its sharp, inquisitive nose out of
+a patch of undergrowth near at hand. Dol uttered a mad “Whoop-ee!” and
+heedlessly dashed off a few steps in pursuit. Reynard whisked his brush
+as much as to say, “You can’t get the better of me, stranger!” and
+defiantly trotted away.
+
+Recovering his senses, the boy managed to recover the trail too, and
+was keeping to it carefully when a second temptation beset him. A
+chattering squirrel, seated on the low bough of a maple-tree, with his
+fore paws against his white breast, his eyes like twinkling beads, and
+his restless little head playing bo-peep with the intruding boy, began
+to scold the latter for venturing into his forest playground.
+
+Dol’s first thought was full of delighted interest. His second was a
+sanguinary one; namely, that a pair of ducks would only be one meal for
+four campers who were “camp-hungry,” and that Uncle Eb had spoken of
+squirrels as “fust-rate eatin’.” He handled his gun uncertainly,
+deliberating whether or not he would load it, and try a shot at the
+bright-eyed chatterbox.
+
+Before he had decided one way or the other, the squirrel, still
+scolding and playing bo-peep, scampered off his bough, and up the trunk
+of the maple. Thence he quickly made good his escape from one tree to
+another, affording a whisking, momentary view now and again of his
+white breast or bushy tail. Dol absolutely forgot the blazed trail,
+forgot the stories which he had heard about forest perils, forgot every
+earthly thing but his admiration for the pretty, tantalizing fellow;
+though to do the lad justice, he soon came to the conclusion that the
+camp must be in a worse strait for want of provisions before he could
+have the heart to shoot him. He gave chase nevertheless, plunging along
+in a ziz-zag way over a carpet of moss and dry pine-needles, and
+through some dense tangles of undergrowth, uttering a welcoming screech
+whenever he saw the bright eyes of the little trickster peering down at
+him from a bough.
+
+He had travelled farther than he knew before his interest in the game
+waned. He began to feel that it was rather beneath the dignity of a
+fellow who wore moccasins, carried coon-skin pouch and powder-horn, and
+who was bound for remote solitudes in search of the lordly moose, to be
+interested in such an insignificant phase of forest life as the doings
+of a red squirrel.
+
+Then he started back to find the trail. He walked a considerable
+distance. He searched hither and thither, straining his eyes anxiously
+through the bewildering gloom of the forest, but never a notched tree
+could he see. Whereupon Dol Farrar called himself some pretty hard
+names. He remarked that he had been a “hair-brained fool” and a
+“greenhorn” ever to leave the spotted track, but that he wasn’t going
+to be “downed;” he would search until he found it.
+
+And he certainly was enough of a greenhorn not to know that every step
+he now took was carrying him away from the trail, and plunging him into
+a hopeless, pathless labyrinth of woods. For Dol had lost all knowledge
+of directions, and was completely “turned round;” which means that he
+was miserably lost.
+
+The disaster came about in this way. The forest here was very dense,
+the giant trees interlocked above his head letting so little light
+filter through their foliage that he could scarcely see twenty yards
+ahead of him, and that in a puzzling, shadowy gloom resembling an
+English twilight.
+
+When he ceased chasing the squirrel, he imagined that he retraced his
+steps directly towards the point where he had quitted the trail. In
+reality, seeing nothing to aim for in this bewildering maze of endless
+trees, turned out of his way continually as he dodged in and out around
+massive trunks, he gradually worked farther and farther off the course
+by which he had come, drifting in random directions like a rudderless
+ship on mid-ocean. This helpless state is called, in the phraseology of
+the northern woods, being “turned round.”
+
+But Dol Farrar was spared for the present a thorough realization of the
+dreadful mishap which had befallen him. He had a shocked, breathless,
+flurried feeling, as if scales had suddenly fallen from his eyes, and
+he saw the dangers of the unknown as he had not before seen them. But
+even in the midst of abusing himself for his rash self-confidence, he
+uttered a cheerful “Hurrah!”
+
+“Why, good gracious!” he cried. “Here’s another trail! Now, where on
+earth does this lead to? I don’t see any spotted trees”—looking
+carefully about—“but it’s a well-beaten track, a regular plain path,
+where people have been walking. It must lead to our camp. I’ll follow
+it up, anyhow. That will be better than dodging around here until I get
+‘wheels in my head,’ as Uncle Eb says he did once when he lost his way
+in the woods, and kept wandering round and round in a circle.”
+
+Puffing with excitement and revived hope, the boy started off on this
+new trail, which he blessed at first—oh, how he blessed it!—as if it
+had been a golden clew to lead him out of his difficulty. To be sure,
+it was not a blazed trail; there were no notches in the trees, but the
+ground showed distinct signs of being frequently and recently travelled
+over. Though footprints were not traceable, moss, earth, and in some
+places the forest undergrowth of dwarfed bushes, were thoroughly
+pressed and trodden.
+
+Dol never doubted but that it was a human trail, a track continually
+used by some woodsman; but he thought that the unknown traveller,
+whoever he was, must have agile legs and a taste for athletics, for
+many times he had to hoist himself, his gun, and the ducks over some
+big windfall which lay right across the way. The dead quackers he
+pitched before him, fearing that by the time he got back to camp—if
+ever he did?—their flesh would be too bruised to look like respectable
+meat; for he was obliged to have one hand free to help him in
+scrambling over each fallen tree.
+
+Once or twice this strange trail led him through thickets where the
+bushes grew so high as to lash his face. He came to regard slippery,
+projecting roots and rough stones, which galled his feet, protected
+only by the thin soles of his moccasins, as matters of course. His wind
+decreased, and his blessings ceased. Yet he followed on, walking,
+walking, interminably walking, with now and again an interval of
+climbing or stumbling headlong, accompanied by ejaculations of
+thankfulness that his gun was not loaded.
+
+His breath came in hot, strangling gasps, the veins in his head were
+swollen and stinging like whipcords, there was a dull, pounding noise
+in his ears, and a drumming at his heart. He confessed that he was
+thoroughly “winded” when he had been following the trail for nearly two
+hours, so he seated himself upon a withered stump beside it to rest.
+
+He had relinquished the idea that the track would bring him out near
+Uncle Eb’s camp. Had it led thither, he would have rejoined his
+comrades long before this. His only hope now was that by patiently
+following it on he might reach the camp of some other traveller, or the
+lonely log cabin of a pioneer farmer. He had heard of such
+farm-settlements being scattered here and there on forest clearings.
+
+So presently Dol Farrar got to his feet again, when he had recovered
+breath and strength, and told himself pluckily that “he wasn’t going to
+knock under,” that “he had been in bad scrapes before now, and had not
+shown the white feather.” He gritted his teeth, and resolved that he
+would not show that craven pinion, even in the desperate solitude of
+these baffling woods where no eye could see his weakness. He did not
+want to have a secret, humiliating memory by and by that he had been
+faltering and distracted when his life depended on his wits and
+endurance.
+
+He squared his shoulders sturdily, as if to make the most of the
+budding manhood that was in him, and trudged ahead. And, indeed, he had
+need to take his courage in both hands, and force it to stand by him;
+for he had not gone far when, though the forest still continued dense,
+he became aware that he was beginning a steep ascent. Was the trail
+going to lead him up a mountain-side? The way grew yet more rugged.
+Every step was a misery. Jagged edges of rock and never-ending roots
+seemed to brand themselves with burning friction upon his feet, through
+their soft buckskin covering. He tried to hearten himself into a belief
+that he must soon reach some mountain camp or settlement.
+
+But a bleak horror threw a gray shade upon his face as his staring eyes
+saw that the trail was growing fainter—fainter—fainter. At the foot of
+a steep crag, where a mass of earth, stones, and dead spruce-trees
+showed that there had lately been a landslide on the mountain above, he
+lost it altogether. It had led him to a pile of rubbish.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VII. A Forest Guide-Post
+
+
+At the foot of that crag Dol stood still, while a great shiver crept
+from his neck up the back of his head, stirring his hair. He peered in
+every direction; but there was no sign of a camp, nothing to show that
+any human foot before his had disturbed the solitude of this
+mountain-side, and no further marks on the ground, save one impression
+on a bed of earth at his feet where some animal had lately lain.
+
+The disappointment was stupefying.
+
+At last a fog of terror settled down upon him,—a fog which blotted out
+every sight and sound, blotted out even his own thoughts, all except
+one, which, like a danger-signal in a mist, kept booming through his
+brain: “Lost! Lost!”
+
+By and by he was sitting on the piled-up stones and dirt of the slide;
+but he had no remembrance of getting to this resting-place, for he was
+still befogged.
+
+Something snorted close to his right ear,—loud snort, which banished
+stupor, and set his pulses jumping. It was a deer, a beautiful doe in a
+coat of reddish-drab, matching the autumnal tints of the forest,
+wherever maples, birches, and cedars mingled with the evergreens. She
+had bounded upon him suddenly from behind a dead spruce and a mound of
+earth.
+
+It was long since the game on this part of the mountain had been
+disturbed. Madam Doe had in all probability never seen a man before,
+therefore her behavior was not peculiar. A shock of surprise thrilled
+through her graceful body as she vented that snort, when she caught
+sight of the new-fangled gray animal who had intruded upon her world,
+and who sat spell-bound, gazing at her with hopeless eyes, in which
+gradually a light broke.
+
+But she did not fear him,—this creature in gray. She stood stock-still,
+and stared at him, so near that he could see her wink her
+starry eyes, with the white rings round them. She stamped one hoof,
+kicked an insect from her ear with another, snorted again, wheeled
+around, and at last broke away for the thick shelter of the trees,
+lightly and swiftly as a breeze which skims from one thicket to
+another.
+
+Seeing his mother go for the woods, her spotted fawn, which had been
+frolicking among the branches of the fallen spruce-tree, skipped from
+it, passed Dol with a bound which carried him a few feet, and
+disappeared like a whiff too.
+
+Here was a rouser, indeed, which no boy, unless he was in a far-gone
+state of suffering, could withstand. Dol Farrar forgot his terrible
+predicament. The fog had cleared away from his senses, leaving him free
+to think and act once more.
+
+“Well, I never!” he ejaculated, springing to his feet in amazement.
+“Wasn’t she a beauty? And wasn’t she a snorter? I didn’t think a deer
+could make such a row as that. And to stand still and stare at me! I
+wonder whether she took me for some new-fashioned sort of animal or a
+gray old stump.”
+
+It was a few minutes before he again thought of his plight, and then he
+was not
+overcome. He stood perfectly still, trying to review the position
+coolly, and to get a tight grip of his feelings, so that terror might
+not again master him.
+
+“I’m in a worse scrape than I ever dreamt of,” he muttered, puckering
+his forehead to do some tall thinking. “And I must do something to get
+out of it. But what? That’s the question.
+
+“I wonder if I loaded this ‘ole fuzzee,’”—the lad was making a valiant
+effort to cheer himself by being jocular,—“and blazed away with it for
+a while like mad, whether there is any human being around who would
+hear me. Some fellow might be hunting or trapping in this part of the
+forest, or farther up the mountain. But what a blockhead I am! Why on
+earth didn’t I do that before I started on this wretched trail?”
+
+But alas! as this was Dol Farrar’s first adventure in American woods,
+it had not occurred to him to do the right thing at the right time. Had
+he fired a round of signal shots when first he lost the line of spotted
+trees, he would probably have been heard at his camp, and would have
+been spared the worst scare he ever had in his life. The negligence was
+scarcely his fault, however; for Cyrus Garst, who had never before
+undertaken the responsibility of entertaining a pair of inexperienced
+boys in woodland quarters, had not, at this early stage of the trip,
+arranged with his comrades to fire a certain number of shots to signify
+“Help wanted!” if one of them should stray, or otherwise get into
+trouble. The idea now cropped up in Dol’s perplexed mind, through a
+confused recollection of tales about forest misadventures which Uncle
+Eb had told him by the cheery camp-fire.
+
+So he loaded the old shot-gun. It belched forth fire and smoke into
+space. And the thunder of his shot went rolling off in a reverberating
+din among the mountain echoes, until a hundred tongues repeated his
+appeal for help. Again he loaded rapidly and fired. And yet again, with
+nervous, eager fingers. So on, till he had let off half a dozen shots
+in quick succession.
+
+Then he waited, listening as if every pulse in his body had suddenly
+become an ear.
+
+But when the last growling echo had died away, not a sound broke the
+almost absolute silence on the mountain-side. Evidently not a human
+soul was near enough to hear or understand his signals of distress.
+
+In these bitter minutes some sensations ran through Dol Farrar which he
+had never known before; and, as he afterwards expressed it, “they were
+enough to cover any fellow with goose-flesh.”
+
+He felt that he had reached the dreariest point of the unknown, and was
+a lonely, drifting atom in this immense solitude of forest and rock.
+
+Never in his life before or afterwards did he come so near to Point
+Despair as when he stumbled down the mountain, spurning that
+treacherous trail, and going wherever his jaded feet found travelling
+tolerably easy. He had picked up the shot-gun; but the black ducks, the
+primary cause of his misadventure, he clean forgot, leaving them lying
+amid the chaos at the foot of the crag, to have their bones picked by
+some lucky raccoon or fox.
+
+Wandering along in a zigzag way, he by and by reached the base of the
+mountain at a point where there was a break in the forest. A patch of
+dreary-looking swamp was before him, covered with clumps of
+alder-bushes—a true Slough of Despond.
+
+Dol Farrar knew none of the miseries of plunging through an
+alder-swamp, but he luckily recalled in time a warning from Cyrus that
+a slight wetting would render his moccasins useless. While he halted
+undecidedly on its brink, he pulled out his watch; one glance at this,
+and another at the sky, which now lay open like a scroll above him,
+gave him a sickening shock. He had started from camp at noon; now it
+was after five o’clock. Little more than another hour, and not
+twilight, but the blackness of a total eclipse, would reign in the
+forest.
+
+The blood rushed to his head, and his mouth grew feverish at the
+thought. As he licked his cracking lips, he caught a faint, tinkling,
+rumbling sound of falling water somewhere to the right. Of a sudden his
+sufferings of mind and body were merged into one burning desire to
+drink, and he turned eagerly in that direction.
+
+At the edge of the woods he found a little fairy, foamy waterfall,
+which had tumbled down from the mountain to be lost in the dismal
+swamp. But Dol felt that it had accomplished its mission when he
+unfastened the tin drinking-mug which hung from his belt, and
+drank—drank—drank! He straightened himself again, feeling that some of
+the bubbling life of the mountain torrent had passed into him. His eyes
+lit on a towering pine-tree just beyond it. And then—
+
+Well! if that sky-piercing pine had suddenly changed at a jump into a
+gray post, bearing the inscription, “One mile to Boston,” Dol Farrar
+could not have been more astonished and relieved than when he saw for
+the first time a rude forest guide-post.
+
+To the dark, knotted trunk was fastened a piece of light, delicate
+bark, stripped from a white-birch tree. On this was scrawled in big
+letters, by some instrument evidently not intended for penmanship:—
+
+“FOLLOW THE BLAZED TRAIL AND YOU ARE SAFE.”
+
+
+“Another blazed trail! Hurrah!” shouted Dol. “Won’t I follow it? I
+never will follow any other again if I live to be a hundred, and come
+to these woods every year till I die!”
+
+The height of his relief could only be measured by the depth of his
+past misery, which would truly have been enough to set a weaker boy
+crazy. With watering eyes and panting breaths that came near to being
+sobs of gladness, he started upon the new trail. It led him off into
+the forest surrounding the swamp.
+
+The pine that had been chosen for guide-post was the first in the line
+of spotted trees. The others followed it closely, with intervals of
+eight or ten yards between them; and as the notches in their trunks
+were freshly cut, Dol followed the track without any difficulty for
+twenty minutes. He had a suspicion that he was nearing the end of it;
+though he was still in forest gloom, with light coming in meagre,
+ever-lessening streaks through the pine-tufts above. Then he started
+more violently than when the deer snorted near his ear.
+
+Suddenly and shrilly the blast of a horn rang through the darkening
+woodland aisles, followed, after a pause of a minute or two, by a
+second and louder blast.
+
+Then a well-pitched, far-reaching voice sang out:—“Come to supper,
+boys! Come to supper!”
+
+“Good gracious!” said Dol, conscious on the instant that he was as
+hollow as a drum. “There are enough surprises in these forests to raise
+the hair on a fellow’s head half a dozen times a day!”
+
+A matter of forty yards more, and a burst of light swam before his
+eyes. He had reached the end of the blazed trail.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII. Another Camp
+
+
+“Hello! Come to supper, boys! Come to supper right away!”
+
+Half eagerly, half shrinkingly, Dol emerged from the woods, feeling a
+very torment of hunger quickened in him by the tantalizing sound of
+that oft-repeated invitation.
+
+A sight met him which, because of what went before and all that came
+after, will be forever chief among the forest pictures which rise in
+exciting panorama before his memory, when camping is a thing of the
+past.
+
+A broad dash of evening light, the sun’s afterglow, fell upon a patch
+of clearing bordered by clumps of slim, outstanding pines, the scouts
+of their massive brethren. That this was used as a camping-ground the
+first glance revealed. A camp which looked to the tired eyes of the
+lost boy a real “home-camp,” though it consisted of rude log cabins,
+occupied it. A couple of birch-bark canoes reposed amid a network of
+projecting roots. Withered stumps and tree-tops littered the ground.
+
+In the foreground of the picture stood a man with a horn in his
+uplifted hand, which he had just taken from his mouth. He was minus a
+coat; and the rough-and-tumble disarray of his attire showed that he
+had been lounging by his camp-fire, or perhaps overseeing the
+preparation of supper. Dol had a vague impression that the individual
+was not a forest-guide like Uncle Eb, nor a rough lumberman such as he
+had heard of. He would have taken him for a pioneer farmer,—not having
+yet encountered such a character,—but there could be no farm on this
+little bit of clearing. And he was too dazed to see that there were
+signs of a cultivated intelligence in the tanned, beaming face under
+the horn-blower’s broad-brimmed hat. Indeed, the hat itself, its
+wearer, log huts, canoes, and trees seemed to have a strange propensity
+to waltz before the lad’s eyes, and there was a queer waving sensation
+in his own legs, as if they, too, would join in the spinning movement.
+For as he advanced into the light out of the sombre shadows, a
+dizziness from long tramping in the woods, and from a hunger such as he
+had never before experienced, overcame him. He reeled against an
+outstanding tree, troubled by an affliction which Uncle Eb had called
+“wheels in his head.”
+
+“Ho! you boys. Where in thunder are you? Come to supper, or the venison
+will be spoiled!” shouted the possessor of the horn again, shutting one
+eye into which a crimson ray was pouring, while he swept the skirts of
+the woods with the other; and there was music as well as bluster in his
+shout.
+
+Lo! the first to answer this fetching invitation was the foot-sore,
+leg-weary boy, pale from exhaustion, with his strange equipment of
+powder-horn, coon-skin pouch, and ancient shot-gun, who, getting partly
+the better of his giddiness, crossed the clearing slowly, as if he was
+groping his way. Within a few feet of the horn-blower he halted; for
+the man had lowered his horn, and was gazing at him with keen,
+questioning eyes. Dol tried to find suitable speech to express his
+need; but though words came with considerable effort, his voice sounded
+hoarse and creaky in his own ears, and threatened to crack off
+altogether.
+
+He was doing his best to brace up and speak plainly, when his sentence
+was stopped by a noise of pounding footsteps. The next moment he saw
+himself surrounded by three well-grown, daring-looking lads, one about
+his own age, one older, one younger, who were gazing at him with
+critical curiosity. All the pluck in Dol Farrar rose to meet this
+emergency. He felt as if his legs were threatening to smash under him
+like pipe-stems. There was a whirling and buzzing in his head. It
+seemed as if his words had such a long way to travel from his brain to
+his tongue that they got confused and changed before he uttered them.
+
+But through it all he was conscious of one clear thought: that he was
+an Old-World boy on parade before these strapping New-World lads. He
+set his teeth, drove his gun hard against the ground, and, as it were,
+anchored himself to it, while strange, doubting lights came into his
+eyes as he tried to get a grip of his senses.
+
+
+Illustration: Dol Sights A Friendly Camp.
+
+
+He succeeded. At last he addressed the gentleman with the horn, knowing
+that he was speaking to the point,—
+
+“Good-evening, sir,” he said. “I—I—we’re camping out somewhere in the
+woods. I—I got lost to-day. I’ve walked an awful distance. Perhaps you
+could tell me”—
+
+But the man stepped suddenly forward, with a blaze of welcome in his
+eyes; for he saw the brave effort which the lad was making, and that
+his strength was giving out. He put a kindly arm through Dol’s, as if
+to warmly greet a fellow-camper, but really to support him.
+
+“I’ll not tell you about anything until you’ve had a good, square
+meal,” he said. “That’s our way in woodland quarters,—to eat first, and
+talk afterwards. If you’re lost, you’ve struck a friend’s camp, and at
+the right time too, son; so cheer up! After supper you can tell us your
+yarn, and I guess we can set you right.”
+
+Here at last was a surprise of unmixed blessedness for poor Dol;
+namely, the brotherly hospitality which is always extended to a
+stranger in a Maine camp, whether that be the temporary home of a
+millionnaire or the shanty of a poor logger.
+
+His new friend led him into the largest of the cabins, which contained
+a fireplace built of huge stones, where red flames frisked around
+fragrant birch logs, a camp-bed of evergreen boughs about ten feet
+wide, a rude table, a bench, and a few stools of pine-wood.
+
+Over the camp-fire was stooping a bright-eyed, muscular fellow, whose
+dress somewhat resembled Uncle Eb’s, but who had no negro blood in his
+veins. He was frying meat; and such tempting whiffs mingled with the
+steam which floated up from his pan, that Dol’s nostrils twitched, and
+his hungry longing grew almost unbearable as he inhaled them.
+
+“I guess this chunk of ven’zon is about cooked, Doc,” said this
+personage, as Dol’s kindly host entered the hut, with him in tow,
+followed closely by the boys of his own camp.
+
+“All right, then! Let’s have it!” was the reply. “I’m pretty glad our
+camp-fare is decent to-night, Joe, for we’ve a visitor here; a hungry
+bird who has strayed from his own camp, and has wandered through the
+forest until he looks like a death’s head. But we’ll soon fix him up;
+won’t we, Joe? Give him a mug of hot tea right away. Hot tea is worth a
+dozen of any other drink in the woods for a pick-me-up.”
+
+A spark of fun kindled in Dol’s eyes when he heard himself described as
+“a hungry bird.” It brightened into an appreciative beam as the
+reviving tea trickled down his throat.
+
+“Eatin’s wot he wants, I guess,” said Joe, the camp guide and cook,
+placing some meat and a slab of bread of his own baking on a tin plate
+for the guest.
+
+Dol began on them greedily; and though the first mouthful or two
+threatened to sicken him, his squeamishness wore off, and he gained
+strength with every morsel.
+
+“How do you like Maine venison, my boy? Like it well enough to have
+another piece, eh?” asked his host, when he saw that the haggard, gray
+look was leaving the wanderer’s face, and that the appalled, dazed
+expression, the result of being lost in the woods, had disappeared from
+his eyes.
+
+“I think it’s the best meat I ever tasted,” answered Dol heartily.
+“It’s so tender, and has a splendid taste.”
+
+“Ha! ha! It ought to be prime,” chuckled the owner of the camp. “It was
+cut from the quarters of a buck which my nephew here, Royal Sinclair,”
+pointing out the tallest of three lads, “shot four days ago. He was a
+regular crackerjack—that buck! I mean, he was as fine a deer as ever I
+saw; weighed over two hundred pounds, had seven prongs to his horns on
+one side and six on the other. Royal is going to take the antlers home
+with him to Philadelphia. We were mighty glad to get him, too; for we
+have been camping here for five weeks, and were running short of
+provisions. Roy had quite an attack of buck-fever over it, though he
+didn’t think he was killing the ‘fatted calf’, to entertain a visitor;
+did you, Roy?”
+
+“I guess not, Uncle! But I’m pretty glad, all the same,” answered
+Royal, with a smiling glance at Dol.
+
+Young Farrar found himself in very pleasant quarters; and, now that he
+was recovering, his laugh rang from one log wall to the other.
+
+“What’s ‘buck-fever’?” he questioned, while Joe filled his plate with
+more venison.
+
+“A sort of disease of which you’ll learn the meaning before you leave
+these woods,” answered his host merrily. “It attacks a man when he’s
+out after a deer, and makes him feel as if one leg stands firm under
+him, while the other shakes as if it had the palsy.
+
+“Now I guess you’d like to know whose
+camp you’re in, my boy, and then you can tell your story. Well, to
+begin with the most useful member of the party. That knowing-looking
+fellow over there, who cooked your supper, is Joe Flint, the best guide
+that ever pulled a trigger or handled a frying-pan in this
+region—barring one. These three rascals,” here the speaker beamed upon
+the strapping lads, with whom Dol had been exchanging sympathetic
+glances of curiosity, “are my nephews, Royal, Will, and Martin
+Sinclair. And I—I—
+
+“Good gracious! Listen to that, Joe! What’s up now? Another fellow lost
+in the woods? Somebody is firing a round with his rifle! Perhaps he
+wants help. Those are signal shots, anyhow!”
+
+The camper whose horn had been Dol’s signal of deliverance, broke off
+abruptly in his introductions, just as he had arrived at the most
+interesting point, and was proclaiming his own identity. He rattled off
+his short exclamations in excitement, and dashed out of the cabin,
+followed by Joe, his nephews, and Dol, the latter limping painfully,
+for his feet now felt like hot-water bags.
+
+“That Winchester has spoken eight or ten times,” said the leader,
+counting the shots fired by somebody away in the dark recesses of the
+forest from a powerful repeating-rifle. “Let’s give the fellow, whoever
+he is, an answer, Joe!”
+
+He seized his own rifle hastily, loaded the magazine with blank
+cartridges, and fired a noisy salute.
+
+In the pause which followed, while all strained their ears to listen,
+the sound of a shrill, distant “Coo-hoo!” the woodsman’s hail, reached
+them from the forest.
+
+Joe instantly responded with a vehement “Coo-hoo! Coo-hoo-oo!” the
+first call being short and brisk, the second prolonged into a roar
+which showed the strength of the guide’s lungs,—a roar that might carry
+for miles.
+
+Shortly afterwards there was a crashing and tearing amid some
+undergrowth near the edge of the forest. A man bounded forth from the
+pitch-black shadows into the clearing, where a little daylight still
+lingered. As he approached the group, Dol, who was in the background,
+gave a startled, yearning cry; but it was drowned in a loud burst from
+his host.
+
+“Why, Cyrus Garst!” exclaimed the latter, peering into the new-comer’s
+face. “How goes it, man? I never expected to see you
+here. Surely you haven’t come to grief in the woods? You look scared to
+death!”
+
+Cyrus—for it was he—grasped the welcoming hand which the owner of this
+camp extended to him. But his dark eyes did not linger a moment meeting
+the other’s. They turned hither and thither, flashing in all directions
+restlessly, like search-lights.
+
+“I’m glad to see you, Doc,” he said. “I didn’t know you were anywhere
+near. But I’m half distracted just now. A youngster belonging to our
+camp is missing. I’ve been scouring the forest for hours, and firing
+signals, hoping he might hear them. But”—
+
+Here Cyrus caught sight of Dol, who with a cry which in its changing
+inflections was longing, penitent, joyful, was making towards him. The
+Harvard student strode forward, and gripped the boy by his elbows. In
+the dusk their eyes were near together; Garst’s were stern, Dol’s
+blinking and unsteady.
+
+“Adolphus Farrar,” began Cyrus in a voice as if he was making an
+arrest, “have you been here in this camp, or where have you been, while
+your brother and I were searching the woods like maniacs? What
+unheard-of folly possessed you to go off by yourself?”
+
+Dol made a gurgling attempt to answer, but his voice rattled and died
+away in his throat. His eyes grew decidedly leaky.
+
+“Say, Cyrus!” interrupted the man who had befriended him and now proved
+his champion, “let the youngster get breath and tell his story from
+start to finish before you blow him up. I guess he wasn’t much to
+blame; and if he was, he has suffered for it. He found his way here not
+quite half an hour ago, so played out from wandering through the forest
+that he was ready to drop in his tracks. And I tell you he showed his
+grit too; for he managed to brace up and keep on his feet, though he
+was as exhausted a kid as ever I saw.”
+
+The “kid,” forgiving this objectionable term because of the soothing
+allusion to a trying time when he had behaved like a man, winked and
+gulped to get rid of his emotion, and twisted his elbows out of Cyrus’s
+hold. The latter lost his angry look, and released them.
+
+“I must fire three shots to let Neal and Uncle Eb know I’ve found you,”
+he said. “We parted company a while ago, and they’re beating about the
+woods in another direction. Whoever first came upon any trace of you
+was to fire his rifle three times.”
+
+The signal was instantly given.
+
+More far-reaching “Coo-hoos!” were exchanged. Ere long Neal was beside
+his brother, looking at him with eyes which showed the same tendency to
+leak that Dol’s had done a while ago, and battling with a desire to
+squeeze the wanderer in a breathless hug. He relieved his feelings
+instead by “blowing up” Dol with withering fire and a rough choke in
+his voice.
+
+But when, in response to an invitation from the genial camper whom
+Cyrus and Joe called “Doc,” the whole party, guides included, had
+gathered around the camp-fire in the big log hut, and Dol told his
+story from start to finish, he became the hero of the evening.
+
+His only fault had been a rash venturing into the unknown; and well it
+was that he had not followed the unknown to his death.
+
+“Why, boy!” exclaimed Cyrus, with a strong shudder, when Dol had
+described the false trail which led him to the foot of the crag, “that
+wasn’t a human trail at all. It was a deer-road. The deer spend their
+day up in the mountains, and come down to the ponds at evening to feed
+and drink. Now, a buck or doe in its regular journeys to and fro will
+follow one line, to which it becomes accustomed. Perhaps fifty others,
+seeing the ground trodden, will run in the same track. And there you
+have your well-used path, which looks as if it was made by men’s feet!
+
+“You may thank your lucky star, Dol, every hour of this night, that the
+false trail didn’t lead you away—away—higher—higher—up the mountain,
+until you dropped in your tracks, and died there alone, as others have
+done before.”
+
+A shocked hush fell upon the group around the camp-fire. Even the
+guides were silent. But the fragrant birchen logs sputtered and glowed,
+darting out playful tongues of flame. They seemed to call upon
+everybody to dismiss gloomy thoughts of what might have been; to crack
+jokes, sing songs, tell yarns, and be as merry as befitted men who had
+a log hut for a shelter, fresh whiffs of forest air stealing to them
+through an open doorway, and such a camp-fire.
+
+Joe began to prepare supper for the three who had searched so long and
+distractedly for Dol that they confessed to not having eaten for hours.
+While more venison was being cooked, the juveniles, American and
+English, who had been secretly taking stock of each other, cast aside
+restraint, and became as “chummy” as if they had been acquainted for
+years instead of hours.
+
+Such a carnival of fun and noise was started through their combined
+efforts in the old log camp, that its owner declared he “couldn’t hear
+himself think.” Seizing his horn, he blew a blast which called for
+order.
+
+“Say, my boy, let me have a look at your feet,” he said, cornering Dol.
+“A deer-road isn’t a king’s highway, as I dare say you’ve found out to
+your cost. Pull off your moccasins and socks, and let me doctor your
+poor trotters.”
+
+Young Farrar very gladly did as he was bidden.
+
+“Humph!” said his friend. “I thought so. They’re a mass of bruises and
+blisters. You’ve been pretty well branded, son. Moccasins aren’t much
+use to protect the feet from roots and sharp stones, if you happen to
+strike a bad place in forest travelling, unless you have taken the
+precaution to put double soles in them; didn’t you know that? Now,
+Cyrus Garst,” turning to the student, “you’re all going to camp with us
+to-night. This lad can’t tramp any more. As a doctor I forbid it.”
+
+“Are you a doctor, sir?” questioned Dol, with a thrill of surprise,
+which he managed to conceal.
+
+“Something of the kind, boy,” answered his host, smiling. “I don’t look
+much like a city physician, do I? I graduated from a medical college in
+Philadelphia, and took my degree. But I had an enthusiasm for the
+woods. One hour of forest life in dear old Maine was to me worth a year
+spent amid streets, alleys, and sky-scraping buildings; so I fixed my
+headquarters at Greenville, and have spent most of my time in the
+wilderness.”
+
+“Where every trapper, guide, and lumberman knows Dr. Phil Buck, whom
+they disrespectfully and affectionately call ‘Doc,’” put in Cyrus. “And
+many a poor fellow owes his life or limbs to Doc’s knowledge and
+nursing in some hard time of sickness, or after one of the dreadful
+accidents common in the forests.”
+
+Dol could well understand this; for he now was benefiting by Dr. Phil’s
+lively desire to relieve suffering, and was silently breathing
+blessings on his head. The doctor had bathed his puffy feet in warm
+water taken from Joe’s camp-kettle, and was anointing them with a
+healing salve, after which he tucked them into a loose pair of slippers
+of his own. Meanwhile, he chatted pleasantly.
+
+“This isn’t the first time that your friend Cyrus and I have run
+against each other in the wilds,” he said, “nor the first time that
+we’ve camped together, either. Bless you! we could make you jump with
+some of our stories. Do you remember that night in ’89, Cy, when you,
+with your guide, came upon me lying under a rough shelter of bark and
+spruce boughs, which I had rigged up for myself near Roaring Brook, on
+the side of Mount Katahdin?”
+
+“I guess I do remember it,” answered Cyrus, laughing.
+
+“A mighty hungry man I was, too, that evening,” went on Doc; “for I had
+no food left but one little package of soup-powder and a few beans. I
+had been trying all day to get a successful shot at a moose or deer,
+and muffed it every time. It wasn’t the lucky side of the moon for me.
+Well, you behaved like the Good Samaritan to me, then, Cy; shared your
+meat and all your stuff, and we slept like twin brothers under my
+shelter.”
+
+“Yes; and a bear visited our temporary camp in the night!” exclaimed
+Cyrus, bursting into uproarious mirth over some over-poweringly funny
+recollection; “he made off with my knapsack, which I had left lying by
+the camp-fire. I suppose old Bruin thought he’d find something good in
+it to eat; but he didn’t. So he tore my one extra shirt and every
+article in the pack to shreds, and chewed up the handle of my razor, so
+that I couldn’t shave again until I got back to civilization, when I
+was as bristly as a porcupine.”
+
+“Perhaps Bruin tried to shave himself,” suggested Dol.
+
+“At all events, he had wisdom enough not to cut his throat,” answered
+the story-teller. “We three—Doc, my guide, and myself—were stupidly
+tired, and slept so soundly that we did not discover the theft nor who
+the marauder was until the following morning. Then we found my knapsack
+gone, and the tracks of a huge bear in some soft earth near our
+shelter. We traced his footprints through a bog until we found the
+spot, not far off, where, overcome by greed or curiosity, he ripped up
+that strong leather knapsack as if it was _papier maché_ and made hay
+of its contents.”
+
+The boys had all crowded near to listen. It was now the social hour for
+campers. By the camp-fire more reminiscences followed; and the two
+guides chimed in it with moose stories, bear stories, panther stories,
+wild tales of every imaginable and unimaginable kind of adventure,
+until the lads thought no mythology which they had ever learned could
+rival in marvels the forest lore.
+
+At this opportune time, Neal suddenly thought of describing, or
+attempting to describe, that strangest of strange calls which he had
+heard, after the capsizing of the canoe, on the preceding night, when
+Cyrus and he were jacking for deer on Squaw Pond.
+
+Joe grunted expressively. “So help me! it was the moose call!” he
+ejaculated. “What say, Doc?”
+
+“I guess it was,” answered Dr. Phil. “It was either the cow-moose
+herself calling, or some hunter imitating her with his birch-bark
+trumpet. It’s a weird sort of experience, to hear that call for the
+first time; I shouldn’t wonder if your heart went whack-whack, lad?”
+
+“I only hope he’ll get a chance to hear it again before he goes back to
+England,” said Cyrus.
+
+Forthwith, the Harvard man proceeded to explain that he was bent on
+pressing forward for a distance of sixty miles or so, to the heart of
+the wilderness, to search for moose, but that he intended to do the
+journey in a leisurely, zigzag fashion, camping for a couple of nights
+at various points, in order to do the honors of the forest to his
+English comrades.
+
+“So you’re English, are you! Ha! Ha! Ho! Ho!” exclaimed the doctor,
+looking at the young Farrars. “Well, I suppose we’ll have to put our
+best foot foremost to give you a good time in American woods.”
+
+“I think that’s what we’re having, sir—such a jolly good time that
+we’ll never forget it,” answered Neal courteously.
+
+“Yes, it’s jolly enough now; but I tell you I didn’t find it so
+to-day,” grumbled Dol, while his eyes gleamed like polished steel with
+the light of present fun. “But as long as I live I’ll remember the
+sound of your horn, Doctor, when I was dead-beat.”
+
+“Is that so? Well, I guess I’ll have to make you a present of that
+horn, boy, when we part company, and you go back to civilization, and
+of the piece of birch-bark, too, which led you to our camp. ’Twas Joe
+who fixed that to the pine near the swamp; for my lads had a habit of
+following the trail to the alders, looking for moose or deer signs. He
+scrawled his sentence on it with the end of a cartridge. I guess it
+would be a sort of curiosity in England.”
+
+Dol whooped his delight.
+
+“I’ll put it under a glass shade! I’ll”—
+
+While he was casting about in his mind for some way of immortalizing
+that bit of white bark, Doc’s genial bluster was heard again,—
+
+“Come! come! you fellows! No more skylarking in this camp to-night!
+It’s high time for all campers to be snoring. Turn in! Turn in!”
+
+But nobody was in a hurry to obey the summons to bed. While hands and
+feet were being stretched out to the sizzling birch logs for a final
+toast, Royal Sinclair, who had a trick of speaking very quickly, with a
+slight click in his utterance, as if his tongue struck his teeth, began
+to pour some communications into Neal’s ear in rapid dashes of talk,—
+
+“This is just about the jolliest night we ever had in the forest, and
+we’ve had a staving time all through. We live in Philadelphia, and
+Uncle Phil—we call him ‘Doc’ like everybody else—brought us out here
+for our summer vacation. This old log camp was built several years ago
+by a hunting-party, of whom he was one. The walls were getting mouldy;
+but he cleaned up the largest of the huts, with Joe’s help, and made it
+our headquarters. He never needs a guide himself; not a bit of it! He
+can find his way anywhere through the woods with his compass. But he is
+a good deal away, so he engaged Joe to go out with us.
+
+“He often starts off at a moment’s notice, and travels dozens of miles
+on foot, or in a birch canoe, if he hears of a bad accident far away in
+the forest. Sometimes a lumberman or trapper cuts his foot in two, or
+nearly chops off his leg with his axe; and these poor fellows would
+probably die while their comrades were lugging them through the woods
+on a litter, trying to reach a settlement, if it weren’t for our Doc.
+
+“Once in a while, when he comes to visit us in Philadelphia, a few
+people call him a crank, because he lives out here and dresses like a
+settler; but I call him a regular brick.”
+
+“So do I,” said Neal with spirit.
+
+“You’re awfully lucky to be able to camp out during October,” rattled
+on Roy. “That’s the month for moose-hunting, jacking, and all the most
+exciting sort of fun. We have
+to go home in a day or two, for our school has reopened, unless”—
+
+“When Royal Sinclair gets a streak of talking, you might as well try to
+bottle up the Mississippi as to stop him,” said Dr. Phil, laughing. “I
+can’t hear what he’s saying, but I know that his tongue is clicking
+like a telegraph instrument. But I hope it has given its last message
+for to-night. You really must turn in, boys. I let you have an extra
+social hour, because to-morrow will be Sunday, a day of rest after the
+travels and excitements of the week. Think of it, lads! A Sunday in the
+woods—God’s first cathedral! May it do us all good!”
+
+The guide, Joe, built up the fire. Fresh birch logs blistered and
+sputtered as creeping curls of bluish flame enwrapped them. Kindling
+rapidly, they threw out fantastic lights, which danced like a regiment
+of red elves around the old log walls of the cabin.
+
+“If a fellow could only drop off to sleep every night in the year
+seeing and smelling such a fire as that!” breathed Neal, as, accepting
+a share of Royal’s blankets, he stretched his tired limbs on the
+evergreen mattress.
+
+“Then life would be too jolly for anything,” answered Roy.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IX. A Sunday Among the Pines
+
+
+“Men and boys learn a good many wholesome lessons in the forest, one of
+which is that it pays better to take a day of rest in seven if they
+want to make the most of themselves and their opportunities. Therefore,
+lads, we’ll do no tramping to-day. And we’ll have a bit of a service by
+and by over there under the pines.”
+
+So spoke Doctor Phil on the following morning, when the two sets of
+campers, now one joyous, brotherly crowd, were sitting or lounging
+about the pine-wood table, leisurely emptying tin mugs of tea or
+coffee, and eating porridge and rolls of Joe’s baking.
+
+“You haven’t told us yet, Cyrus,” he went on, “what point you’re bound
+for. I know you’re level-headed, and plan every forest trip beforehand,
+to economize time.”
+
+“Yes, a fellow likes to do that; it adds to the pleasures of
+anticipation,” Garst answered. “But it’s precious little use, after
+all, when you’re visiting a region which is as full of surprises as an
+egg is full of meat. However, I have arranged to meet Herb Heal, the
+guide whom I generally employ, at a hunting-camp near Millinokett
+Lake.”
+
+“A good moose country,” put in Doc.
+
+“I know it. At all events, it is a good place for a home-camp; one can
+make excursions into the dense forests at the foot of Katahdin, which
+are unrivalled for big game—so Herb says, and he’s an authority. These
+English fellows may expect to have an attack of buck-fever, or
+_moose-fever_ rather, which will set their blood on fire. Not that
+we’re out chiefly for killing; we’re willing to let his mooseship keep
+a whole skin, and go in peace to replenish the forests, unless he grows
+cantankerous and charges us.”
+
+“If he happens to be an old bull, and gits his mad up, he may do that;
+it’s as likely as not,” chimed in Joe Flint, who was listening.
+
+“Well, it there’s a man in Maine who can be warranted to start a moose,
+and to follow up his trail until he gets a sight of him, living or
+dead, that man is Herb Heal,” said the doctor. “And his adventures go
+ahead of those of any woodsman up to date. You must get him to tell you
+how he swam across a pond at the tail of a bull-moose, holding with his
+fingers and teeth to the creature’s long hair, then got astraddle of
+its back, and severed its jugular vein with his hunting-knife. How’s
+that! It was the liveliest swim I ever heard of. But I mustn’t spoil
+his yarns. He must tell them himself.
+
+“A fine son of the woods is Herb Heal!” went on the speaker, with
+enthusiasm. “I ran across him first five years ago, when he was
+trapping for fur-bearing animals in the dense forests you mentioned
+near the foot of Mount Katahdin. He had a partner with him then, a
+half-breed Indian, whom woodsmen called ‘Cross-eyed Chris,’ a willing,
+plucky, honest fellow when he was sober. But he loved fire-water. Let
+him once taste spirits, or smell them, and he went clean crazy. He did
+a dog’s trick to Herb,—stole all his furs and savings, with a splendid
+pair of moose antlers, while he was away from camp one day, and skipped
+out of the State. Herb swore he’d shoot him. But I don’t think he has
+ever come across him since. And if he should, he wouldn’t stick to his
+threat. He’s not built that way.”
+
+There was a general hum of interest over this story, which even Cyrus
+had not heard before.
+
+“Now, how are you going to reach your camp on Millinokett Lake?” asked
+Dr. Phil, when the buzz had subsided. “That’s the next question.”
+
+“We intend to tramp the entire distance by easy stages, and get there
+about the middle of October,” answered young Garst for himself and his
+comrades. “Uncle Eb will go along with us as guide; and he’ll supply a
+tent, so that we can rest for two or three nights at a time if we
+choose.”
+
+“Hum!” said the doctor doubtfully, laying his hand on Dol’s shoulder.
+“This youngster oughtn’t to do much tramping for a few days, Cyrus.
+That deer-road did up his feet pretty badly. I’ll be travelling in your
+direction myself the day after to-morrow. I want to visit a
+farm-settlement within a dozen miles of the lake, where the farmer has
+a sickly child, the only treasure in his log shanty. The mite frets if
+Doc doesn’t come to see her once in a while.
+
+“Therefore, I propose that we join forces, and press forward together.
+I guess I’ll keep my nephews out here for a week longer, and take the
+responsibility of their missing that time at school. Now that they have
+fallen in with your friends, it would be a shame to separate Young
+England and Young America without giving them a chance to get
+friendly.”
+
+Here Dr. Phil beamed upon the five boys, who, after one night in the
+forest, sleeping in a light-hearted row on the evergreen boughs, with
+their feet to the fire, had reached a brotherly intimacy which years of
+city life might not have bred.
+
+“I further propose,” he went on, “that we hire a roomy wagon and a pair
+of strong horses from a settler who has a clearing about two miles from
+here. There is an old logging-road which runs through the woods towards
+the point for which we’re heading. We could follow that for the first
+half of our journey. It isn’t a turnpike, you know. In fact, it’s only
+a broad track where the underbrush has been cleared away, and the trees
+cut down, with strips of corduroy road sandwiched in. But the lumbermen
+still haul supplies over it to their camps, and I propose that we
+follow their example. We can pile our tent, camp duffle [stores], and
+all our packs into the wagon, together with the hero of the
+deer-road,”—winking at Dol,—“and the rest of us can take turns in
+riding. It will be a big lark for these youngsters to travel over a
+corduroy road. A very bracing ride they’ll have in more senses than
+one; but they can spin plenty of yarns about it when they get home.”
+
+The “youngsters,” one and all, signified their approval of the
+suggestion. Cyrus, who, as a college man, was above this category, was
+pleased to acquiesce too.
+
+“When can we get the wagon, Doctor?” asked Neal, burning to press
+onward.
+
+“Oh! the day after to-morrow, I guess. And now, lads!” Dr. Phil’s voice
+was serious, but exultant, “we’re a thoroughly happy set of fellows, in
+accord with each other and our surroundings. We feel our brains clear,
+our gladness springing up, and our lungs swelling to double their size
+with the whiffs which reach us from those sky-piercing pines yonder. So
+we will remember that ‘the wide earth is our Father’s temple.’ Over
+there in the woods we will worship him, while millions of forest
+creatures about us, flying, bounding, or building, in obedience to his
+laws, simply worship too.”
+
+A music soft, deep, sighing, like the murmur of an organ under the
+fingers of a master musician, rolled through the pine-tops as the band
+of campers, guides included, followed Doc into the forest. They passed
+the clumps of slender trees near the camp, and reached a dimly-lit
+green aisle.
+
+Towering pines, so tall and erect that they seemed shooting upward to
+kiss the clouds, were the pillars of their cathedral. Its roof of
+tasselled boughs was stabbed by flashing needles of sunlight, which let
+in a flickering, mellow radiance, and traced a pattern on the woodland
+carpet. Every whiff of forest air was natural incense.
+
+Dr. Phil stood as if in the audience-chamber of the King, and removed
+his wide-brimmed hat.
+
+“Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be
+honor and glory, for ever and ever. Amen!” he said.
+
+Then Cyrus’s voice led the worship.
+
+“Praise God, from whom all blessings flow!”
+
+
+he sang, in a strong, glad outburst.
+
+Boys and guides, in a great chorus, swelled the familiar words. Each
+sweetly chirping woodland bird, after its own manner, echoed them. The
+music among the pine-tops mingled with them. The forest fairly rang
+with a magnificent, adoring Doxology.
+
+“We ought to be decent kind of fellows after this,” said Cyrus, when
+the little service was over.
+
+And the doctor answered,—
+
+“I tell you, boy, the church was never built where a man feels so ready
+to worship the God-Father in spirit and in truth as he does in the wild
+woods.”
+
+And looking on the six fresh, manly faces before him, Dr. Phil saw that
+this happy woodland trip would have grander results than adding to the
+campers’ inches and to the breadth of their shoulders. For each one of
+them had realized this morning that behind all strength and beauties of
+forest growth, behind their own souls’ gladness, was a Presence which
+they could “almost palpably feel.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter X. Forward All!
+
+
+Speculations about the journey, and in especial about the corduroy
+road, were rife in the boys’ minds during the forty and odd hours which
+elapsed between the Sunday service and the time of their start.
+
+The travellers met at the settler’s cabin early on Tuesday morning,
+having broken camp shortly after daybreak. On Monday evening Cyrus and
+Neal, with Uncle Eb, had returned to the bark hut to pack their
+knapsacks, and make ready for a forward march. On the way thither, it
+being just the hour for the deer to be running,—that is, descending
+from the hills for an evening meal,—Neal got a successful shot at a
+small two-year-old buck. This was a stroke of luck for the campers, and
+a necessary deed of death. It supplied them with venison for their
+journey; and, as Cyrus said, “they had already put a shamefully big
+hole in Dr. Phil’s stores, and must procure a respectable supply of
+meat to make up for it.”
+
+It also provided Tiger with plenty of bones to crunch during his
+master’s absence; for the dog was left behind in charge of the hut, as
+indeed he often was for a week or more while Uncle Eb was away guiding.
+The sportsmen who engaged the latter’s services were generally averse
+to the creature’s presence with the party, lest he should scare their
+game.
+
+Cyrus and Neal bade him a pathetic farewell, remembering the exciting
+fun he had given them with the raccoon. Dol sent him lots of approving
+messages, which were duly delivered, with rough pats and shakes, by
+Uncle Eb, who fully believed that the brute understood every word of
+them. Indeed, the sign language of Tiger’s expressive tail confirmed
+this opinion.
+
+Dol had remained at the log camp with his new friends, Dr. Phil
+thinking it well that he should rest his feet until the morning of the
+start. His brother promised to bring his knapsack and rifle to the
+settler’s cabin. Uncle Eb repossessed himself of his shot-gun, pouch,
+and powder-horn, which he carried back to his hut, and left under
+Tiger’s protection, telling Dol that “if he wanted to bag any more
+black ducks he’d have to give ’em a dose wid de rifle, for he warn’t
+a-goin’ to lug dat ole fuzzee t’rough de woods.”
+
+It was the perfection of an October morning, sunshiny and pleasant,
+with a mellow freshness in the air which matched the mellow tints of
+the forest, when the travellers joined forces at the farm-settlement.
+
+Engaged in the thrilling work of felling a pine-tree to extend his
+father’s clearing, they found the settler’s son, a brawny fellow about
+Cyrus’s age, in buckskin leggings and coon-skin cap, who wielded his
+axe with arms which were tough and knotted as pine limbs. He bawled to
+them in the forceful language of the backwoods, which to unaccustomed
+ears sounded a trifle barbaric, to keep out of the way until his tree
+had fallen.
+
+When the pine at last tumbled earthward with a thud which reverberated
+for miles through the forest, he gave a mighty yell, waved his skin
+cap, and came towards the visitors.
+
+“Hulloa, Lin!” boomed the doctor, greeting this native as an old
+acquaintance.
+
+“Hello, Doc!” answered Lin. “By the great horn spoon! I didn’t expect
+to see you here. Who are these fellers?”
+
+The doctor introduced his comrades. Lin greeted them with bluff
+simplicity, and called them one and all by their Christian names as
+soon as these could be found out. Doc alone came in for his short
+title—if such it could be called. Luckily the campers of both
+nationalities, from Cyrus downward, were without any element of
+snobbery in their dispositions. It seemed to them only a jolly part of
+the untrammelled forest life that man should go back to his primitive
+relations with his brother man; that in the woods, as Doc said,
+“manhood should be the only passport,” and that titles and distinctions
+should never be thought of by guides or anybody else. They were
+well-pleased to be taken simply for what they were,—jolly,
+companionable fellows,—and to be valued according to the amount of grit
+and good-temper they showed.
+
+And they learned this morning to appreciate the pioneer courage and
+resolute spirit of the rugged settlers who had cleared a home for
+themselves amid the surrounding wilderness of forest and stream. Their
+roughness of speech was as nothing in comparison with their brave
+endurance of hardships, their deeds of heroism, and their free-handed
+hospitality.
+
+Lin led his visitors straight to a log cabin, before which his father,
+a veteran woodsman, who bore the scars of bears’ teeth upon his body,
+was digging and planting. This old farmer, too, greeted Doc as a
+friend, and when the wagon was talked about, was quite willing to do
+anything to serve him.
+
+“But ye must have a square meal afore ye travel,” he said. “Jerusha! I
+couldn’t let ye go without eatin’. Mother!” shouting to his wife, who
+was inside the cabin. “Say, Mother! Ha’n’t ye got somethin’ fer these
+fellers to munch?”
+
+Forthwith a big, rosy woman, who had herself fought a bear in her time,
+and had shot him, too, before he attacked her farmyard, hustled round,
+and got up such a meal as the travellers had not tasted since they
+entered the woods. They had a splendid “tuck-in,” consisting of fried
+ham, boiled eggs, potatoes, hot bread, yellow butter, and coffee. And
+the meal was accompanied with thrilling stories from the lips of the
+old settler about the hardships and desperate scenes of earlier
+pioneering days. Doc coaxed him to relate these for the boys’ benefit.
+And many eyes dilated as he told of blood-curdling adventures with the
+“lunk soos,” or “Indian devil,” the dreadful catamount or panther,
+which was once the terror of Maine woodsmen.
+
+“So help me! I’d a heap sooner meet a ragin’ lion than a panther,” said
+the old man. “My own father came near to bein’ eaten alive by one when
+I was a kid. He was workin’ with a gang o’ lumbermen in these forests
+at timber-makin’, and was returnin’ to their camp, when the beast
+bounced out of a thicket all of a suddint. Poor dad was skeered stiff.
+The thing screeched,—a screech so turrible that it was enough to turn a
+man’s sweat to ice-water, an’ a’most set him crazy. Dad hadn’t no gun
+with him; so he shinned up the nighest tree like mad, an’ hollered fit
+to bust his windpipe, hopin’ t’other fellers at the camp ’ud hear him.
+
+“But the panther made up another tree hard by, an’ sprang ’pon him.
+Fust it grabbed dad by the heel. Then it tore a big piece out o’ the
+calf of his leg, an’ devoured it. Think of it, boys! Them’s the sort o’
+dangers that the fust settlers an’ lumbermen in these woods had to
+face.
+
+“Wal, dad reckoned he was a goner, sure. But he managed to cut a limb
+from the tree with his huntin’-knife, an’ tied the knife to the end of
+it. With that he fought the beast while his comrades, who had heard his
+mad yells, were gittin’ to him. With the fust shot that one of ’em
+fired the catamount made off.
+
+“Dad was the sickest man ye ever saw fer a spell. His wound healed
+after a bit, under the care of an Injun doctor; but his hair, which had
+been soot-black on that evenin’ when he was returnin’ to camp, was as
+white as milk afore he got about again; an’ he was notional and
+narvous-like as long as he lived.
+
+“He said the animal was like a tremenjous big cat, about four feet high
+an’ five or six feet in length. It was a sort o’ bluish-gray color. An’
+it had a very long tail curled up at the end, which it moved like a
+cat’s.
+
+“Boys, that catamount is the only animal that an Indian is skeered of.
+Ask a red man to hunt a moose, a bear, or a wolf, an’ he’s ready to
+follow it through forest an’ swamp till he downs it or drops. But ask
+him to chase a panther, an’ he’ll shake his head an’ say, ‘He all one
+big debil!’ He calls the beast, in his own lingo, ‘lunk soos,’ which
+means ’Injun devil;’ an’ so we woodsmen call it too.”
+
+It was at this moment that Lin put his head in at the cabin-door, and
+announced that “the wagon an’ hosses war a’ ready.”
+
+“Wal, boys, I swan! it’s many a long year since a panther was seen in
+these forests, so ye needn’t feel skeery about meetin’ one,” said the
+old settler, as he stood outside his log home, and watched his guests
+start. “I’ll ’low ye won’t find travellin’ too easy ’long the ole
+corduroy road. Come again!”
+
+There was much waving of hats as the wagon, a roomy, four-wheeled
+vehicle, moved off, with a creaking in its joints as if it were
+squealing a protest against its load, which consisted of the five lads,
+together with knapsacks, guns, tents, and the camp duffle.
+
+“Forward, all!” shouted Dr. Phil, who had been chosen to act as captain
+of the two companies during the few days while they journeyed together.
+
+Lin, who was charioteer, cracked a long whip above his horses. The boys
+cheered, while Doc, Cyrus, and the two guides fell behind, choosing to
+follow the wagon on foot for the first few miles of the journey.
+
+“Where did you buy that, Lin?” asked Neal, climbing over to a perch
+beside the driver, and pointing to a heavy Colt’s revolver which the
+young settler was buckling round his waist.
+
+“Didn’t buy it. I traded a calf for it at Greenville more’n a year
+ago,” was the reply. “Fust-rate gun it is, too, I vum! I’ve stood at
+our cabin-door, and killed many a buck with it. On’y ’tain’t much good
+for tackling a bear. Wish’t the bears ud get as scarce as the panthers!
+Then we’d be rid o’ two master pests. Hello! Don’t y’u git to tumbling
+out jist yet! That’s on’y a circumstance to the jolts there’ll be when
+we strike a bit o’ corduroy road.”
+
+Lin Hathaway grabbed young Farrar by the elbow while he spoke, and held
+him steady with the horny hand which had swung the axe against the
+doomed pine-tree. For Neal had shown a sudden inclination to pitch
+headlong out of the wagon, as its right wheels were hoisted a foot or
+more above the left ones by rolling over a mossy bump in the ground.
+
+For the first five miles the forest road had been simply constructed
+thus: First, the bushy undergrowth had been cut away and thrown to one
+side, the space cleared being about eight feet wide; then all trees
+growing in the range of this track had been sawn off close to the
+ground, and windfalls which barred the way were removed. It was a rude
+highway, with plenty of deformities, such as ends of rotting stumps,
+twisted roots, ridges and bumps which had never been levelled; yet it
+was beautiful beyond any smooth, well-graded road which the travellers
+had ever seen. As it wound along in graceful curves through the woods,
+it was shaded now by an emerald arch of evergreens, now by a royal
+crimson canopy of maple branches, while patches of buff, orange, and
+dull red commingled where other trees interlaced with these to whisper
+woodland secrets.
+
+But the boys soon understood what Doc meant when he spoke of their
+having “a bracing ride in more senses than one;” for the motion of the
+wagon was a giddy series of jolts and bounces, with just sufficient
+interval between each shock for them to brace themselves, with
+stiffened backbones, for the next upheaval. They had already begun, as
+Royal said, “to have kinks in all their limbs,” when Lin suddenly
+announced,—
+
+“Yon’s a bit o’ corduroy road, I declar’!”
+
+He pointed with his whip ahead, and the travellers shot out their necks
+to see this novel highway. It extended for about a quarter of a mile
+over a swamp, and spoke volumes for the energy and ingenuity of the
+hardy lumbermen who constructed it.
+
+These brawny heroes, who are fine types of American grit and manhood,
+when clearing a broad track over which their great timber logs could be
+hauled from the depths of the forest to the landing on some big river,
+had found the swampy tracts an impassable obstacle for animals
+trammelled with harness and a heavy load.
+
+They bridged them by laying down logs cut to even lengths in a slightly
+slanting position across the way for the entire extent of miry ground.
+Each piece of timber was tightly wedged in by its fellow; nevertheless,
+there was a space of several inches between their rounded tops. Hence
+the track presented a striped appearance, which suggested to some
+spirited genius among woodsmen its name of “corduroy road.”
+
+“Well, Neal, do you think you can tell your folks a thing or two about
+forest travelling when you get back to England?” asked Doc, when the
+order of march was changed, young Farrar and the Sinclairs turning out
+to do their share of tramping, while the doctor, Cyrus, and the guides
+benefited by “a lift.”
+
+“I rather think I can,” answered Neal; “but goodness! I feel as if
+there were aches and bruises all over me. Once or twice my head seemed
+jumping straight off my shoulders. No more going in a wagon over
+corduroy roads for me! I’d rather be leg-weary any day.”
+
+The travellers halted that evening about five o’clock on the banks of a
+lonely stream. The guides pitched the two tents—Joe had provided one
+for his party—facing each other on a patch of clearing, with a space of
+about fifteen feet between them, in the centre of which blazed a
+roaring camp-fire. Now all the axes and knifes among the band were in
+demand for cutting and sharpening stakes and ridge-poles on which to
+stretch their canvas.
+
+Moreover, no evergreen boughs could be procured for beds; and the boys
+had to work with a will, helping Uncle Eb and Joe to cut bundles of the
+long, rank grass that grew by the water to form a bed for their tired
+bodies.
+
+Every one was camp-hungry, as they had not halted for a meal since
+leaving the settlement. After a splendid supper of venison, broiled
+over sizzling logs, bread, and fried potatoes,—for they had added to
+their stores at the farm,—they had a glorious social hour by the
+camp-fire. Joe got off any amount of “ripping” stories; and the sound
+of many a jolly chorus, led by Cyrus, and swelled by the musical
+efforts of the entire crew, mingled with the lonely rustle of the night
+wind among faded and drifting leaves.
+
+When Doc’s summons came to turn in, they stretched themselves upon the
+grassy beds, not undressing, as the night was chilly and the temporary
+quarters were not so snug as their previous ones. Still in their warm
+jerseys, trousers, woollen stockings, and knitted caps, with the heat
+from the piled-up camp-fire streaming under the raised flaps of the
+tents, they slept as cosily as if they lay on spring mattresses,
+surrounded by pictured walls.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XI. Beaver Works
+
+
+About noon on the following day they were obliged to bid farewell to
+Lin Hathaway, his wagon and horses, as the logging-road went no
+farther. The young settler turned homeward rather regretfully. It might
+be many months again before he got a chance of talking to anybody
+beyond his father and mother, and the boys had brought a dash of
+outside life into his woodland solitude.
+
+The travellers proceeded on foot through a dense forest, which, luckily
+for Dol, had little undergrowth and mostly a soft carpet of moss or dry
+pine needles. Still they had plenty of climbing over windfalls, with
+many rough pokes and jibes from forward boughs and rotten limbs, to rob
+the way of sameness. Through this labyrinth they were safely piloted by
+Uncle Eb and Joe, the latter with his compass in his hand, and the
+former simply studying the “Indian’s compass,” which is observing how
+the moss grows upon the tree-trunks, there being always a greater
+quantity on the side which faces north.
+
+Before nightfall they reached another log cabin, tenanted by a man who
+had just settled down for the purpose of clearing up a farm. Here they
+were lodged for the night, without trouble of making camp.
+
+The third day of their journey was marked by two sensations. They
+halted for a short rest at a point where there was an extensive break
+in the forest. Scarcely had they emerged from the gloom of a dense
+growth of cedars, when Dol exclaimed.—
+
+“Good gracious! That looks as if people had been building a jolly high
+railroad out here.”
+
+On the right rose a bare, steep ridge of sand and gravel, nearly ninety
+feet in height, and closely resembling a railway embankment.
+
+“Well, boy,” laughed Dr. Phil, “if that’s a railroad, Nature built it,
+and by a mighty curious process too. The sand, rocks, and
+gravel of which it is mostly formed must have been swept here by a
+great rush of waters that once prevailed over this land. We call the
+ridge a ‘Horseback.’ If you like, we’ll climb to the top of it, after
+we’ve had our snack [lunch], and you can get a peep at the surrounding
+country.”
+
+So they did. The top was level, and wide enough for two carriages to
+drive abreast; and the view from it was one which could never be
+forgotten. Around them were millions of acres of forest land, beautiful
+with the contrasts of October; here dipping into a cedar valley, in the
+midst of which they saw the silver smile of a woodland lake, there
+rising into a hill crowned with towering pines, some of them over a
+hundred feet in height.
+
+But, most thrilling sight of all, they beheld, only half a dozen miles
+away, rising in sublime grandeur against the sky, the mountain of
+mountains in Maine,—great Katahdin. They had caught glimpses of its
+curved line of peaks before. Now they saw its forests, and the rugged
+slides where avalanches of bowlders and earth from the top had ploughed
+heavily downward, sweeping away all growth.
+
+Cyrus lifted his hat, and waved it at the distant mass.
+
+“Hurrah!” he cried. “There’s the home of storms! There’s old Katahdin!
+The Indians named it Ktaadn ‘the biggest mountain.’”
+
+“Want to hear the Indian legend about it, lads?” asked Dr. Phil.
+
+A general chirp of assent was his reply, and the doctor began:—
+
+“Well, when the redskins owned these forests, they believed that the
+summit of Katahdin was the home of their evil spirit, or, as they call
+him, ‘The Big Devil.’ He was named Pamolah. And he was a mighty
+unpleasant sort of neighbor. Once, so tradition says, he ran away with
+a beautiful Indian maiden, and carried her up to his lonely lair among
+those peaks. When her tribe tried to rescue her, he let loose great
+storms upon them, his artillery being thunder, lightning, hail, and
+rain, before which they were forced to flee helter-skelter. An old red
+chief long ago told me the story, and added gravely that ‘it was sartin
+true, for han’some squaw always catch ’em debil.’
+
+“The foundation of the legend lies in the fact that there really is a
+very curious granite basin among Katahdin’s peaks, and it is the
+birthplace of most storms which sweep over our State. I myself have
+seen clouds forming in it, when I made an ascent of the mountain in my
+younger days, and whirling out in all directions. The roar of its winds
+may sometimes be heard miles away. There are several ponds in the
+basin; one of them, a tiny, clear lake, without any visible outlet, is
+Pamolah’s fishing-ground. That’s the yarn about the mountain as I heard
+it.”
+
+
+Illustration: In The Shadow Of The Katahdin.
+
+
+“Ain’t it a’most time for us to be gittin’ down from this Horseback,
+Doc?” asked Joe, who had been listening with the others. “I thought
+we’d reach the farm you’re heading for to-night, but we’re half a dozen
+miles off it yet; and we can’t do more’n another mile or two afore
+it’ll be time to halt and make camp. There’s some pretty bad travelling
+and a plaguy bit of swamp ahead.”
+
+“I guess you’re about right, Joe,” said Doc, rising with alacrity from
+the stone where he had seated himself while telling his yarn.
+
+Joe’s bad travelling meant a great deal of tripping and floundering
+through soft mud and mire, with slippery moss-stones sandwiched in, and
+dwarfed bushes which ran along the ground, and twisted themselves in an
+almost impassable tangle. These had a knack of catching a fellow’s
+feet, and causing him to sprawl forward on his face and hands,
+whereupon his knapsack would hit him an astounding thwack on the back.
+
+After three-quarters of an hour of this fun, very muddy, clammy with
+perspiration, and thoroughly winded, the party reached firmer ground,
+and the guides called a halt.
+
+“Guess we’d better rest a bit,” said Joe, “afore we go farther. There’s
+nothing in forest travelling that’ll take the breath out of a man like
+crossing a swamp,” eying compassionately the city folk; for he himself
+was as “fit” as when he started. “Then we’d better follow that stream
+till we strike a good place for a camping-ground. What say, Doc?”
+
+Dr. Phil, as captain, signified his assent. After a short
+breathing-spell he again gave the command, “Forward!” And his company
+pushed on into the woods, following the course of a dark stream which
+had gurgled through the swamp.
+
+“There used to be an old beaver-dam somewheres about here,” broke forth
+Joe presently, when they had made about a quarter of a mile, the
+younger guide taking the lead, for he was evidently more at home in
+this part of the forest land than his senior, Uncle Eb. “Hullo, now!
+there it is. Look, gentlemen!”
+
+He pointed to a curved bank of brushwood, mostly alder branches, piled
+together in curious topsyturvy fashion, which formed a dam across the
+stream. It bristled with sticks, poking out and up in every direction;
+for the bushy ends of the boughs had been heavily plastered with mud
+and stones, to keep them down.
+
+“That a beaver-dam!” gasped Neal in amazement. “Why, I always had an
+idea that beavers were half human in intelligence, and wove their
+branches in and out in a sort of neat basketwork when making dams.
+That’s a funny rough-and-tumble looking old pile.”
+
+“It’s a good water-tight dam, for all that,” answered Cyrus. “And don’t
+you begin to underrate Mr. Beaver’s intelligence until you see more of
+his works. I’ve torn the bottom out of a dam like this on a cold, rainy
+night,—beavers like rainy nights for work,—and then hidden myself in
+some bushes to watch the result. It was a trial of strength and
+patience, I assure you, to remain there for six mortal hours,—though I
+had rubber overalls on,—with wet twigs and leaves slapping my face. But
+the sight I saw was more wonderful than anything I could have imagined.
+There was a cloudy, watery moon; and shortly after it rose, five
+beavers appeared upon the dam, scrambling up and down, and examining
+the great hole through which the water was fast leaking out of their
+pond. Then, following a big fellow, who was evidently the boss beaver,
+they swam to the bank. He stationed himself near a tree about twenty
+inches in circumference, and his four boys at once started to fell it.
+I tell you they worked like hustlers, each one sawing on it in turn
+with his sharp teeth, and sometimes two of them together on different
+parts of the trunk.
+
+“At last the tree—it was an ash—fell, toppling into the water just
+where the beavers wanted it. They pushed and tugged it down-stream for
+about ten yards, to the dam, and propped it against the opening which I
+had made. I couldn’t see the rest of the operations clearly; but I
+caught glimpses of them, marching about on their hind-legs, carrying
+mud snug up to their chins like this,” here Cyrus folded his arms
+across his chest. “And before daybreak that dam was perfectly repaired,
+with never a leak in it.
+
+“You know they build the dams in very shallow water, only a few inches
+deep; and they generally roll in a couple of long logs for a solid
+foundation. It was one of these which I had torn out. Now, Neal, what
+do you say about the beaver’s intelligence?”
+
+“If I didn’t know you, Cyrus, I’d say you were making up as you went
+along,” answered Neal. “It seems one of those things which a fellow can
+scarcely believe in. Hulloa! What’s that?”
+
+A loud report, like the bang of a gun, made all the boys, who had been
+standing very quietly, gazing at the dam, suddenly jump.
+
+“It’s only a beaver striking the water with his tail,” laughed Cyrus.
+“He has been swimming about somewhere up-stream, and has scented us,
+and dived. I have heard one do that a dozen times in the night, if he
+detected the presence of man; but it’s very unusual in the daytime, for
+they rarely venture out in broad light. In diving, if suddenly alarmed,
+they strike the surface of the water a tremendous whack with their
+tails, as a signal of alarm, making this report, which in still weather
+resounds for a great distance.
+
+“I’m very glad you heard it, boys; for your chances of seeing the
+master beaver or any of his colony are mighty slim. But we’ll probably
+come on their lodge a little higher up.”
+
+Above the shallow water where the dam was built, the stream widened
+into a broad, deep pool. About fifty yards ahead, in the centre of
+this, was a tiny island. On its extreme edge Joe pointed out the beaver
+lodge. It was shaped something like a huge beehive, being about a dozen
+feet in diameter and five feet high. The outside seemed to be entirely
+covered with mud and fibrous roots, through which the sticks which
+formed its framework poked out here and there.
+
+“The doors are all underwater,” said Cyrus, “and so far down that
+they’ll be beneath the ice when the stream freezes in winter. Otherwise
+the beavers could not reach their pile of food-wood, which they keep at
+the bottom, and would starve to death. They are clerks of the weather,
+if you like. They seem to know when the first hard frost is coming, and
+sink their stores a day or two before. Man has not yet discovered their
+mysterious knack of sinking wood, and keeping it stationary through
+many months.
+
+“They feed on the inner bark of poplar, white birch, and willow trees.
+In autumn they fell these along the banks, generally so that they will
+fall into the water, tug and push them down-stream, and float them near
+to their lodges. If the trees are too big to be easily handled, they
+saw them into convenient lengths.”
+
+“I call it tough luck, not being able to get a sight of the animals,
+after seeing so much of their works,” grumbled Royal.
+
+“Ye might wait here till midnight, and not have any better,” said Joe.
+“That fellow’s tail was like a fire-alarm to them. They ain’t to home
+now, you bet! They’ve dusted out of their house as if it was on fire;
+and they’ve either dived to the bottom, or hidden themselves in holes
+along the bank. Guess we’d better be moving on. It’s a’most time to
+think about making camp.”
+
+“The beavers have been working here!” exclaimed the guide a few minutes
+later, as he strode ahead. “These white birches were felled by ’em; and
+a dandy job they did too.”
+
+He pointed to two slim birches which lay prone with their tops in the
+water, and to a third, the trunk of which was partly sawn through in
+more than one place. The ground was strewn with little clippings of
+timber, bearing the saw-marks of the beavers’ teeth. The boys gathered
+them up as curiosities.
+
+“Oh, the skilful little animals can beat this work by long odds!”
+exclaimed Doc. “These trunks only measure from eight to twelve inches
+in circumference. I’ve seen a tree fully two feet round which was
+felled by them. Say, Joe! don’t you think we’d better camp to-night
+somewhere on the _brûlée?_”
+
+“Just what I’m planning, Doc,” answered Joe. “We must be pretty near it
+now.”
+
+A few minutes afterwards the party filed out of the dense woods, passed
+through a grove of young spruces, forded a brook which emptied itself
+into the stream they were following, and came upon a scene blasted,
+barren, and unutterably dreary.
+
+The band of boys, who, in spite of swamps and jungles, had learned to
+love the forest dearly, for its many beauties, and for the wild
+offspring with which it teemed, sorrowfully gasped, as if they saw the
+skeleton of a friend.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XII. “Go It, Old Bruin!”
+
+
+Before them lay a ruined tract of country, extending northward farther
+than eye could reach. It is called by Maine woodsmen a _brûlée_, name
+borrowed from their French-Canadian neighbors, who dwell across the
+boundary line which separates the Dominion from the United States.
+
+The word signifies “burnt tract;” but it gives a feeble idea of the
+fire-smitten, blackened region on which the lads looked.
+
+The forest until now had been a wilderness truly, but a wilderness
+where every kind and size of growth, from the giant pine to the
+creeping wintergreen and shaded mosses, mingled in beautiful confusion.
+Here it became a desert. For the terrible forest fires, the woodsman’s
+tragic enemy, had swept over it not long before, devastating an area of
+many square miles. Millions of dollars worth of valuable timber had
+been reduced to rotting embers. Storm-defying pines had crashed to the
+earth, and were overridden by the flames in their wild rush onward.
+Sometimes only a smutty stump showed where they had stood; sometimes,
+robbed of life and every limb, portions of the fire-eaten trunks still
+remained erect,—bare, blackened poles. All smaller growth, and even the
+surface of the ground, parched by summer heats, had burned like tinder.
+Rocks and stones were baked and crumbling.
+
+“Boys, that’s the most mournful sight a woodsman can see,” said Doc,
+looking away over the wrecked region, touched with golden lights from
+an October sunset. “It makes one who loves the woods feel as if he had
+lost a living friend.”
+
+“Well, ’tain’t no manner o’ use to fret over it,” declared Joe
+energetically. “Nature don’t waste time in fretting, you bet! She
+starts in and tries to cover the stripped ground, as if she was sort of
+ashamed to have it seen.”
+
+The guide pointed earthward. At his feet a dwarfed growth of blueberry
+bushes and tiny trees was already springing up to screen the unsightly,
+ash-strewn land.
+
+“True enough, Joe! Nature is a grand one for remedies,” answered the
+doctor. “Still, it will be half a century or more before she can raise
+a timber growth here again. Hulloa! Dol, what are you fellows up to?”
+
+While his elders were studying the _brûlée_, Dol, who objected to
+dreary sights, had marched down to the brink of the stream, accompanied
+by Royal’s young brothers, Will and Martin Sinclair. The little river
+gurgled and frisked along beside the burnt tract, like a line of life
+bordering death. It seemed to the boys to prattle about its victory
+over the flames when it stopped their sweeping course, so that the
+woods on its opposite bank were uninjured, as were those beyond the
+brook in the rear.
+
+“We’re studying the ways of the great sea-serpent!” shouted back Dol,
+who was splashing about in a sedgy pool.
+
+By and by when the guides had finished their work of making camp, when
+they had pitched the tents, cut boughs for beds and fuel in the spruce
+grove behind, and were cooking an odorous supper, the three juveniles
+came slowly towards the camp-fire from the water.
+
+“What on earth have you got there, young one?” asked Dr. Phil; for
+Adolphus Farrar was bareheaded, and carried his hat very gingerly, with
+its corners clutched together to form a bag.
+
+“The big sea-serpent himself,” answered Dol mysteriously.
+
+Of a sudden he opened his dripping hat, and spilled out a small
+water-snake, about ten inches long, upon the doctor’s lap.
+
+There was a great roar of laughter, in which Dol’s abettors, Will and
+Martin, joined with cheerful shouts. The little joke had the effect of
+winning everybody’s thoughts from roaring flames, wrecked forests, and
+the dreary _brûlée_. Uncle Eb killed the snake, maintaining that
+water-snakes were “plaguy p’isonous,” while Cyrus scouted the idea. The
+supper that evening was a merry enough meal. The camp, lit by the ruddy
+glow from its great fire, looked an oasis of light, warmth, and jollity
+in the black and burnt desert.
+
+The darky, hearing Cyrus declare that he was fearfully hungry, mixed
+some flapjacks to form a second course, after the venison steaks and
+potatoes. He had exhausted his stock of maple sugar, but he produced a
+small wooden keg of the apparently inexhaustible molasses.
+
+“He! he! he! Dat jest touches de spot, don’t it?” he chuckled, when,
+having carefully served each member of the party, he seated himself
+about three feet from the camp-fire, with a round dozen of the thin
+cakes for his own eating.
+
+He coated them with the thick molasses, and set the keg down side by
+side with a bag of potatoes which had been brought from the settlement.
+
+There these provisions remained when, earlier than usual, the party
+turned in, and stretched their tired limbs to rest, lying down, as they
+had done before when sleeping under canvas, with all their garments on
+save coats and moccasins. Whether Uncle Eb forgot his “m’lasses,” or
+whether he purposely left it without, there not being a spare inch of
+room in the small tents, no one then or afterwards inquired.
+
+As a result of the jolly intimacy that had sprung up between the two
+companies during the few days when they had all things in common, the
+boys disposed of themselves for the night as they pleased. Neal turned
+in with the doctor, Royal, and Joe, the four stretching themselves on
+the evergreen boughs, with their feet to the opening of the tent, and
+their rifles and ammunition within reach. Of course the Winchesters
+were empty, it being a strict rule that firearms should not be brought
+into camp loaded.
+
+The younger Sinclairs, with Cyrus, Dol, and Uncle Eb, occupied the
+other tent.
+
+It seemed to Neal that he had hardly slept one hour,—probably it was
+nearer to three,—during which time he had been dreaming with vague
+foreshadowings of the final and crowning sport of the trip, the grand
+moose-stalking, and of Herb Heal, the mighty hunter, when he was
+awakened by a shrill scream just outside the canvas. He started, with
+his heart going whackety-whack. The cry was sudden and intensely
+startling, appearing twice as loud as it really was when it broke the
+pathetic stillness of the _brûlée_, where not a tree rustled or twig
+snapped, and the night wind only sighed faintly and fitfully through
+the newly springing growth.
+
+Again sounded that startling screech; and yet again, making a dreary,
+piercing din.
+
+“By all that’s funny! it’s another coon,” gasped Neal; and he gently
+pinched the shoulder of Joe, who lay on his left.
+
+“Joe!” he whispered. “Wake up! There’s a raccoon just outside the tent.
+I heard his cry.”
+
+The guide was awake and alert in an instant. So, too, was Dr. Phil.
+
+“What’s up, boys?” asked the latter, hearing a murmur.
+
+“There’s a coon close by,” said Neal again. “Listen to him!”
+
+Even while he spoke, young Farrar caught sight of two feathered things
+hopping along the avenue of light which lay between him and the
+camp-fire, the red flare of the flames mingling with the white radiance
+of a cloudless moon. At the same time the screech sounded and
+resounded.
+
+“Coon!” exclaimed Joe derisively. “That’s no coon. It’s only a little
+owl. Bless ye! I’ve had five or six of ’em come right into this tent of
+a night, and ding away at me till I had to talk to ’em with the rifle
+to scare ’em off. I’ll give ’em a dose o’ lead now if they don’t scoot
+mighty quick; that’ll stop their song an’ dance.”
+
+“Their cry is pretty much like a raccoon’s, Neal,” said Doc. “Only it’s
+a great deal weaker. Lie down, boy. Go to sleep, and don’t mind them.”
+
+The owls perhaps apprehended danger. At all events, they were silent
+for a while; and in three minutes each occupant of the tent was fast
+asleep again, with the exception of Neal. The sharp awakening had upset
+his nerves a bit. He obeyed the doctor, and hugged his blankets round
+him, hoping sleep would return; but he lay with eyes narrowed into two
+slits, peeping at the ruddy camp-fire, involuntarily listening for the
+screeching of the birds, and wishing that he had not been such a
+greenhorn as to disturb his comrades for nothing. Royal, who lay on his
+right, was of a less excitable temperament. Although he had been
+awakened, he was now snoring lustily, insomnia being a rare affliction
+in camps.
+
+“What’s that?”
+
+About half an hour had passed when Neal Farrar suddenly and sharply
+rapped out these words close to Joe’s ear. He felt certain that he
+would not now bring upon him the woodsman’s good-natured scorn for
+making a disturbance about nothing. A heavy, stealthy tread, as of some
+big animal, was crushing the pygmy bushes near the tent. Immediately
+afterwards he saw an uncouth black shape in the lane of light between
+himself and the fire. It disappeared while his heart was giving one
+jump, and he heard a dull, mumbling noise, such as a pig might make
+when rooting amid rubbish, varied with an occasional low growl.
+
+Joe was already awake. His hunter’s instinct told him that something
+truly exciting was on now.
+
+“My cracky! I b’lieve it’s a bear!” he muttered, forming his words away
+down in his throat, so that Neal only caught the last one. “Keep still
+as death!”
+
+The guide reached out a long arm, and clutched his rifle. Hurriedly he
+jammed half a dozen cartridges into its magazine. Then lightly and
+silently, as if he was made of cork, he got upon his feet, and bounded
+out of the tent, Neal copying his actions nimbly and noiselessly as he
+could; though, in his excitement, he only succeeded in getting two
+cartridges into his Winchester.
+
+Royal’s snoring ceased. Doc’s eager question, “What’s up now, boys?”
+reached the two just as they quitted shelter, and passed into the broad
+moonlight, crossed with red gleams from their fire.
+
+“A bear!” yelled Joe in answer, his rifle and he breaking silence
+together.
+
+Three times the Winchester sharply cracked.
+
+Then with a mad “Halloo!” the guide seized a flaming stick from the
+fire, and, swinging it above his head, started after the big black
+animal of which Neal had caught a glimpse before. He now saw it plainly
+as, already fifty yards ahead, it made off at a plunging gallop across
+the moonlit _brûlée_.
+
+Young Farrar had been the champion runner of his school, and he blessed
+his trained legs for giving him a prominent part in the wild chase that
+followed. Still imitating the woodsman, he pulled another half-lighted
+stick from the camp-fire, and waved it in a frenzy of excitement, while
+he ran like a buck at Joe’s side.
+
+“Tumble out! Tumble out, boys! A bear! A bear!” now rang from one tent
+to another.
+
+In two minutes every camper, in his stocking feet, just as he had risen
+from his bed, was tearing across the _brûlée_ in the wake of Bruin,
+yelling, leaping, and swinging smouldering firebrands.
+
+It was a scene and a chase such as the boys, in their most far-fetched
+dreams, had never pictured,—the white moonlight glimmering on the black
+stumps and tottering trunks of the ruined tract, the hunted bear
+plunging off among them, frightened by the shouting and the lights, the
+heavy, lumbering gallop enabling it at first to distance its pursuers.
+
+Owing to their fleetness and the odds they had at the start, the guide
+and Neal kept far ahead of their comrades. The noise which Bruin made
+as he lumbered over the pygmy growth, and the charred, rotting timber
+that littered the ground beneath it, were quiet enough to guide Joe
+unerringly in the bear’s wake, even when that bulky shape was not
+distinguishable.
+
+“What’s this?” screeched the woodsman suddenly, as he stumbled upon
+something at his feet. “By gracious! it’s our keg of m’lasses. He made
+off with that, and has dropped it out o’ sheer fright, or because he’s
+weakening. I know I hit him twice when I fired; but he’s not hurt too
+badly to run, or to fight like a fiend if we come to close quarters.
+Like as not ’twill be a narrow squeak with us if we tackle him. If
+you’re scared a little bit, Neal, let up, an’ I’ll finish him alone.”
+
+“Scared!” Neal flung the word back with scorn, as if he was returning a
+blow. For the life of him he could not bring out another syllable,
+going at a faster rate than ever he had done in the most stubbornly
+contested handicap. The strong-winded guide rapped out his sentences as
+he ran, apparently without waste of breath.
+
+The feverish enthusiasm of the hunter, which he had never felt before,
+was now alive in Neal. His blood raced through his veins like liquid
+fire. He had been long enough in Maine to know that in wreaking
+vengeance on Bruin for many misdeeds he would be acting in the
+interests of justice. For the black bear is still such a master pest to
+the settlers who are trying to establish their farms amid the forests
+where it roams, that the State has outlawed the beast, and pays a
+bounty for its skin.
+
+Joe thought little about this; for a gentleman whom he had guided early
+in the summer had lately written to him, offering a price of fifteen
+dollars for a good bearskin.
+
+Here was the woodsman’s golden opportunity—an opportunity for which he
+had been thirsting since the receipt of that letter.
+
+
+Illustration: “Go It, Old Bruin! Go It While You Can!”
+
+
+He already regarded his triumph over the bear as secure, and its hide
+as forfeited. He nearly caused Neal Farrar to burst a blood-vessel from
+the combined effects of struggling laughter and running, when he began
+to apostrophize the flying foe with grim humor, thus:—
+
+“Go it, old Bruin! Go it while ye can! There ain’t a hair on yer back
+that b’longs to ye!”
+
+But it soon became evident that the bear couldn’t go on much longer at
+this breakneck pace. Its pursuers heard its steps with increasing
+distinctness, and then its labored breathing. They were gaining on it
+fast.
+
+The brute came into full view about forty yards ahead, as it ascended a
+slight elevation, crowned with blasted tree trunks.
+
+“I’ll draw bead on him from here,” said Joe, stopping short. “Get ready
+to fire, lad, if he turns. It’ll take lots o’ lead to finish that
+fellow.”
+
+Twice Joe’s rifle spoke again. One shot took effect. There was a
+fearful growl from the beast, but it was not yet mortally wounded.
+
+Maddened and desperate, it wheeled about, and came straight for its
+pursuers. Again the guide fired. Still the bear advanced, gnashing its
+teeth and mumbling horribly; Neal saw its black shape not thirty yards
+from him.
+
+“Shoot! shoot, boy!” screamed Joe. “Or give me your rifle. I haven’t
+got a charge left!”
+
+For half a minute Farrar shook all over as with ague. His nostrils felt
+choked. His mouth was wide open in his efforts to breathe. His heart
+pounded like a sledge-hammer. With that mumbling brute advancing upon
+him, he felt as if he couldn’t fire so as to hit a haystack or a flock
+of hens at a barn-door.
+
+Then, suddenly, he was cool again, seeing and hearing with
+extraordinary clearness. The ignominious alternative of giving his
+rifle to Joe produced a revulsion. His fingers were on the trigger, his
+left hand firmly gripped the barrel of his Winchester; he brought it to
+his shoulder.
+
+“Aim low! Try to hit him in the front of the neck where it joins the
+body,” said Joe, in tones sharp as a razor, which cut his meaning into
+Neal’s brain.
+
+Bruin was only fifteen yards away when Farrar’s rifle cracked
+once—twice—sending out its messengers of death.
+
+There was a last terrible growl, a plunge, and a thud which seemed to
+shake the ground under Neal’s feet. As the smoke of his shots cleared
+away, Joe beheld him leaning on his
+rifle, with a face which in the moonlight looked white as chalk, and
+the bear lying where it had fallen headlong towards him. It made a
+desperate struggle to regain its feet, then rolled on its side, dead.
+
+One bullet had pierced the spot which Joe mentioned, and had passed
+through the region of the heart.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIII. “The Skin Is Yours.”
+
+
+A regular war-dance was performed about the slain marauder by the young
+Sinclairs and Dol Farrar, when these laggards in the chase reached the
+spot where he fell. The firebrands had all died out before the enemy
+turned; but in the white moon-radiance the bear was seen to be a big
+one, with an uncommonly fine skin.
+
+Neal took no part in the triumphal capers. He still leaned upon his
+rifle, his breath coming in gusty puffs through his nostrils and mouth.
+Not alone the desperate sensations of those moments when he had faced
+the gnashing, mumbling brute, but the unexpected success of his first
+shot at big game, had unhinged him. By his endurance in the chase, by
+the pluck with which he stood up to the bear, above all, by his being
+able, as Joe phrased it, to “take a sure pull on the beast at a
+paralyzing moment,” he had eternally justified his right to the title
+of sportsman in the eyes of the natives. The guides, Joe and Eb, were
+not slow in telling him that he had behaved from start to finish like
+no “greenhorn,” but a regular “old sport.”
+
+“My cracky! ’twas lucky for me that you had game blood in you, which
+showed up,” exclaimed Joe, catching the boy’s arm in a friendly grip,
+with an odd respect in his touch, which marked the admission of young
+Farrar into the brotherhood of hunters. “I hadn’t a charge left, an’
+not even my hunting-knife. Lots o’ city swells ’u’d have been plumb
+scared before a growler like that,”—touching Bruin’s carcass with his
+foot,—“even if they had a small arsenal to back ’em up. They’d have
+dropped rifle and cartridges, and hugged the nearest trunk. I’ve seen
+fellers do it scores o’ times, bless ye! after they came out here
+rigged up in sporting-book style, talking fire about hunting bears and
+moose. But that was all the fire there was to ’em.”
+
+Yet Neal’s triumph over the poor brute, which had raced well for its
+life, was not without a faint twinge of pain; and he was too manly to
+look on this as a weakness. A sportsman he might be, of the sort who
+can shoot straight when necessity demands it, but never of that class
+who prowl through the forests with fingers tingling to pull the
+trigger, dreading to lose a chance of “letting blood” from any
+slim-legged moose or velvet-nosed buck which may run their way. It
+needed Doc’s praise to make him feel fully satisfied with his deed.
+
+“It was a crack shot, boy,” said the doctor proudly. “And I guess the
+farmer at the next settlement will feel like giving you a medal for it.
+Old Bruin has only got what he gave to every creature he could master.”
+
+There being no tree conveniently near to which they could string up the
+dead bear, the guides decided to leave the ugly matter of skinning and
+dissecting him for morning light. The excited party returned to camp,
+but not to sleep. They built up their scattered fire, squatted round
+it, and discoursed of the night’s adventure until a clear dawn-gleam
+brightened the eastern sky. Then Uncle Eb and Joe started out again
+across the _brûlée_. They reappeared before breakfast-time, bringing
+Bruin’s skin and a goodly portion of his meat.
+
+Joe laid the hide at Neal’s feet.
+
+“There, boy,” he said, “the skin is yours. It belongs rightly to the
+man who killed the bear; and I guess the brute wasn’t mortally hurt at
+all till your bullet nipped him in the neck.”
+
+“But what about the fifteen dollars from that New York man, Joe? You’ll
+lose it,” faltered young Farrar, with a triumphant heart-leap at the
+thought of taking this trophy back to England, but loath to profit by
+the woodsman’s generosity.
+
+“Don’t you bother about that; let it go,” answered Joe, whose business
+of guiding was profitable enough for him. “’Tain’t enough for the skin,
+anyhow. Nary a finer one has been taken out o’ Maine in the last five
+years; and mighty lucky you Britishers were to git a chance of a
+bear-hunt at all. Old Bruin must have been powerful hungry to come
+around our camp.”
+
+There was a grand breakfast before the travellers broke camp that
+morning. The guides and Doc—who had got accustomed to the luxury during
+visits to settlers and lumber-camps—feasted off bear-steaks. Cyrus and
+the boys, American and English, declined to touch it. The whole
+appearance of Bruin as he lay stretched on the ground the night before
+made their “department of the interior” revolt against it.
+
+When a start was made for the settlement, Joe bundled up the skin, and,
+as a tribute of respect to Neal’s “game blood,” carried it, in addition
+to his heavy pack, for a distance of four miles over the desolate
+_brûlée_ and across a soft, miry bog. On reaching the farm clearing, he
+cut the stem of a tall cedar bush, which he bent into the shape of a
+hoop, binding the ends together with cedar bark. He then pricked holes
+all around the edges of the hide with the sharp point of his
+hunting-knife, stretched it to its full extent, and fastened it to the
+hoop, which he hung up to a tree near the settler’s cabin, telling Neal
+that in a few days it would be dry enough to pack away in a bag.
+
+But as it was a cumbersome article to carry while tramping a dozen
+miles farther to the camp on Millinokett Lake, the farmer offered to
+take charge of it for its owner until he passed that way again on his
+return journey; an offer which Neal thankfully accepted. The old
+backwoodsman was, truth to tell, delighted to see hanging up near his
+cabin door the skin of an enemy who had ofttimes plundered him so
+unmercifully.
+
+He made the travellers royally welcome, let them have the roomy kitchen
+of his log shanty to sleep in, with a soft bed of hay. Here he lay with
+them, while his wife and sickly little girl occupied an adjoining space
+about twelve feet square, which had been boarded off. This was all the
+accommodation the log home afforded.
+
+The forest child was a puzzle to the lads. To them she looked as if the
+soul of a grandmother had taken possession of a thin, long-limbed body
+which ought to belong to a girl of ten. Her pinched features and
+over-wise eyes told a tale of suffering, and so did her high-pitched,
+quivering voice, as it made elfishly sharp remarks about the boys until
+they blenched before her.
+
+This was the little one of whom the doctor had said “that she fretted
+if he did not come to see her once in a while.” And with Doc she was a
+different being. Her voice softened, her eyes became childlike, and
+thin tinkles of laughter broke from her as she clung to him, and
+received certain presents of medicines and picture-books which he had
+brought for her in a corner of his knapsack.
+
+For two nights the travellers slept in a row on their hay bed; for two
+long-remembered days the five boys roamed the country round the
+clearing, starting deer, catching glimpses of a wildcat, a marten or
+two, and of another coon. Then came, to use Dol’s expression, “the
+beastly nuisance of saying good-by.”
+
+Dr. Phil was obliged to return to Greenville; and he declared that now
+he must surely start his nephews homeward, for Royal expected to
+graduate from the High School during the following year, and to let him
+waste more time from study would be questionable kindness. Joe Flint of
+course would go back with his party. And here Cyrus paid Uncle Eb’s
+fees for guiding, and dismissed him too.
+
+Only a dozen miles of tolerably easy travelling now separated Garst and
+his English comrades from the camp on Millinokett Lake, where they were
+to meet the redoubtable Herb Heal. The settler, knowing this tract of
+country as thoroughly as he knew his own few fields, offered to lead
+our trio for the first half of their onward march; and as they could
+follow a plain trail for the remainder of the
+way, they had no further need of their guide’s services. They promised
+to visit Eb at his bark hut on their return journey, to bid him a final
+farewell, and hear one more stave of:—
+
+“Ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!”
+
+
+“Good-by, you lucky fellows!” said Royal Sinclair huskily, as he
+gripped Neal’s hand, then Dol’s, in a brotherly squeeze when the hour
+of parting came. “I wish I was going on with you. We’ve had a stunning
+good time together, haven’t we? And we’ll run across each other in
+these woods some time or other again, I know! You’ll never feel
+satisfied to stay in England, where there’s nothing to hunt but hares
+and foxes, after chasing bears and moose.”
+
+“Oh! we’ll come out here again, depend upon it,” answered Neal. “Drop
+me a line occasionally, won’t you, Roy? Here’s our Manchester address.”
+
+“I will, if you’ll do the same.”
+
+“Agreed. Good-by again, old fellow!”
+
+“I’ve got the slip of birch-bark and the horn safe in my knapsack,
+Doc,” Dol was saying meanwhile, feeling his eyes getting leaky as he
+bade farewell to the doctor. “I—I’ll keep them as long as I live.”
+
+Doctor Phil had been as good as his word. He had made Joe rip the slip
+of white bark, with the rude writing on it, off the pine-tree near the
+swamp, and had presented it to Dol ere the boy quitted his camp.
+
+“Well, confusion to partings anyhow!” broke in Joe. “Don’t like ’em a
+bit. Hope you’ll get that bear-skin safe to England, Neal. When you
+show it to your folks at home, tell ’em Joe Flint said he knew one
+Britisher who would make a woodsman if he got a chance. Don’t you
+forgit it.”
+
+“Good-by,” said the doctor, as he clasped in turn the hands of the
+departing three. “Good luck to you, boys! Keep your souls as straight
+as your bodies, and you’ll be a trio worth knowing. We’ll meet again
+some day; I’m sure of it.”
+
+Martin and Will were chirping farewells, and lamenting that they would
+have no more chances of studying water-snakes in sedgy pools with Dol.
+Amid cheers and waving of hats the campers separated.
+
+“Forward, Company Three!” cried Cyrus encouragingly, stepping briskly
+ahead, his comrades following. “Now for a sight of the ‘Jabberwock’ of
+the forest, the mighty moose. Hurrah for the wild woods and all
+woodsmen!”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIV. A Lucky Hunter
+
+
+Amid cracking of jokes, and noise which would have disgraced a squad of
+Indians, “Company Three,” as Cyrus dubbed his reduced band, reached the
+crowning-point of their journey, the log camp on the shore of
+Millinokett Lake.
+
+During the first half-dozen miles of the way, though each one manfully
+did his best to be lively, a sense of loss made their fun flat and
+pointless. Royal’s tear-away tongue, his brothers’ racket, Joe’s racy
+talk, Uncle Eb’s kind, dark face, and more than all, Doc’s
+companionship, which was as tonic to the hearts of those who travelled
+with him, were missed.
+
+But spirits must be elastic in forest air. When they halted at noon to
+eat their “snack” on the side of a breezy knoll, with a tiny brook
+purling through a pine grove beneath them, with Katahdin’s rugged sides
+and cloud-veiled peaks looming in majesty to the north, the thought of
+what lay behind was inevitably lost in what lay before. Enthusiasm
+replaced depression.
+
+“It’s no use grizzling because we can’t have those fellows with us all
+the time,” remarked Neal philosophically. “’Twas a big piece of luck
+our running against them at all. And I’ve a sort of feeling that this
+won’t be the end of it; we’ll come across them again some day or
+other.”
+
+“And at all events we’ll probably get a sight of Doc at Greenville as
+we go back,” said Dol, to whom this was no small comfort.
+
+“Well, needless to say, I’d have been glad of their company for the
+rest of the trip. But still, if they had taken a notion to come on with
+us, it would have reduced to nothing our chances of seeing a moose.
+We’re a big party already for moose-calling or stalking—three of us,
+with Herb;” this from Cyrus.
+
+“Now, fellows, don’t you think we’d better get a move on us?” added the
+leader. “We’ve half a dozen miles to do yet; but the trail begins right
+here, and is clearly blazed all the way to our camp. Let’s keep a stiff
+upper lip, and the journey will soon be over.”
+
+It was very delightful to sit there in the crisp October air, with the
+brook seemingly humming tender legends of the woods, which witless men
+could not translate, with an uncertain breeze playing through the newly
+fallen maple-leaves, now turning them one by one in lazy curiosity,
+then of a sudden making them caper and swirl in a scarlet
+merry-go-round. Still, the young Farrars were not loath to move on. Now
+that they were nearing the climax of their journey, their minds were
+full of Herb Heal. Their longing to meet this lucky hunter grew with
+each mile which drew them nearer to him.
+
+They pressed hard after their leader, looking neither right nor left,
+while he carefully followed the trail; and one hour’s tramping brought
+them to the shores of Millinokett Lake.
+
+Here, despite their eagerness to reach their new camp, they were forced
+to stop and admire the great sheet of forest-bound water, smiling back
+the sky in tints of turquoise and pearl, dotted with apparently
+countless islets, like specks upon the face of a mirror.
+
+The irregular shores of the lake were broken by “logons,” narrow little
+bays curving into the land, shining arms of water, sometimes bordered
+by evergreens, sometimes by graceful poplars and birches. From the
+opposite bank the woods stretched away in undulating waves of ridge and
+valley to the foot of Mount Katahdin, which still showed grandly to the
+northward.
+
+“Millinokett Lake,” said Cyrus, prolonging the syllables with a soft,
+liquid sound. “It’s an Indian name, boys; it signifies ‘Lake of
+Islands.’ Whatever else the red men can boast of, the music of their
+names is unequalled. I don’t know exactly how many of those islets
+there are, but I believe Millinokett has over two hundred of them
+anyhow. Our camp is on the western shore. Shall we be moving?”
+
+After skirting the water for another mile or two, the travellers
+reached a broad, open tract, bare of timber. At the farther end of this
+clearing were two log cabins, low, but very roomy, situated at a
+distance of a few hundred yards from the lake, with a background of
+splendid firs and spruces, the lively green of the latter making the
+former look black in contrast.
+
+“Is that our camp? How perfectly glorious!” boomed Neal and Dol
+together.
+
+“It’s our camp, sure enough,” answered Garst, with no less enthusiasm.
+“At least the first cabin will be ours. I don’t know whether there are
+any hunters in the other one just now.”
+
+The log shanties had been put up by an enterprising settler to
+accommodate sportsmen who might penetrate to this far part of the wilds
+in search of moose or caribou. Cyrus had arranged for the use of one
+during the months of October and November. Here it was that Herb Heal
+had engaged to await him. And as he had commissioned this famous guide
+to stock the camp with all such provisions as could be procured from
+neighboring settlements, such as flour, potatoes, pork, etc., he
+expected to slide into the lap of luxury.
+
+In one sense he did. When the trio, their hearts thumping with
+anticipation, reached the low door of the first cabin, they found it
+securely fastened on the outside, so that no burglar-beast could force
+an entrance, but easily opened by man. Cyrus hurriedly undid the bolts,
+and stepped under the log roof, followed by his comrades. The camp was
+in beautiful order, clean, well-stocked, and provided with primitive
+comforts. An enticing-looking bed of fresh fir-boughs was arranged in a
+sort of rude bunk which extended along one side of the cabin, having a
+head-board and foot-board. The latter was fitted to form a bench as
+well. A man might perch on it, and stretch his toes to the fire in the
+great stone fireplace only two feet distant.
+
+The boys could well imagine that this would make an ideal seat for a
+hunter at night, where he might lazily fill his pipe and tell big
+yarns, while the winter storm howled outside, and snow-flurries drifted
+against his log walls. But they looked at it wistfully now, for it was
+empty. There was no figure of a moccasined forest hero on bench or in
+bunk. There was no Herb Heal.
+
+“Bless the fellow! Where on earth is he?” Garst exclaimed. “He’s been
+here, you see, and has the camp provisioned and ready. Perhaps he’s
+only prowling about in the woods near. I’ll give him a ‘Coo-hoo!’”
+
+
+Illustration: “Herb Heal.”
+
+
+He stepped forth from the cabin to the middle of the clearing, and sent
+his voice ringing out in a distance-piercing hail. He loaded his rifle
+and blazed away with it, firing a volley of signal-shots.
+
+Neither shout nor shots brought him any answer.
+
+The second cabin was likewise empty, and, judging from the withered
+remains of a bed, had evidently been long unused.
+
+“Well, fellows!” said the leader, with manifest chagrin, “we’ll only
+have to fix up something to eat, make ourselves comfortable, and wait
+patiently until our guide puts in an appearance. Herb Heal never broke
+an engagement yet. He’s as faithful a fellow as ever made camp or
+spotted a trail in these forests. And he promised to wait for me here
+from the first of October, as it was uncertain when I might arrive. I’m
+mighty hungry. Who’ll go and fetch some water from the lake while I
+turn cook?”
+
+Dol volunteered for this business, and brought a kettle from the cabin.
+He found it near the hearth, on which a fire still flickered, side by
+side with a frying-pan and various articles of tinware. Cyrus rolled up
+his sleeves, took the canisters of tea and coffee with other small
+stores from his knapsack, proceeded to mix a batter for flapjacks, and
+showed himself to be a genius with the pan.
+
+The meal was soon ready. The food might be a little salt and greasy;
+but camp-hunger, after a tramp of a dozen miles, is not dulled by such
+trifles. The trio ate joyously, washing the fare down with big draughts
+of tea, rather fussily prepared by Neal, which might have “done credit
+to many a Boston woman’s afternoon tea-table”—so young Garst said.
+
+Yet from time to time longing looks were cast at the low camp-door. And
+when daylight waned, when stars began to glint in a sky which was a
+mixture of soft grays and downy whites like a dove’s plumage, when the
+islets on Millinokett’s bosom became black dots on a slate-gray sheet,
+and no laden hunter with rifle and game put in an appearance, even
+Cyrus became fidgety and anxious.
+
+“I hope the fellow hasn’t come to grief somewhere in the woods,” he
+said, while a shiver of apprehension shot down his back. “But Herb has
+had so many hairbreadth escapes that I believe the animal has yet to be
+born which could get the better of him. And he can find his way
+anywhere without a compass. Every handful of moss on a trunk or stone,
+every turn of a woodland stream, every sun-ray which strikes him
+through the trees, every glimpse of the stars at night, has a meaning
+for him. He reads the forest like a book. No fear of his getting lost
+anyhow. Come, boys, I guess we’d better build up our fire, make things
+snug for the night, and turn in.”
+
+Rather dejectedly the trio set about these preparations. In twenty
+minutes’ time they were stretched side by side in the wide bunk, with
+their blankets cuddled round them, already venting random snores.
+
+“Hello! So you’ve got here at last, have you?”
+
+The exclamations were loud and snappy, and awoke the sleeping campers
+like the banging of rifle-shots. With jumping pulses they sprang up,
+feeling a wave of cold air sweep their faces; for the cabin-door, which
+they had closed ere lying down, was now ajar.
+
+The camp was almost in darkness. Only one dull, red ray stole out from
+the fire, on which fresh logs had been piled. But while the young
+Farrars rubbed their sleep-dimmed eyes, and slowly realized that the
+woodsman whom they had been expecting had at last arrived, a strangely
+brilliant illumination lit up the log walls.
+
+This sudden and bewildering light showed them the figure of a hunter in
+mud-spattered gray trousers, with coarse woollen stockings of lighter
+hue drawn over them above his buckskin moccasins. His battered felt hat
+was pushed back from his forehead, a guide’s leathern wallet was slung
+round him, and the rough, clinging jersey he wore, being stretched so
+tightly over his swelling muscles that its yarn could not hold
+together, had a rent on one shoulder.
+
+His slate-gray eyes with jetty pupils, which were miniatures of
+Millinokett Lake at this hour, gazed at the awakened trio in the bunk,
+with a gleam of light shooting athwart them, like a moonbeam crossing
+the face of the lake.
+
+The hunter held in his hand a big roll of the inflammable paper-like
+bark of the white birch-tree, which he had brought in with him to
+kindle his fire, expecting that it had gone out during his absence.
+Seeing a glow still on the hearth, and feeling instantly that the cabin
+was tenanted, he had applied a match to his bark, causing the vivid
+flare which revealed him to the eyes of those who had longed for his
+presence.
+
+“Herb Heal, man, is it you?” shouted Cyrus, his voice like a midnight
+joy-chime, as he sprang from the fir-boughs and gripped the woodsman’s
+arm. “I’m delighted to see you, though I was ready to swear you
+wouldn’t disappoint us! I didn’t fasten the cabin-door, for I thought
+you might possibly get back to camp during the night.”
+
+“Cyrus, old fellow, how goes it?” was Herb’s greeting. “I had a’most
+given up looking for you. But I’m powerful glad you’ve got here at
+last.”
+
+The hunter’s voice had still the quick snap and force which made it
+startling as a rifleshot when he entered the cabin.
+
+“These are my friends, Neal and Adolphus Farrar,” said Cyrus,
+introducing the blanketed youths, who had now risen to their feet.
+“Boys, this is Herb Heal, our new guide, christened Herbert Healy—isn’t
+that so, Herb?”
+
+“I reckon it is;” answered the young hunter, laughing. “But no woodsman
+could spring a sugary, city-sounding name like that on me. I’ve been
+Herb Heal from the day I could handle a rifle.”
+
+He nodded pleasantly as he spoke to the strange lads, and began to chat
+with them in prompt familiarity, looking straight and strong as a young
+pine-tree in the halo of his birch torch. Garst, whose inches his
+juniors had hitherto coveted, was but a stripling beside Herb Heal.
+
+“Is this your first trip into Maine woods, younkers?” he asked. “Well,
+I guess you’ve come to the right place for sport. I’m sorry I wasn’t on
+hand to welcome you when you arrived. A pretty forest guide you must
+have thought me. But I guess I’ll show you a sight to-morrow that’ll
+wipe out all scores.”
+
+There was such triumph in the hunter’s eye that the voices of the trio
+blended into one as they breathlessly asked,—
+
+“What sight is it?”
+
+“A dead king o’ the woods, boys,” answered Herb Heal, his voice
+vibrating. “A fine young bull-moose, as sure as this is a land of
+liberty. I dropped him by a logon on the east bank of Fir Pond, about
+four miles from here. I started out early, hoping to nab a deer; for I
+had no fresh meat left, and I didn’t want to have a bare larder when
+you fellows came along. But the woods were awful still. There didn’t
+seem to be anything bigger than a field-mouse travelling. Then all of a
+sudden I heard a tormented grunting, and the moose came tearing right
+onto me. I was to leeward of him, so he couldn’t get my scent. A man’s
+gun doesn’t take long to fly into position at such times, and I dropped
+him with two shots. There he lies now by the water, for I couldn’t get
+him back to camp till morning. He’s not full-grown; but he’s a fine
+fellow for all that, and has a dandy pair of antlers. By George! I’d
+give the biggest guide’s fees I ever got if you fellows had been there
+to hear him striking the trees with ’em as he tore along. He was a
+buster.
+
+“But you’ll see him to-morrow anyhow, and have a taste of moose-meat
+for the first time in your lives, I guess.”
+
+Here Herb waved the fag-end of his bark roll, threw it down as it
+scorched his horny fingers, and stamped upon it.
+
+The interior of the log cabin, ere it was extinguished, was a scene for
+a painter,—the lithe, muscular figure, tanned face, and gleaming eyes
+of the lucky hunter shown by the flare of his birch torch, and the
+three staring listeners, with blankets draped about them, who feared to
+miss one point of his story.
+
+Cyrus was grinding his teeth in vexation that he had narrowly missed
+seeing the moose alive. The two Farrars were burning with excitement at
+the thought of beholding the monarch of the forest at all, even in
+death. For they had heard enough wood-lore to know that the bull-moose,
+with his extreme caution, is like a tantalizing phantom to hunters.
+Continually he lures them to disappointment by his uncouth noises, or
+by a sight of his freshly made tracks, while his sensitive ears and
+super-sensitive nose, which can discriminate between the smell of man
+and every other smell on earth, will generally lead him off like a
+wind-gust before man gets a sight of him.
+
+“I’m sorry to keep you awake, boys,” said Herb Heal, making for the
+fire, after he had finished his story; “but I haven’t had a bite since
+morning, and I’m that hungry I could chaw my moccasins. I’ll get
+something to eat, and then we’ll turn in. We’ll have mighty hard work
+to-morrow, getting the moose to camp.”
+
+Herb was not long in making ready the stereotyped camp-fare of
+flapjacks and pork. To light his preparations, he took a candle out of
+a precious bundle which he had brought from a town a hundred miles
+distant, and set it in a primitive candlestick. This was simply a long
+stick of white spruce wood, one end of which was pointed, and stuck
+into the ground; the other was split, and into it the candle was
+inserted, the elasticity of the fresh wood keeping the light in place.
+
+The tired hunter did not dawdle over his supper. In a quarter of an
+hour he had finished it, and was building up the fire again. Then he
+stretched himself beside the trio in the rude bunk, drawing one thin
+blanket over him. Neal, who lay on his right, was conscious of some
+prickings of excitement at having such a bedfellow on the
+fir-boughs,—the camper’s couch which levels all. There flashed upon the
+fair-haired English boy a remembrance of how Cyrus had once said that
+“in the woods manhood is the only passport.” He thought that, measured
+by this standard, Herb Heal had truly a royal charter, and might be a
+president of the forest land; for he looked as free, strong, and
+unconquerable as the forest wind.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XV. A Fallen King
+
+
+The hunter was the only one who slept soundly that night on the
+fragrant boughs. Nevertheless, the moose was on his mind. Again in his
+dreams he imagined himself back by the quiet, shining logon, listening
+to the ring of the antlers as they struck the trees, and to the heaving
+snorts and deep grunts of the noble game as it tore through the forest
+to its death.
+
+The moose was on the minds of his companions too. Again and again they
+awoke, and pictured him lying by the pond, where he had fallen,—a dead
+monarch. They tossed and grumbled, longing for day.
+
+Neal and Dol surprised themselves and their elders by being up and
+dressed shortly after five, before a streak of light had entered the
+cabin. But their guide was not much behind them. Herb had the camp-fire
+going well, and was preparing breakfast before six o’clock. The campers
+tucked away a substantial meal of fried pork, potatoes, and coffee. The
+first glories of the young sun fell on their way as they started across
+the clearing and away through the woods beyond, towards the distant
+pond where the hunter had got his moose.
+
+Lying amid the small growth and grasses, by a lonely, glinting logon,
+they found the conquered king, sleeping that sleep from which never sun
+again would wake him. A bullet-hole, crusted with dark blood, showed in
+his side. The slim legs were bent and stiff, and the mighty forefeet
+could no more strike a ripping blow which would end a man’s hunting
+forever. The antlers which had made the forest ring were powerless
+horn.
+
+“Do you know, boys,” said Herb, as he stooped and touched them,
+fingering each prong, “I’ve hunted moose in fall and winter since I was
+first introduced to a rifle. I’ve still-hunted ’em, called ’em, and
+followed ’em on snowshoes; but I never felt so thundering mean about
+killing an animal as I did about dropping this fellow. After his antics
+in the woods, when he tramped out onto the open patch where I was
+waiting under cover of those shrubs, I popped up and covered him with
+my Winchester. He just raised the hair on his back and looked at me,
+with a way wild animals sometimes have, as if I was a bad riddle. Like
+as not he’d never seen a human being before, and a moose’s eyes ain’t
+good for much as danger-signals. It’s only when he hears or smells
+mischief that he gets mad scared.
+
+
+Illustration: A Fallen King.
+
+
+“Well, I was out for meat, and bound to have it; so I pulled the
+trigger, and killed him with two shots. When the first bullet stung him
+he reared up, making a sharp noise like a wounded horse. Then he swung
+round as if to bolt; but the second went straight through his heart,
+and he fell where you see him now. I made sure that he was past
+kicking, and crept close to his head, thinking he was dead. He wasn’t
+quite gone, though; for he saw me, and laid back his ears, the last
+pitiful sign a moose makes when a hunter gets the better of him. I tell
+you it made me feel bad—just for a minute. I’ve got my moose for this
+season, and I’m sort o’ glad that the law won’t let me kill another
+unless it’s a life-saving matter.”
+
+“How tall should you say this fellow was when alive?” asked Cyrus,
+stroking the creature’s shaggy hair, which was a rusty black in color.
+
+“Oh! I guess he stood about as high as a good-sized pony. But I’ve shot
+moose which were taller than any horse. The biggest one I ever killed
+measured between seven and eight feet from the points of his hoofs to
+his shoulders, and the antlers were four feet and nine inches from tip
+to tip. He was a monster—a regular jing-swizzler! A mighty queer way I
+got him too! I’ll tell you all about it some other time.”
+
+“Oh! you must,” answered Garst. “You’ll have to give us no end of
+moose-talk by the camp-fire of evenings. These English fellows want to
+learn all they can about the finest game on our continent before they
+go home.”
+
+“Why, for evermore!” gasped Herb, in broad amazement. “Are you
+Britishers? And have you crossed the ocean to chase moose in Maine
+woods? My word! You’re a gamy pair of kids. We’ll have to try to
+accommodate you with a sight of a moose at any rate—a live one.”
+
+Though they would gladly have appropriated the compliment, the “gamy
+kids” were obliged to acknowledge that hunting had not been in their
+thoughts when they traversed the Atlantic. But they avowed that they
+were the luckiest fellows alive, and that the American forest-land,
+with its camps and trails and wild offspring, was such a glorious old
+playground that they would never stop singing its praises until a swarm
+of boys from English soil had tasted the novel pleasures which they
+enjoyed.
+
+“Now, then, gentlemen!” said the guide, “I haven’t much idea that we’ll
+be able to haul this moose along to camp whole. If I skin and dress him
+here, are you all ready to help in carrying home the meat?”
+
+The trio briskly expressed their willingness, and Herb began the
+dissecting business; while from a tree near by that strange bird which
+hunters call the “moose-bird” screamed its shrill “What cheer? What
+cheer?” with ceaseless persistence.
+
+“Oh, hold your noise, you squalling thing!” said the guide, answering
+it back. “It’s good cheer this time. We’ll have a feast of moose-meat
+to-night, and there’ll be pickings for you.”
+
+He then explained, for the benefit of the English lads, that this bird,
+whose cry is startlingly like the hunters’ translation of it, haunts
+the spot where a moose has been killed, waiting greedily for its meal
+off the creature after men have taken their share of the meat. Herb
+declared that it had often followed him for hours while he was
+stealthily tracking a moose, to be in at the death. And now it kept up
+the din of its unceasing question until he had finished his
+disagreeable work.
+
+As the party started back to camp, each one weighted with forty pounds
+or more of meat, Herb carrying a double portion, with the antlers
+hooked upon his shoulders, they heard the moose-bird still insatiably
+shrieking “What cheer?” over its meal.
+
+“Say, boys,” said the guide, as he stalked along with his heavy load,
+never blenching, “if you want to get a pair o’ moose-antlers, now’s
+your time. I ain’t a-going to sell these, but I’ll give ’em outright to
+the first fellow who can learn to call a moose successfully while he’s
+hunting with me. I know what sort of sportsman Cyrus Garst is. He’ll go
+prowling through the woods, starting moose and coolly letting ’em get
+off without spilling a drop of blood, while he’s watching the length of
+their steps. I b’lieve he’d be a sight prouder of seeing one crunch a
+root than if he got the finest head in Maine. So here’s your chance for
+a trophy, boys. I guess ’twill be your only one.”
+
+“Hurrah! I’m in for this game!” cried Neal.
+
+“I too,” said Cyrus.
+
+“I’m in for it with a vengeance!” whooped Dol. “Though I’m blessed if
+I’ve a notion what ‘calling a moose’ means.”
+
+“How much have you larned, anyhow, Kid, in the bit o’ time you’ve been
+alive?” asked the woodsman, with good-humored sarcasm.
+
+“Enough to make my fists talk to anybody who thinks I’m a duffer,”
+answered Dol, squaring his shoulders as if to make the most of himself.
+
+“Good for you, young England!” laughed Cyrus.
+
+Herb turned his eyes, and regarded the juvenile Adolphus with amused
+criticism.
+
+“Britisher or no Britisher, I’ll allow you’re a little man,” he
+muttered. “Keep a stiff upper lip, boys; we’re not far from camp now.”
+
+A word of cheer was needed. Not one of the trio had growled at their
+load, but the flannel shirts of the two Farrars clung wetly to their
+bodies. Their breath was coming in hard puffs through spread nostrils.
+A four-mile tramp through the woods, heavily laden with raw meat, was a
+novel but not an altogether delightful experience.
+
+However, the smell of moose-steak frying over their camp-fire later on
+fully compensated them for acting as butcher’s boys. When the taste as
+well as the smell had been enjoyed, the rest which followed by the
+blazing birch-logs that evening was so full of bliss that each camper
+felt as if existence had at last drifted to a point of superb content.
+
+Their camp-door stood open for ventilation; and a keen touch of frost,
+mingling with the night air which entered, made the fragrant warmth
+delightful.
+
+When supper was ended, and the tin vessels from which it had been
+eaten, together with all camp utensils, were duly cleaned, Herb seated
+himself on the middle of the bench, which he called “the deacon’s
+seat,” and luxuriously lit his oldest pipe. His brawny hands had
+performed every duty connected with the meal as deftly and neatly as
+those of a delicate-fingered woman.
+
+“Well, for downright solid comfort, boys, give me a cosey camp-fire in
+the wilderness, when a fellow is tired out after a good day’s outing.
+City life can offer nothing to touch it,” said Cyrus, as he spread his
+blankets near the cheerful blaze, and sprawled himself upon them.
+
+Neal and Dol followed his example. The three looked up at their guide,
+on whose weather-tanned face the fire shed wavering lights, in lazy
+expectation.
+
+“Now, Herb,” said Garst, “we want to think of nothing but moose for the
+remainder of this trip; so go ahead, and give us some moose-talk
+to-night. Begin at the beginning, as the children say, and tell us
+everything you know about the animal.”
+
+Herb Heal swung himself to and fro upon his plank seat, drawing his
+pipe reflectively, and letting its smoke filter through his nostrils,
+while he prepared to answer.
+
+“Well,” he said at last, slowly, “it seems to me that a moose is a
+troublesome brute to tackle, however you take him. It’s plaguy hard for
+a hunter to get the better of him, and if it’s only knowledge you’re
+after, he’ll dodge you like a will-o’-the-wisp till you get pretty
+mixed in your notions about his habits. I guess these English fellows
+know already that he’s the largest animal of the deer tribe, or any
+other tribe, to be seen on this continent, and as grand game as can be
+found on any spot of this here earth. I hain’t had a chance to chase
+lions an’ tigers; but I’ve shot grizzlies over in Canada,—and that’s
+scarey work, you better b’lieve!—and I tell you there’s no sport
+that’ll bring out the grit and ingenuity that’s in a man like
+moose-hunting. Now, boys, ask me any questions you like, an’ I’ll try
+to answer ’em.”
+
+“You said something to-day about moose ‘crunching twigs,’” began Neal
+eagerly. “Why, I always had a hazy idea that they fed on moss
+altogether, which they dug up in the winter with their broad antlers.”
+
+“Land o’ liberty!” ejaculated the woodsman. “Where on earth do you city
+men pick up your notions about forest creatures—that’s what I’d like to
+know? A moose can’t get its horns to the ground without dropping on its
+knees; and it can’t nibble grass from the ground neither without
+sprawling out its long legs,—which for an animal of its size are as
+thin as pipe-stems,—and tumbling in a heap. So I don’t credit that yarn
+about their digging up the moss, even when there’s no other food to be
+had; though I can’t say for sure it’s not true. In summer moose feed
+about the ponds and streams, on the long grasses and lily-pads. They’re
+at home in the water, and mighty fine swimmers; so the red men say that
+they came first from the sea.
+
+“In the fall, and through the winter too, so far as I can make out,
+they eat the twigs and bark of different trees, such as white birches
+and poplars. They’re powerful fond of moose-wood—that’s what you call
+mountain ash. I guess it tastes to them like pie does to us.”
+
+“Well, Dol, I feel that you’re twitching all over with some question,”
+said Cyrus, detecting uneasy movements on the part of the younger boy
+who lay next to him. “What is it, Chick? Out with it!”
+
+“I want to hear about moose-calling,” so spoke Dol in heart-eager
+tones.
+
+The guide swung his body to the music of a jingling laugh.
+
+“Oh; that’s it; is it?” he said. “You’re stuck on winning those
+antlers; ain’t you, Dol? Well, calling is the ‘moose-hunter’s secret,’
+and it’s a secret that he don’t want to give away to every one. When a
+man is a good caller he’s kind o’ jealous about keeping the trick to
+himself. But I’ll tell you how it’s done, anyhow, and give you a lesson
+sometime. Sakes alive! if you Britishers could only take over a
+birch-bark trumpet, and give that call in England, you’d make nearly as
+much fuss as Buffalo Bill did with his cowboys and Injuns. Only ’twould
+be a onesided game, for there’d be no moose to answer.”
+
+The young Farrars were silent, breathlessly waiting for more. The
+camp-firelight showed their absorbed faces; it played upon bronzed
+cheeks, where the ruddy tints of English boyhood had been replaced by a
+duller, hardier hue. On Neal’s upper lip a fine, fair growth had
+sprouted, which looked white against his sun-tinged skin. As for Cyrus,
+he had never brought a razor into the woods since that memorable trip
+when the bear had overhauled his knapsack; so the Bostonian’s chin was
+covered with a thick black stubble.
+
+Neither of the youths, however, was at present giving a thought to his
+hirsute adornment, about which questionable compliments were frequently
+bandied. Their minds were full of moose, and their ears alert for the
+guide’s next words.
+
+“P’raps you folks don’t know,” went on the woodsman, “that there are
+four ways o’ hunting moose. The first and fairest is still-hunting ’em
+in the woods, which means following their signs, and getting a shot in
+any way you can, _if_ you can. But that’s a stiff ‘if’ to a hunter.
+Nine times out o’ ten a moose will baffle him and get off unhurt, even
+when a man has tracked him for days, camping on his trail o’ nights.
+The snapping of a twig not the size of my little finger, or one
+tramping step, and the moose’ll take warning. He’ll light out o’ the
+way as silently as a red man in moccasins, and the hunter won’t even
+know he’s gone.
+
+“The second way is night-hunting, going after ’em in a canoe with a
+jack-light; same thing as jacking for deer. I guess you’ve tried that,
+so you’ll know what it’s like—skeery kind o’ work.”
+
+Neal nodded an eloquent assent, and Herb went on:—
+
+“The third method is a dog’s trick. It’s following ’em on snowshoes
+over deep snow. I’ve tried that once, and I’m blamed if I’ll ever try
+it again. It’s butchery, not sport. The crust of snow will be strong
+enough for a man to run on, but it can’t support the heavy moose. The
+creature’ll go smashing through it and struggling out, until its slim
+legs are a sight to see for cuts and blood. Soon it gets blowed, and
+can stumble no farther. Then the hunter finishes it with an axe.”
+
+Disgust thickened the voices of the listening three, as with one accord
+they raised an outcry against this cruel way of butchering a game
+animal, without giving it a single chance for its life. When their
+indignation had subsided, the hunter went on to describe the fourth and
+last method of entrapping moose—the calling in which Dol was so
+interested.
+
+“P’raps you won’t think this is fair hunting either,” he said; “for
+it’s a trick, and I’ll allow that there’s times when it seems a pretty
+mean game. Anyhow, I’d rather kill one moose by still-hunting than six
+by calling. But if you want to try work that’ll make your blood race
+through your body like a torrent one minute, and turn you as cold as if
+your sweat was ice-water the next, you go in for moose-calling. I guess
+you know all about the matter, Cyrus; but as these Britishers do not,
+I’ll try and explain it to’ em.
+
+“Early in September the moose come up from the low, swampy lands where
+they have spent the summer alone, and begin to pair. Then the
+bull-moose, as we call the male, which is generally the most wide-awake
+of forest creatures, loses some of his big caution, an’ goes roaming
+through the woods, looking for a mate. This is the time for fooling
+him. The hunter makes a horn out o’ birch-bark, somewheres about
+eighteen inches long, through which he mimics the call of the
+cow-moose, to coax the bull within reach of his rifle-shots.”
+
+“What is the call like?” asked Neal, his heart thumping while he
+remembered that strange noise which had marked a new era in his
+experience of sounds, as he listened to it at midnight by Squaw Pond.
+
+“Sho! a man might keep jawing till crack o’ doom, and not give you any
+idea of it without you heard it,” answered Herb Heal, the dare-all
+moose-hunter. “The noise begins sort o’ gently, like the lowing of a
+tame cow. It seems, if you’re listening to it, to come
+rolling—rolling—along the ground. Then it rises in pitch, and gets
+impatient and lonely and wild-like, till you think it fills the air
+above you, when it sinks again and dies away in a queer, quavery sound
+that ain’t a sigh, nor a groan, nor a grunt, but all three together.
+
+“The call is mostly repeated three times; and the third time it ends
+with a mad roar as if the lady-moose was saying to her mate, ‘_Come_
+now, or stay away altogether!’”
+
+“Joe Flint was right, then!” exclaimed Neal, in high excitement.
+“That’s the very noise I heard in the woods near Squaw Pond, on the
+night when we were jacking for deer, and our canoe capsized.”
+
+“P’raps it was,” answered Herb, “though the woods near Squaw Pond ain’t
+much good for moose now. They’re too full of hunters. Still, you might
+have heard the cow-moose herself calling, or some man who had come
+across the tracks of a bull imitating her.”
+
+“But if the bull has such sharp ears, can’t he tell the real call from
+the sham one?” asked Dol.
+
+“Lots of times he can. But if the hunter is an old woodsman and a
+clever caller, he’ll generally fool the animal, unless he makes some
+awkward noise that isn’t in the game, or else the moose gets his scent
+on the breeze. One whiff of a man will send the creature off like a
+wind-gust, and earthquakes wouldn’t stop him. And though he sneaks away
+so silently when he _hears_ anything suspicious, yet when he _smells_
+danger he’ll go through the forest at a thundering rush, making as much
+noise as a demented fire-brigade.”
+
+“Good gracious!” ejaculated Neal and Dol together.
+
+“Is the moose ever dangerous, Herb?” asked the former.
+
+“I guess he is pretty often. Sometimes a bull-moose will turn on a
+hunter, and make at him full tilt, if he’s in danger or finds himself
+tricked. And he’ll always fight like fury to protect his mate from any
+enemy. The bulls have awful big duels between themselves occasionally.
+When they’re real mad, they don’t stop for a few wounds. They prod each
+other with their terrible brow antlers till one or the other of ’em is
+stretched dead. If a moose ever charges you, boys, take my advice, and
+don’t try to face him with your rifles. Half a dozen shots mightn’t
+stop him. Make for the nearest tree, and climb for your lives. Fire
+down on him then, if you can. But once let him get a kick at you with
+his forefeet, and one thing is sure—_you’ll_ never kick again. Are you
+tired of moose-talk yet?”
+
+“Not by a jugful!” answered Cyrus, laughing. “But tell us, Herb, how
+are we to proceed to get a sight of this ‘Jabberwock’ alive?”
+
+“If to-morrow night happens to be dead calm, I might try to call one
+up,” answered the guide. “There’s a pretty good calling-place near the
+south end of the lake. As this is the height of the season, we might
+get an answer there. We’ll try it, anyhow, if you’re willing.”
+
+“Willing! I should say we are!” answered Garst. “You’re our captain
+now, Herb, and it’s a case of ‘Follow my leader!’ Take us anywhere you
+like, through jungles or mud-swamps. We won’t kick at hardships if we
+can only get a good look at his mooseship. Up to the present, except
+for that one moonlight peep, he has always dodged me like a phantom.”
+
+“Are you going to be satisfied with a look?” The guide’s eyes narrowed
+into two long slits, on which the firelight quivered, as he gazed
+quizzically down upon Cyrus. “If the moose comes within reach of our
+shots, ain’t anybody going to pump lead into him? Or is he to get off
+again scot-free? I’ve got my moose for this season, and I darsn’t send
+my bullets through the law by dropping another, so I can’t do the
+shooting.”
+
+“My friends can please themselves,” said the Bostonian, glancing at the
+English lads. “For my own part I’ll be better pleased if Mr. Moose
+manages to keep a whole skin. Our grand game is getting scarce enough;
+I don’t want to lessen it. I once saw the last persecuted deer in a
+county, after it had been badgered and wounded by men and dogs, limp
+off to die alone in its native haunts. The sight cured me of
+bloodthirst.”
+
+“I guess ’twould be enough to cure any man,” responded Herb. “And we
+don’t want meat, so this time we won’t shoot our moose after we’ve
+tricked him. Good land! I wouldn’t like any fellow to imitate the call
+of my best girl, that he might put a bullet through me. Come, boys,
+it’s pretty late; let’s fix our fire, and turn in.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVI. Moose-Calling
+
+
+Nothing was talked about among the campers on the following day but the
+forthcoming sport of the evening—moose-calling.
+
+Herb Heal had decided that his call should be given from the water, his
+“good calling-place” being an alder-fringed logon at the loneliest
+extremity of the lake.
+
+During the afternoon he took Neal and Dol with him into a grove of
+poplars and birches which bordered one end of the clearing, leaving
+Cyrus lounging by the camp-fire. Here the woodsman began the exciting
+work of preparing his birch-bark horn, that primitive but potent
+trumpet through which he would sigh, groan, grunt, and roar, imitating
+each varying mood of the cow-moose. To her call he had often listened
+as he lay for hours on a mossy bed in the far depths of the forest,
+learning to interpret the language of every woodland creature.
+
+Unsheathing his hunting-knife, and selecting a sound white-birch tree,
+Herb carefully removed from it a piece of bark about eighteen inches in
+length and six in width. This he carefully trimmed, and rolled into a
+horn as a child would twist paper into a cornucopia package for sweets,
+tying it with the twine-like roots of the ground juniper. The tapering
+end of the trumpet, which would be applied to the caller’s lips,
+measured about one inch across; its mouth measured five.
+
+Returning to camp, Herb dipped the horn in warm water and then let it
+dry, saying that this would produce a mellow ring. He stoutly refused
+all appeals from the boys to give them a few illustrations of
+moose-calling there and then, with a lesson in the art, declaring that
+it would spoil the night’s sport, and that they must first hear the
+call amid proper surroundings. From time to time he impressed upon them
+that they were going to engage in an expedition which required absolute
+silence and clever stratagem to make it successful. He vowed to wreak a
+woodsman’s vengeance on any fellow who balked it by shaking the boat,
+or by moving body or rifle so as to make a noise.
+
+A light, humming breeze had been blowing all day; but as the afternoon
+waned, it died down. The evening proved clear, chilly, and still.
+
+“Is this a likely night for calling, Herb?” asked Cyrus anxiously,
+taking a survey of sky and lake from the camp-door about an hour before
+the start.
+
+“Fine,” answered Herb with satisfaction. “Guess we’ll get an answer
+sure, if there’s a moose within hearing. There ain’t a puff of wind to
+carry our scent, and give the trick away. But rig yourselves up in all
+the clothing you’ve got, boys; the cold, while we’re waiting, may be
+more than you bargain for.”
+
+The guide had a light boat on the lake, moored below the camp. At six
+o’clock he seated himself therein, taking the oars in his brawny hands.
+Cyrus and Neal took their places in the stern; while Dol disposed of
+himself snugly in the bow, right under a jack-lamp which Herb had
+carefully trimmed and lit. But he had closed its sliding door, which,
+being padded with buckskin, could be opened and shut without a sound,
+so that not a ray of light at present escaped.
+
+“Moose won’t stand to watch a jack as deer do,” he said. “Twill only
+scare ’em off. They’re a heap too cute to be taken in by an onnatural
+big star floating over the water. But ’taint the lucky side of the moon
+for us. She’ll rise late, and her light’ll be so feeble that it
+wouldn’t show us an elephant clearly if he was under our noses. So if I
+succeed in coaxing a bull to the brink of the water, I’ll open the
+jack, and flash our light on him. He’ll bolt the next minute as quick
+as greased lightning on skates; but if you only get a short sight of
+him, I promise that ’twill be one you’ll remember.”
+
+“And if he should take a notion to come for us?” said Cyrus.
+
+“He won’t, if we don’t fire. The boat will be lying among the black
+shadows, snug in by the bank, and he’ll see nothing but the dazzling
+light. But you fellows must keep still as death. Off we go now, boys,
+and mum’s the word!”
+
+This was almost the last sentence spoken. Not a syllable moved the lips
+of any one of the four, as the boat glided away from camp towards the
+south end of the lake, the oars making scarcely a sound as Herb handled
+them. By and by he ceased rowing for an instant, took his pipe from his
+mouth, knocked out its ashes, and put it in his pocket with a wise look
+at his companions, murmuring, “Don’t want no tobacco incense floating
+around!”
+
+At the same time, from a distant ridge upon the eastern shore, covered
+with evergreens which stood out like dark steeples against the evening
+sky, came a faint, dull noise, as if some belated woodsman was driving
+a blunt axe against a tree. The sound itself would scarcely have
+awakened a hope of anything unusual in the minds of the inexperienced;
+but, combined with the guide’s aspect as he pocketed his pipe, it made
+Cyrus and his comrades sit suddenly erect, listening as if ears were
+the only organs they possessed.
+
+The queer, dull noise was once repeated. Then again there was silence
+almost absolute, Herb’s oars moving with the softest swish imaginable,
+as the boat skimmed along the lonely, curved bay which he had chosen
+for a calling-place. It came to a stop amid shadows so dense and black
+that they seemed almost tangible, close to a bank fringed with
+overhanging bushes, having a background of evergreens. These last, in
+the fast-gathering darkness, looked like a sable array of mourners in
+whose ranks a pale ghost or two mingled, the spectres being slim
+white-birch trees.
+
+The opposite bank presented a similar scene.
+
+It was amid such surroundings that Neal Farrar heard for the second
+time in his life the weird sound of the moose-hunter’s call. He was a
+strong, well-balanced young fellow; yet here again he knew the
+sensation as if needles were pricking him all over, which he had felt
+once before in these wilds, while his heart seemed to be performing
+athletic sports in his body.
+
+Cyrus and Dol confessed afterwards that they were “all shivers and
+goose-flesh” as the call rose upon the night air.
+
+After he had shipped his oars, and laid them down, Herb Heal
+noiselessly turned his body to face the bow, and took up the birch-bark
+horn which lay beside him. He breathed into it anxiously once or twice,
+then paused, drew in all the air which his big lungs could contain, put
+the trumpet again to his lips with its mouth pointing downward, and
+began his summons.
+
+The first part of the call lasted half a minute, or so, without a
+break. During its execution the hunter moved his neck and shoulders
+first to the left, then to the right, and slowly raised the horn above
+his head, the rolling, plaintive sounds with which he commenced
+gathering power and pitch with the ascending motion. As the birch
+trumpet pointed straight upward, they seemed to sweep aloft in a
+surging crescendo, and boom among the tree-tops.
+
+Carrying his head again to the left and right, Herb gradually lowered
+the horn until it was once more pointed towards the bottom of the boat,
+having in its movements described in the air a big figure of eight. The
+call sank with it, and died away in a lonely, sighing, quavering grunt.
+
+Two seconds’ pause, two slow, great throbs of the boys’ hearts, so loud
+that they threatened to burst the stillness.
+
+Then the call began again, low and grumbling. Again it rose, swelled,
+quavered, and sank, full of lonely longing.
+
+A third time it surged up, and ended abruptly in a wild, ear-splitting
+roar, which struck the tops of distant hills, and rolled off in
+thunder-like echoes among them.
+
+Silence followed. Not a gasp came from Herb after his efforts. Cyrus
+and the Farrars tried to still their heaving chests, while each quick
+breath was an expectation.
+
+An answer! Surely it was an answer! The boys never doubted it; though
+the responding sound they caught was only a repetition of that far-away
+chopping noise, which resembled the heavy thud of an axe against wood.
+This came nearer—nearer. It was followed once by a sort of short, sharp
+bark.
+
+Then the motionless occupants of the boat heard random, guttural
+grunts, a smashing of dead branches, crashing of undergrowth, and the
+proud ring of mighty antlers against the trees. The lord of the forest,
+a big bull-moose, was tearing recklessly through the woods towards the
+lake, in answer to the call of his imaginary mate.
+
+To say that the hearts of our trio were performing gymnastic feats
+during these awfully silent minutes of waiting, is to say little. All
+the repressed motion of their bodies seemed concentrated in these
+organs, which raced, leaped, stopped short, and pounded, vibrating to
+such questions as:—
+
+“Will he come? Where shall we first see him? How near is he now? Does
+he suspect the trick? Will he give us the slip after all?—_Has he
+gone_?”
+
+For of a sudden dead stillness reigned in the forest. No more
+trampling, grunting, and knocking of antlers. The spirits of the three
+sank to zero. Their breathing became thick. The blood, which a moment
+before had played like wildfire in their veins, now stirred sluggishly
+as if it was freezing. Disappointment, blank and bitter, shivered
+through them from neck to foot.
+
+So passed quarter of an hour. A filmy mist rose from the surface of the
+water, and drifted by their faces like the brushing of cold wings. For
+lack of motion hand and feet felt numb. Mid the pitch-black shadows,
+snug in by the bank, no man could see the face of his fellow, though
+the trio would have given a fortune to read their guide’s. Not a word
+was spoken. Once, when a deep breath of impatience escaped him, Neal
+heard the folds of his coat rub each other, and clenched his teeth to
+stop an exclamation at the sound, which he had never noticed before.
+
+Nearly twenty minutes had elapsed since the last noise had been heard
+in the woods, when Herb took up the horn which he had laid down, and
+put it to his mouth. Again the call rolled up. It was neither loud nor
+long this time, ending with a quick, short roar.
+
+As it ceased the guide plunged his arm into the water and slowly
+withdrew it, letting drops dribble from his fingers.
+
+The novices could only suspect that this manoeuvre was another lure for
+the bull-moose, if he chanced to be still within hearing. Its success
+took their breath away.
+
+The wary bull which had answered, having doubtless harbored a suspicion
+that all was not exactly right with the first call, had halted in his
+on-coming rush, with head upreared, and nostrils spread, trying to
+catch any taint in the air which might warn him of danger. But in the
+dead calm the heavy evergreens stirred not; no whiff reached him. The
+second call upset his prudence. Then he heard that splash and dribble
+in the water, and imagined that his impatient mate was dipping her nose
+into the lake for a cool drink.
+
+A snort! A bellowing challenge quite indescribable! On he came again
+with a thundering rush!
+
+Bushes were thrashed and spurned by his sharp hoofs. Branches snapped.
+Trees echoed as his antlers struck them.
+
+A musk-rat leaped from the bank ahead, and dived to reach his hole in
+the bank. Under cover of the noisy splash which the little creature
+made, one whisper was hissed by Herb’s tongue into the ears of his
+comrades. It was:—
+
+“Gee whittaker! he’s a big one! Listen to them shovels against the
+trees!”
+
+A minute later, with a deep gulp of intense excitement, and a general
+racket as if an engine had broken loose from brakes and checks, and was
+carrying all before it, the monarch of the woods crashed through the
+alders and halted, with his hoofs in the water, scarcely thirty yards
+from where the boat lay in shadow.
+
+This was a supreme moment for our travellers. Leaning forward, fearful
+lest their heart-beats should betray them, they could barely
+distinguish the outlines of the moose, as he stood with his enormous
+nose high in air, giving vent to deep gulps and grunts, and looking to
+right and left in bewilderment for that cow which he had heard calling.
+
+For fully five minutes he stood thus, badly puzzled, now and again
+stamping a hoof, and scattering spray in rising wrath. Then Herb bent
+forward, shot out a long arm, and silently opened the jack.
+
+Meteor-like its silver light flashed forth, to reveal a sight which
+could never be wiped from the memories of the beholders, though it
+affected each of them differently.
+
+Herb Heal involuntarily gripped the loaded rifle which lay beside
+him,—he was too wary a woodsman to be unprepared for emergencies; but
+he did not cock it, for he remembered the law, and the bargain which he
+had made about to-night.
+
+Cyrus’s eyes gleamed like fires in a face pale from eagerness, as he
+strove in a minute of time to take in every feature of the monster
+before him, from hoof to horn.
+
+Neal sat as if paralyzed.
+
+Dol—well, Dol lost his head a bit. A deep, throaty gulp, which was a
+weak reproduction of the sound made by the moose, as if the boy and the
+animal were sharing the same throes of excitement, burst from him.
+There was a rattle and struggle of his vocal organs, which in another
+second would have become a shout, had not Herb’s masterful left hand
+gripped him. Its touch held in check the speech which Dol could no
+longer control.
+
+The moose was a big one, “about as big as they grow,” as the guide
+afterwards declared. Under the jack-light he looked a regular behemoth.
+He must have been over seven feet high at the shoulders, for he was
+taller than the tallest horse the boys had ever seen. His black mane
+bristled. His antlers were thrown back. His great nose, with its
+dilated nostrils, looked as if it were drinking in every scent of the
+night world. His eyes had a green glare in them, as for ten seconds he
+gazed at the strange light which had suddenly burst into view, its
+silver radiance so dazzling him that he saw not the screened boat
+beneath.
+
+At the rash noise which Dol made his ears twitched. He splashed a step
+forward as if to investigate matters, seeing which, Herb held his
+Winchester in readiness to fly to his shoulder at a moment’s notice.
+But the moose evidently regarded the jack-lamp as a supernatural,
+terrible phenomenon. He shrank from it as man might shrink beneath a
+flaming heaven.
+
+With one more despairing look right and left for that phantom cow which
+had deluded him, he wheeled around, and crashed back into the forest,
+tearing away more rapidly than he came.
+
+“He’s off now, and Heaven knows when he’ll stop!” said Herb, breaking
+the weird spell of silence. “Not till he reaches some lair where nary a
+creature could follow him. Well, boys, you’ve seen the grandest game on
+this continent, the king o’ the woods. What do you think of him?”
+
+All tongues were loosened together. There was a general shifting of
+cramped bodies, accompanied by a gust of exclamations.
+
+“He was a monster!”
+
+“He was a behemoth!”
+
+“Oh! but you’re a conjurer, Herb. How on earth did you give such a
+fetching call?”
+
+“I could never have believed that those sounds came from a human throat
+and a birch-bark horn, if I hadn’t been sitting in the boat with you!”
+
+When there was a break in the excited chorus, Herb, without answering
+the compliments to his calling powers, asked quietly,—
+
+“Didn’t you think we’d lost him, boys, when he stopped short in the
+middle of his rush, and you heard nothing?”
+
+“We just did,” answered Cyrus. “That was the longes half-hour I ever
+put in. What made him do it?”
+
+“I guess he was kind o’ criticising my music,” said the guide,
+laughing. “Mebbe I got in a grunt or two that wasn’t natural, and the
+old boy wasn’t satisfied with his sweetheart’s voice. He was sniffing
+the air, and waiting to hear more. But ’twasn’t more ’n twenty minutes
+before I gave the second call, though no doubt it seemed longer to you.
+A man must be in good training to get the better of a moose’s ears and
+nose.”
+
+“I’m going to get the better of them before I leave these woods!” cried
+Dol, who was still puffing and gasping with intense excitement. “I’ll
+learn to call up a moose, if I crack my windpipe in doing it.”
+
+“Hurrah for the Boy Moose-Caller!” jeered Cyrus, with a teasing laugh,
+which Neal echoed.
+
+But Herb Heal, who had from the beginning regarded “the kid of the
+camp” with favor, suddenly became his champion.
+
+“Don’t let ’em down you, Dol,” he said. “I hate to hear a youngster, or
+a man, ‘talk fire,’ as the Injuns say, which means _brag_, if he’s a
+coward or a chump; but I guess you ain’t either. Here we are at camp,
+boys! I
+tell you the home-camp is a pleasant sort of place, after you’ve been
+out moose-calling!”
+
+Thereupon ensued loud cheers for the home-camp, the boys feeling that
+they were letting off steam, and atoning for that long spell of
+silence, which had been a positive hardship. In the midst of an echoing
+hubbub the boat was hauled up and moored, and the party reached their
+log shelter.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVII. Herb’s Yarns
+
+
+The following day was spent by our trio in exploring the woods near
+Millinokett Lake, in listening to more moose-talk, and in attempting
+the trick of calling. Herb gave them many persistent lessons, making
+the sounds which he had made on the preceding night, with and without
+the horn, and patiently explaining the varied language of grunts,
+groans, sighs, and roars in which the cow-moose indulges.
+
+Perhaps the woodsman expended extra pains on the teaching of his
+youngest pupil, whom he had championed. And certainly Dol’s own talent
+for mimicry came to his aid. No matter to what cause the success was
+due, each one allowed that Dol made a brilliant attempt to get hold of
+“the moose-hunter’s secret,” and give a natural call.
+
+The boy had been a genius at imitating the voices of English birds and
+animals; many a trick had he played on his schoolfellows with his
+carols and howls. And his proficiency in this line was a good
+foundation on which to work.
+
+“You’ll get there, boy,” said Herb, surveying him with approval, as he
+stood outside the camp-door with the moose-horn to his lips. “Make
+believe that there’s a moose on the opposite shore of the lake now, and
+give the whole call, from start to finish.”
+
+Whereupon Dol slowly carried his head to left and right, as he had seen
+the guide do on the previous night, raising and lowering the horn until
+it had described an enormous figure of eight in the air, while he
+groaned, sighed, rasped, and bellowed with a plaintive intensity of
+expression, which caused his brother and his friend to shriek with
+laughter.
+
+“You’ll get there, Kid,” repeated the woodsman, with a great triumphant
+guffaw. “You’ll be able to give a fetching call sooner than either of
+the others. But be careful how you use the trick, or you’ll be having
+the breath kicked out of you some day by a moose’s forefeet.”
+
+For days afterwards, the birch-bark horn was rarely out of Dol Farrar’s
+hands. The boy was so entranced with the new musical art he was
+mastering, which would be a means of communication between him and the
+behemoth of the woods, that he haunted the edges of the forest about
+the clearing, keeping aloof from his brother and friend, practising
+unceasingly, sometimes under Herb’s supervision, sometimes alone. He
+learned to imitate every sound which the guide made, working in
+touching quavers and inflections that must tug at the heart-strings of
+any listening moose. He learned to give the call, squatting Indian
+fashion, in a very uncomfortable position, behind a screen of bushes.
+He learned to copy, not the cow’s summons alone, but the bull’s short
+challenge too; and to rasp his horn against a tree, in imitation of a
+moose polishing its antlers for battle.
+
+And now, for the first time, Dol Farrar of Manchester regarded his
+education as complete. He was prouder of this forest accomplishment,
+picked up in the wilds, than of all triumphs over problems and ’ologies
+at his English school. He had not been a laggard in study, either.
+
+But the finishing of Dol’s education had one bad result. If there
+happened to be another moose travelling through the adjacent forests,
+he evidently thought that all this random calling was too much of a
+good thing, had his suspicions aroused, and took himself oft to wilder
+solitudes. Though the guide tried his powers in persuasive summons
+every night at various calling-places, he could not again succeed in
+getting an answer.
+
+At last, on a certain evening, after supper, a solemn camp-council was
+held around an inspiring fire, and Herb Heal suggested that if his
+party were really bent on seeing a moose again, before they turned
+their faces homeward, they had better rise early the following morning,
+shoulder their knapsacks, and set out to do a few days’ hunting amid
+the dense woods near the base of Katahdin.
+
+“I killed the biggest bull-moose I ever saw, on Togue Ponds, in that
+region,” said the guide meditatively; “and I got him in a queer way. I
+b’lieve I promised to tell you that yarn.”
+
+“Of course you did!”
+
+“Let’s have it!”
+
+“Go ahead, Herb! Don’t shorten it!”
+
+Thus encouraged by the eager three, the woodsman began:—
+
+“It is five years now, boys, since I spent a fall and winter trapping
+in them woods we were speaking of—I and another fellow. We had two
+home-camps, which were our headquarters, snug log shelters, one on
+Togue Ponds, the other on the side of Katahdin. As sure as ever the sun
+went down on a Saturday night, we two trappers met at one or other of
+these home-camps; though during the week we were mostly apart. For we
+had several lines of traps, which covered big distances in various
+directions; and on Monday morning I used to start one way, and my chum
+another, to visit these. Generally it took us five or six days to make
+the rounds of them. While we were on our travels we’d sleep with a
+blanket round us, under any shelter we could rig up,—a few
+spruce-boughs or a bark hut. When the snow came, we were forced to
+shorten our trips, so as to reach one of the home-camps each night.
+
+“Well, it was early in the season, one fine fall evening, that I was
+crossing Togue Ponds in a canoe. I had been away on the tramp for
+a’most a week; and though I had a rifle and axe with me, I had nary an
+ounce of ammunition left. All of a sudden I caught sight of a moose,
+feeding on some lily-roots in deep water. Jest at first I was a bit
+doubtful whether it was a moose or not; for the creature’s head was
+under, and I could only see his shoulders. I stopped paddling. I tried
+to stop breathing. Next, I felt like jumping out of my skin; for, with
+a big splash, up come a pair of antlers a good five feet across,
+dripping with water, and a’most covered with green roots and stems,
+which dangled from ’em.
+
+“Good land! ’twas a queer sight. ‘Herb Heal,’ thinks I, ‘now’s your
+chance! If you can only manage to nab that moose-head, you’ll get two
+hundred dollars for it at Greenville, sure!’ And mighty few cents I had
+jest then.
+
+“I could a’most have cried over my tough luck in not having one dose of
+lead left. But the bull’s back was towards me. The water filled his
+ears and nose, so that he couldn’t hear or smell. And he was having a
+splendid tuck-in. It was big sport to hear him crunch those
+lily-roots.”
+
+“I should think it was!” burst out Cyrus enviously. “But did you have
+the heart to kill him in cold blood, in the middle of his meal?”
+
+“I did. I guess I wouldn’t do it now; anyhow, not unless I was very
+badly off for food. But I had an old mother living at Greenville that
+time,”—here there was the least possible tremble in the woodsman’s
+voice,—“and while I paddled alongside the moose, without making a
+sound, I was thinking that the price I’d be sure to get from some city
+swell for the head would come in handy to make her comfortable. The
+creature never suspicioned danger till I was close to him, and had my
+axe lifted, ready to strike. Then up came his head. Out went his
+forefeet. Over spun the canoe. There was as big a commotion as if a
+whale was there.
+
+“I managed to keep behind the brute so as to dodge his kicks; and
+gripping the axe in one hand, I dug the other into his long hair. He
+was mad scared. He started to swim for the opposite shore, which was
+about half a mile distant, with me in tow, snorting like a locomotive.
+As his feet touched ground near the bank, I jumped upon his back. With
+one blow of the axe I split his spine. Perhaps you’ll think that was
+awful cruel, but it wasn’t done for the glory of killing.”
+
+“And what became of the head? Did you sell it?” asked Dol, who was, as
+usual, the first to break a breathless silence.
+
+There was no reply. Herb feigned not to hear.
+
+“Did you get two hundred dollars for the head?” questioned the
+impetuous youngster again, in a higher key, his curiosity swelling.
+
+“I didn’t. It was stole.”
+
+The answer was a growl, like the growl of a hurt animal whose sore has
+been touched. The tone of it was so different from the woodsman’s
+generally strong, happy-go-lucky manner of speech, that Dol blenched as
+if he had been struck.
+
+“Who stole it?” he gasped, after a minute, scarcely knowing that he
+spoke aloud.
+
+Unnoticed in the firelight, Cyrus clapped a strong hand over the boy’s
+mouth, to stifle further questions.
+
+“Keep still!” he whispered.
+
+But Herb, who was, as usual, perched upon the “deacon’s seat,” leaned
+forward, with a laugh which was more than half a snarl.
+
+“Who stole it?” he echoed. “Why, the other fellow—my chum; the man whom
+I carried for a mile on my back, through a snow-heaped forest, the
+first time I saw him,
+when I had lugged him out of a heavy drift. _He_ stole it, Kid, and
+a’most everything I owned with it.”
+
+
+Illustration: The Camp On Millinokett Lake.
+
+
+With a savage kick of his moccasined foot, the woodsman suddenly
+assaulted a blazing log. It sent a shower of sparks aloft, and caused a
+bright flame to shoot, rocket-like, from the heart of the fire, which
+showed the guide’s face. His fine eyes reminded Cyrus of Millinokett
+Lake when a thunder-storm broke over it. Their gray was dark and
+troubled; the black pupils seemed to shrink, as if a tempest beat on
+them; fierce flashes of light played through them.
+
+Muttering a half-smothered oath, Herb flung himself off his bench,
+stamped across the cabin to the open camp-door, and passed into the
+darkness outside.
+
+The boys, who had been stretched out in comfortable positions, drew
+themselves bolt upright, and sat aghast. They stared towards the
+camp-door, murmuring disjointedly. Into the mind of each flashed a
+remembrance of some story which Doctor Phil had told about a thieving
+partner who once robbed Herb Heal.
+
+“You’ve stirred up more than you bargained for, Dol,” said Cyrus. “I
+wish to goodness you hadn’t been so smart with your questions.”
+
+But the words were scarcely spoken when the guide was again in their
+midst, with a smile on his lips.
+
+“It’s best to let sleeping dogs lie, young one,” he said, looking down
+reassuringly on Dol, who was feeling dumfounded. “I guess you all think
+I’m an awful bearish fellow. But if you had lived the lonely life of a
+trapper, tramping each day through the dark woods till you were
+leg-weary, visiting your steel traps and deadfalls, all to get a few
+furs and make a few dollars; and turned up at camp one evening to find
+that your partner had skipped with every skin you had procured, I
+reckon ’twould take you a plaguy long time to get over it.”
+
+“I’m pretty sure it would, old man,” said Cyrus.
+
+“And I minded the loss of the furs a sight less than I minded losing
+that moose-head,” continued Herb, taking his perch again upon the
+“deacon’s seat.” “The hound took ’em all. Every woodsman in Maine was
+riled about it at the time, and turned out to ketch him; but he gave
+’em the slip. Now, boys, I’ve got to feeling pretty chummy with you.
+Cyrus is an old friend; and, to speak plain, I like you Britishers. I
+don’t want you to think that I bust up your fun to-night for nothing.
+I’ll tell you the whole yarn if you want to hear it.”
+
+The looks of the trio were sufficient assent.
+
+“All right, boys. Here goes! Since I was a kid in Maine woods I’ve
+worked at a’most everything that a woodsman can do. Six year ago I was
+a ‘barker’ in a lumber-camp on the Kennebec River. A ‘barker’ is a man
+who jumps onto a big tree after a chopper has felled it, and strips the
+bark off with his axe, so that the trunk can be easily hauled over the
+snow. Well, it’s pretty hard labor, is lumbering. But our camp always
+got Sunday for rest.
+
+“Well, I was prowling about in the woods by myself one Sunday
+afternoon, when an awful snow-storm come on, a big blizzard which
+staggered the stripped trees like as if ’twould tumble ’em all down,
+and end our work for us. I was bolting for camp as fast as I was able,
+when I tripped over something which was a’most covered over in a heavy
+drift. ‘Great Scott!’ says I, ‘it’s a man!’ And ’twas too. He was near
+dead. I hauled him out, and set him on his legs; but he couldn’t walk.
+So I threw him across my shoulders, same way as I carry a deer. He
+didn’t weigh near as much as a good buck, for he was little more’n a
+kid and awful lean. But ’twas dreadful travelling, with the snow half
+blinding and burying you. I was plumb blowed when I struck the camp,
+and pitched in head foremost.
+
+“For an hour we worked over that stranger to bring him round, and we
+succeeded. We saw at once that he was a half-breed. When he could use
+his tongue, he told us that his father was a settler, and his mother a
+Penobscot Indian. He was sick for a spell and wild-like, then he talked
+a lot of Indian jargon; but when he got back his senses, he spoke
+English fust-rate. Chris Kemp he said was his name. And from the start
+the lumbermen nicknamed him ‘Cross-eyed Chris; for his eyes, which were
+black as blackberries, had a queer squint in ’em.
+
+“Well, in spite of the squint, I took to Chris, and he to me. And the
+following year, when I decided to give up lumbering, and take to
+trapping fur-bearing animals in the woods near Katahdin, he joined me.
+We swore to be chums, to stick to each other through thick and thin, to
+share all we got;
+and he made one of his outlandish Indian signs to strengthen the oath.
+A fine way he kept it too!
+
+“Now, if I’m too long-winded, boys, say so; and I’ll hurry up.”
+
+“No, no! Tell us everything.”
+
+“Spin it out as long as you can.”
+
+“We don’t mind listening half the night. Go ahead!”
+
+At this gust of protest Herb smiled, though rather soberly, and went
+ahead as he was bidden.
+
+“We made camp together—him and me. We had two home-camps where I told
+you, and met at the end of each week, bringing the skins we had taken,
+which we stored in one of ’em. We got along together swimmingly for a
+bit. But Chris had a weakness which I had found out long before. I
+guess he took it from his mother’s people. Give him one drink of
+whiskey, and it stirred up all the mud that was in him. There’s mud in
+every man, I s’pose; and there’s nothing like liquor for bringing it to
+the surface. A gulp of fire-water changed Chris from an honest,
+right-hearted fellow to a crazy devil. This had set the lumbermen
+against him. But I hoped that in the lonely woods where we trapped he
+wouldn’t get a chance to see the stuff. He did, though, and when I
+wasn’t there to make a fight against his swallowing it.
+
+“It happened that one week he got back to our camp on Togue
+Ponds,—where most of our stuff was stored, and where I kept that
+moose-head, waiting for a chance to take it down to Greenville,—a day
+or two sooner’n me. And the worst luck that ever attended either of us
+brought a stranger to the camp at the same time, to shelter for a
+night. He was an explorer, a city swell; and I guess he didn’t know
+much about Injuns or half-breeds, for he gave Chris a little bottle of
+fiery whiskey as a parting present. The man told me about it
+afterwards, and that he was kind o’ scared when the boy—for he wasn’t
+much more—swallowed it with two gulps, and then followed him into the
+woods, howling, capering, and offering to sell him my grand moose-head,
+and all the furs we had, for another drink of the burning stuff. I
+guess that stranger felt pretty sick over the mischief he had done. He
+refused to buy ’em. But when I got back to camp next day, to find the
+skins gone, antlers gone, Chris gone; when I ran across the traveller
+and ferreted out his story,—I knew, as well as if I seen it, that my
+partner had skipped with all my belongings, to sell ’em or trade ’em at
+some settlement for more liquor. We had a couple of big birch
+canoes,—one of ’em was missing too,—and a river being near, the thing
+could be easy managed.
+
+“I’ll allow that I raged tremendous. The losses were bad; but to be
+robbed by your own chum, the man you had saved and stuck to, the only
+being you had said a word to for months, was sickening. I swore I’d
+shoot the hound if I found him. I spread the news at every camp and
+farm-settlement through the forest country, and we had a rousing hunt
+after the fellow; but he gave us the slip, though I heard of him
+afterwards at a distant town, where he sold the furs.”
+
+“I suppose he left the State,” said Cyrus.
+
+“I guess he did. But for a big while I used to think he’d come back to
+our camp some day, and let me have it out with him; for he wasn’t a
+coward, and we had been fast chums.”
+
+“And he didn’t?”
+
+“Not as I know of. The next year I gave up trapping, which was an awful
+cruel as well as a lonely business, and took to moose-hunting
+and guiding. I haven’t been anear the old camps for ages.”
+
+“Perhaps you will come across him again some day,” suggested Dol, with
+unusual timidity.
+
+“P’raps so, Kid. And, faith, when I think of that, it seems as if there
+were two creatures inside o’ me fighting tooth and claw. One is all for
+hammering him to a jelly. The other is sort o’ pitiful, and says,
+‘Mebbe ’twasn’t out-an’-out his fault.’ Which of them two’ll get the
+best of it, if ever I’m face to face with Cross-eyed Chris, I dunno.”
+
+Cyrus Garst rose suddenly. He kicked the camp-fire to make a blaze,
+then looked the woodsman fair in the eyes.
+
+“I know, Herb,” he said; “the spirit of mercy will conquer.”
+
+“Glad you think so!” answered Herb. “But I ain’t so sure. Sho! boys,
+I’ve kept you up till near midnight with my yarns. We must go to roost
+quick, or you’ll never be fit to light out for Katahdin to-morrow.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVIII. To Lonelier Wilds
+
+
+Before daybreak next morning Herb Heal was astir. Apparently even a
+short night’s sleep had driven from him all disturbing memories. He
+whistled and hummed softly, like the strong, hopeful fellow he was,
+controlling his notes so that they should not awaken his companions,
+while he hauled out and overlooked the canvas for a tent, to see if it
+was sound. Next he surveyed the camp-stores, and put up a supply of
+flour, pork, and coffee in a canvas bag, enough for four persons to
+subsist upon with economy during an excursion of six or seven days. For
+he knew that his employers would follow his suggestion, and be eager to
+start for the woods near Katahdin soon after they got their eyes open.
+
+He had been doing his work with a candle held in his brown fingers; but
+as dawn-light began to enter the cabin, he quenched its dingy, yellow
+flicker, opened the camp-door, and surveyed the morning sky.
+
+“It’ll be a good day to start out, I guess,” he muttered. “Let’s see,
+what time is it?”
+
+The stars had not yet paled, and Herb forthwith fell to studying them;
+for they were his jewelled time-piece, by which he could tell the hour
+so long as they shone. Watch he had none.
+
+While he gazed aloft at the glinting specks, he unconsciously began to
+croon, in a powerful bass voice, with deep gutturals, some words which
+certainly weren’t woodsman’s English.
+
+“_N’loan pes-saus, mok glint ont-aven,
+Glint ont-aven, nosh morgan_.”
+
+
+“What on earth is that outlandish thing you’re singing, Herb?” roared
+Neal Farrar from the bunk, awakened by the sounds. “Give us that stave
+again—do!”
+
+The guide started. He had scarcely been aware of what he was humming,
+and his laugh was a trifle disconcerted.
+
+“So you’re waking up, are ye?” he said. “Tain’t time to be stirring
+yet; I ought to be kicked for making such a row.”
+
+“But what’s that you were singing?” reiterated Neal. “The words weren’t
+English, and they had a fine sort of roll.”
+
+“They’re Injun,” was the answer. “I guess ’twas all the talking I done
+last night that brung ’em into my head. I picked ’em up from that
+fellow I was telling you about. He’d start crooning ’em whenever he
+looked at the stars to find out the hour.”
+
+“Are they about the stars?”
+
+“I guess so. A city man, who had studied the redskins’ language a lot,
+told me they meant:—
+
+‘We are the stars which sing,
+We sing with our light.’”[2]
+
+
+ [2] Mr. Leland’s translation.
+
+
+Then Herb chanted the two lines again in the original tongue.
+
+“There was quite a lot more,” he said; “but I can’t remember it. I
+learned some queer jargon from Chris, and how to make most of the signs
+belonging to the Indian sign-talk. The fellow had more of his mother
+than his father in him. I guess I’d better give over jabbering, and
+cook our breakfast.”
+
+It was evident that Herb did not want to dwell upon his reminiscences.
+And Neal had tact enough to swallow his burning curiosity about all
+things Indian. He asked no more questions, but rolled off the
+fir-boughs, and dressed himself.
+
+Cyrus and Dol sprang up too. All three were soon busy helping forward
+preparations for the start. They packed their knapsacks with a few
+necessaries; and after a hearty breakfast had been eaten,—their last
+meal off moose-steaks for a while, as Herb informed them he “could not
+carry any fresh meat along,”—the guide’s voice was heard shouting:—
+
+“Ready, are ye, boys? Got all yer traps? Here, Cyrus, jest strap this
+pack-basket on my shoulders. Now we’re off!”
+
+The pack contained the tent, the camp-kettle, and frying-pan, together
+with the aforementioned provisions, a good axe, etc. It was an
+uncomfortable load, even for a woodsman’s shoulders. But Herb strode
+ahead with it jauntily. And many times during that first day’s tramp of
+a dozen miles, his comrades—as they trudged through rugged places after
+him, spots where it was hard to keep one’s perpendicular, and feet
+sometimes showed a sudden inclination to start for the sky—threw
+envious glances at his tall figure, “straight as an Indian arrow,” his
+powerful limbs, and unerring step. Even the horny, capable hands came
+in for a share of the admiration.
+
+“I guess anything that got into your grip, Herb, would find it hard to
+get out again without your will,” said Cyrus, studying the knotted
+fists which held the straps of the pack-basket.
+
+“Mebbe so,” answered the guide frankly. “I’ve a sort of a trick of
+holding on to things once I’ve got ’em. P’raps that was why I didn’t
+let go of Chris in that big blizzard till I landed him at camp. But I
+hope”—here Herb’s shoulders shook with heaving laughter, and the
+cooking utensils in his pack jingled an accompaniment—“I hope I ain’t
+like a miserly fellow we had in our lumber-camp. He was awful pious
+about some things, and awful mean about others. So the boys said, ‘he
+kept the Sabbath and everything else he could lay his hands upon.’ He
+used to get riled at it.
+
+“Not that I’ve a word to say against keeping Sunday,” went on Herb, in
+a different key. “Tell you what, out here a fellow thinks a heap of his
+day o’ rest, when his legs can stop tramping, and his mind get a chance
+to do some tall thinking. Now, boys, we’ve covered twelve good miles
+since we left Millinokett Lake, and you needn’t go any farther to-day
+unless you’ve a mind to. We can make camp right here, near that stream.
+It will be nice, cold drinking-water, for it has meandered down from
+Katahdin.”
+
+He pointed to a brook a little way ahead, shimmering in the rays of the
+afternoon sun, of which they caught stray peeps through the gaps in an
+intervening wall of pines and hemlocks. A few minutes brought them to
+its brink. Tired and parched from their journey, each one stooped, and
+quenched his thirst with a delicious, ice-cold draught.
+
+“Was there ever a soda-fountain made that could give a drink to equal
+that?” said Cyrus, smacking his lips with content. “But listen to the
+noise this stream makes, boys. I guess if I were to lie beside it for
+an hour, I’d think, as the Greenlanders do, that I could hear the
+spirits of the world talking through it.”
+
+“That’s a mighty queer notion,” answered Herb; “and I never knew as
+other folks had got hold of it. But, sure’s you live! I’ve
+thought the same thing myself lots o’ times, when I’ve slept by a
+forest stream. Who’ll lend a helping hand in cutting down boughs for
+our fire and bed? I want to be pretty quick about making camp. Then
+we’ll be able to try some moose-calling after supper.”
+
+At this moment a peculiar gulping noise in Neal’s throat drew the eyes
+of his companions upon him. His were bright and strained, peering at
+the opposite bank.
+
+“Look! What is it?” he gasped, his low voice rattling with excitement.
+
+“A cow-moose, by thunder!” said Herb. “A cow-moose and a calf with her!
+Here’s luck for ye, boys!”
+
+One moment sooner, simultaneously with Neal’s gulp of astonishment,
+there had emerged from the thick woods on the other bank a brown,
+wild-looking, hornless creature, in size and shape resembling a big
+mule, followed by a half-grown reproduction of herself.
+
+Her shaggy mane flew erect, her nostrils quivered like those of a
+race-horse, her eyes were starting with mingled panic and defiance.
+
+A snort, sudden and loud as the report of a shot-gun, made the four
+jump. Neal, who was standing on a slippery stone by the brink, lost his
+balance and staggered forward into the water, kicking up jets of
+shining spray. The snort was followed by a grunt, plaintive,
+distracted, which sounded oddly familiar, seeing that it had been so
+well imitated on Herb’s horn.
+
+And with that grunt, the moose wheeled about and fled, making the air
+swish as she cut through it, followed by her young, her mane waving
+like a pennon.
+
+“Well, if that ain’t bang-up luck, I’d like to know what is,” said the
+guide, as he watched the departure. “I never s’posed you’d get a chance
+to see a cow-moose; she’s shyer’n shy. Say! don’t you boys think that
+I’ve done her grunt pretty well sometimes?”
+
+“That you have,” was the general response. “_We_ couldn’t tell any
+difference between your noise and the real thing.”
+
+“But she wasn’t a patch on the bull-moose in appearance,” lamented Dol.
+
+“No more she was, boy. Most female forest creatures ain’t so
+good-looking as the males! And that’s queer when you think of it, for
+the girls have the pull over us where beauty is concerned. We ain’t in
+it with ’em, so to speak.”
+
+There was a big gale of laughter over Herb Real’s gallant admiration
+for the other sex, and the sigh which accompanied his expression of it.
+He joined in the mirth himself, though he walked off to make camp,
+muttering:—
+
+“Sho! You city fellows think that because I’m a woodsman I never heard
+of love-making in my life.”
+
+“Perhaps there is a little girl at some settlement waiting for a home
+to be fixed up out of guide’s fees,” retorted Cyrus.
+
+And the three shouted again for no earthly reason, save that the
+stimulus of forest air and good circulation was driving the blood with
+fine pressure through their veins, and life seemed such a glorious,
+unfolding possession—full of a wonderful possible—that they must hold a
+sort of jubilee.
+
+Herb, who perhaps in his lonely hours in the woods did cherish some
+vision such as Cyrus suggested, was so infected with their spirit,
+that, as he swung his axe with a giant’s stroke against a hemlock
+branch, he joined in with an explosive:—
+
+“Hurrup! Hur-r-r-rup!”
+
+This startled the trio like the bursting of a bomb, and trebled their
+excitement; for their guide, when abroad, had usually the cautious,
+well-controlled manner of the still-hunter, who never knows what
+chances may be lurking round him which he would ruin by an outcry.
+
+“Quit laughing, boys,” he said, recovering prudence directly he had let
+out his yell. “Quit laughing, I say, or we may call moose here till
+crack o’ doom without getting an answer. I guess they’re all off to the
+four winds a’ready, scared by our fooling.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIX. Treed By a Moose
+
+
+“I told you so, boys,” breathed the guide two hours later, with an
+overwhelming sigh of regret, after he had given his most fetching calls
+in vain. “I told you so. There ain’t anything bigger’n a buck-rabbit
+travelling. That tormented row we made scared every moose within
+hearing.”
+
+Herb was standing on the ground, horn in hand, screened by the great
+shadows of a clump of hemlocks; the three were perched upon branches
+high above him, a safe post of observation if any moose had answered.
+
+“You may as well light down now,” he continued, turning his face up,
+though the boys were invisible; “I ain’t a-going to try any more music
+to-night. I guess we’ll stretch ourselves for sleep early, to get ready
+for a good day’s work to-morrow. An eight-mile tramp will bring us to
+the first heavy growth about the foot of Katahdin, and I’ll promise you
+a sight of a moose there.”
+
+His companions dropped to earth; and the four sought the shelter of
+their tent, which had been pitched a few hundred yards from the
+calling-place. Some dull embers smouldered before it; for Herb, even
+while preparing supper, had kept the camp-fire very low, lest any
+wandering clouds of smoke should interfere with the success of his
+calling.
+
+Now he heaped it high, throwing on without stint withered hemlock
+boughs and massive logs, which were soon wrapped in a sheet of flame,
+making an isle of light amid a surrounding sea of impenetrable
+darkness.
+
+Many times during the night the watchful fellow arose to replenish this
+fire, so that there might be no decrease in the flood of heat which
+entered the tent, and kept his charges comfortable. Once, while he was
+so engaged, the placid sleepers whom he had noiselessly quitted were
+aroused to terror—sudden, bewildering night-terror—by a gasping cry
+from his lips, followed by the leaping and rushing of some brute in
+flight, and by a screech which was one defiant note of unutterable
+savagery.
+
+“Good heavens! What’s that?” said Cyrus.
+
+“Is it—can it—could it be a panther?” stammered Dol.
+
+“Get out!” answered Neal contemptuously. “The panthers have got out
+long ago, so every one says.”
+
+“A lynx! A Canada lynx, boys, as sure as death and taxes!” panted Herb
+Heal, springing into the tent on the instant, with a burning brand in
+his hand. “’Tain’t any use your tumbling out, for you won’t see him.
+He’s away in the thick of the woods now.”
+
+Cyrus gurgled inarticulate disappointment. At the first two words he
+had sprung to his legs, having never encountered a lynx.
+
+“The brute must have been prowling round our tent,” went on Herb, his
+voice thick from excitement. “He leaped past me just as I was stooping
+to fix the fire, and startled me so that I guess I hollered. He got
+about half a dozen yards off, then turned and crouched as if he was
+going to spring back. Luckily, the axe was lying by me, just where I
+had tossed it down after chopping the last heap of logs. I caught it
+up, and flung it at him. It struck him on the side, and curled him up.
+I thought he was badly hurt; but he jumped the next moment, screeched,
+and made off. A pleasant scream he has; sounds kind o’ cheerful at
+night, don’t it?”
+
+No one answered this sarcasm; and Herb flung himself again upon his
+boughs, pulling his worn blanket round him, determined not to
+relinquish his night’s sleep because a lynx had visited his camp. The
+city fellows sensibly tried to follow his example; but again and again
+one of them would shake himself, and rise stealthily, convinced that he
+heard the blood-curdling screech ringing through the silent night.
+
+It was nearly morning before fatigue at last overmastered every
+sensation, and the three fell into an unbroken sleep, which lasted
+until the sun was high in the sky. When they awoke, their sense of
+smell was the first sense to be tickled. Fragrant odors of boiling
+coffee were floating into the tent. One after another they scrambled
+up, threw on their coats, and hurried out to find their guide kneeling
+by the camp-fire on the very spot from which he had hurled his axe at
+the lynx a few hours before. But now his right hand held a green stick,
+on which he was toasting some slices of pork into crisp, appetizing
+curls.
+
+“’Morning, boys!” he said, as the trio appeared. “Hope your early
+rising won’t opset ye! If you want to dip your faces in the stream, do
+it quick, for these dodgers are cooked.”
+
+The “dodgers” were the familiar flapjacks. Herb set down his stick as
+he spoke to turn a batch of them, which were steaming on the
+frying-pan, tossing them high in air as he did so, with a dexterous
+turn of his wrist.
+
+The boys having performed hasty ablutions in the stream, devoted
+themselves to their breakfast with a hearty will. There was little
+leisure for discussing the midnight visit of the lynx, or for anything
+but the joys of satisfying hunger, and taking in nutrition for the
+day’s tramp, as Herb was in a hurry to break camp, and start on for
+Katahdin. The morning was very calm; there seemed no chance of a wind
+springing up, so the evening would probably be a choice one for
+moose-calling.
+
+In half an hour the band was again on the march, the business of
+breaking camp being a swift one. The tent was on Herb’s shoulders; and
+naught was left to mark the visit of man to the humming stream but a
+bed of withering boughs on which the lynx might sleep to-night, and a
+few dying embers which the guide had thrashed out with his feet.
+
+No halt was made until four o’clock in the afternoon. Then Herb Heal
+came to a standstill on the edge of a wide bog. It lay between him and
+what he called the “first heavy growth;” that is, the primeval forest,
+unthinned by axe of man, which at certain points clothes the foot of
+Katahdin.
+
+The great mountain, dwelling-place of Pamolah, cradle of the flying
+Thunder and flashing Lightning, which according to one Indian legend
+are the swooping sons of the Mountain Spirit, now towered before the
+travellers, its base only a mile distant.
+
+“I’ve a good mind to make camp right here,” said Herb, surveying the
+bog and then the firm earth on which he stood. “We may travel a longish
+ways farther, and not strike such a fair camping-ground, unless we go
+on up the side of the mountain to that old home-camp I was telling you
+about, which we built when we were trapping. I guess it’s standing yet,
+and ’twould be a snug shelter; but we’d have a hard pull to reach it
+this evening. What d’ye say, boys?”
+
+“I vote for pitching the tent right here,” answered Cyrus.
+
+The English boys were of the same mind, and the guide forthwith
+unstrapped his heavy pack-basket. As he hauled forth its contents, and
+strewed them on the ground, the first article which made its appearance
+was the moose-horn; it had been carefully stowed in on top. Dol
+snatched it up as a dog might snatch a bone, and touched it with
+longing in every finger-tip.
+
+“There’s one bad thing about this place,” grumbled Herb presently,
+surveying the landscape wherever his eye could travel, “there isn’t a
+pint of drinking-water to be seen. There may be pools here and there in
+that bog; but, unless we want to keel over before morning, we’d better
+let ’em alone. Say! could a couple of you fellows take the camp-kettle,
+and cruise about a bit in search of a spring?”
+
+“I volunteer for the job!” cried Dol instantly, with the light of some
+sudden idea shining like a sunburst in his face.
+
+“You don’t budge a step, old man, unless I go with you,” said Cyrus.
+“Not much! I don’t want to patrol the forests like a lunatic for five
+mortal hours in search of you, and then find you roasting your shins by
+some other fellow’s camp-fire. One little hide-and-seek game of that
+kind was enough.”
+
+“Well! the fact that I did bring up by Doc’s camp-fire shows that I am
+able to take care of myself. If I get into scrapes, I can wriggle out
+of them again,” maintained the kid of the camp, with a brazen look,
+while his eyes showed flinty sparks, caused by the inspiring purpose
+hidden behind them, which had little to do with water-carrying.
+
+“Why can’t you both go without any more palaver?” suggested Herb, as he
+started away towards a belt of young firs to cut stakes for the tent.
+“Cruise straight across the bog, mark your track by the bushes as you
+go ’long, don’t get into the woods at all, and ’twill be plain sailing.
+I guess you’ll strike a spring before very long.”
+
+Cyrus caught up the camp-kettle, and stepped out briskly over the
+springy, spongy ground. Dol Farrar followed him. The two were half-way
+across the bog before the elder noticed that the younger was carrying
+something. It was the moose-horn.
+
+“If we run across any moose-signs, I’m going to try a call,” said Dol,
+his strike-a-light eyes fairly blazing while he disclosed
+his purpose. “You may laugh, Cy, and call me a greenhorn; but I bet you
+I’ll get an answer, at least if there’s a bull-moose within two miles.”
+
+“That’s pretty cheerful,” retorted the Boston man; “especially as
+neither of us has brought a rifle. Mr. Moose may be at home, and give
+you an answer; but there’s no telling what sort of temper he’ll be in.”
+
+“I left my Winchester leaning against a tree on the camping-ground,”
+said the would-be caller regretfully. “But you know you wouldn’t fire
+on him, Cy, unless he came near making mince-meat of us. If he should
+charge, we could make a dash for the nearest trees. Let’s risk it if we
+run across any tracks!”
+
+“And in the meantime, Herb will be wondering where we are, vowing
+vengeance on us, and waiting for the kettle while we’re waiting for the
+moose,” argued Garst. “It won’t do, Chick. Give it up until later on.
+We undertook the job of finding water, and we’re bound to finish that
+business first.”
+
+“If I wait until later on, I may wait forever,” was the boy’s gloomy
+protest. “Tonight, when Herb is there, Neal and you will just sit on
+me, and be afraid of my making a wrong sound, and spoiling the sport.
+
+“And I _know_ we’ll see moose-tracks before we get back to camp!” wound
+up the young pleader passionately. “I’ve been working up to it all day.
+I mean I’ve felt as if something—something fine—was going to happen,
+which would make a ripping story for the Manchester fellows when we go
+home. Do let me have one chance, Cy,—one fair and honest chance!”
+
+There was such a tremendous force of desire working through the English
+boy that it set his blood boiling, and every bit of him in motion. His
+eyes were afire, his eyelids shut and opened with their quick snap, his
+lips moved after he had finished speaking, his fingers twitched upon
+the moose-horn.
+
+He was a picture of heart-eagerness which Cyrus could not resist,
+though he shook with laughter.
+
+“I’ll take mighty good care that the next time I go to find water for
+the camp-supper, I don’t take a crank with me, who has gone mad on
+moose-calling,” he said. “See here! If we do come across moose-signs,
+I’ll get under cover, and give you quarter of an hour to call and
+listen for an answer—not a second longer. Now stop thinking about this
+fad, and keep your eyes open for a spring.”
+
+But, unfortunately, this seemed to be a thirsty and tantalizing land
+for travellers. The soft sod under their feet oozed moisture; slimy,
+stagnant bog-pools appeared, but not a drop of pure, gushing water, to
+which a parched man dare touch his lips.
+
+They crossed the wide extent of bog, Cyrus breaking off stunted bushes
+here and there to mark his pilgrimage; they reached the dense
+timber-growth at the base of the mountain, longing for the sight of a
+spring as eagerly as ever pilgrims yearned to behold a healing well;
+but their search was unsuccessful.
+
+Decidedly nonplussed, Dol all the time keeping one eye on the lookout
+for water and the other for moose-signs, they took counsel together,
+and determined to “cruise” to the right, skirting the foot of Katahdin,
+hoping to find a gurgling, rumbling mountain-torrent splashing down.
+Having travelled about half a mile in this new direction, with the
+giant woods which they dared not enter rising like an emerald wall on
+the one hand, and the dreary bog-land on the other, they at last, when
+patience was failing, came to a change in the landscape.
+
+The desired water was not in view yet; but the bog gave way to fairer,
+firmer ground, covered with waving grasses, studded with rising knolls,
+and having no timber growth, save stray clumps of birches and hemlocks,
+several hundred yards apart.
+
+“Now, this is jolly!” exclaimed Dol. “This looks a little bit like an
+English lawn, only I’m afraid it’s not a likely place for moose-tracks.
+But I’m glad to be out of that beastly bog.”
+
+“Confusion to your moose-tracks,” ejaculated Cyrus, half exasperated.
+“I wish we could find a well. That would be more to the purpose.
+Listen, Dol, do you hear anything?”
+
+“I hear—I hear—’pon my word! I _do_ hear the bubbling and tinkling of
+water somewhere! Where on earth is it? Oh! I know. It comes from that
+knoll over there—the one with the bushes.”
+
+Dol Farrar, as he finished his jerky sentences, pointed to an eminence
+which was two or three hundred yards from where they stood, and a like
+distance from the wall of forest.
+
+“Well! It’s about time we struck something at last,” grumbled Garst.
+“Catch me ever coming on a water pilgrimage again!
+I’ll let Herb fill his own kettle in future. Now, I believe that fellow
+could smell a spring.”
+
+“Just as I smelt this one!” exclaimed Dol triumphantly. “I told you
+’twas on the side of the knoll. And here it is!”
+
+“Bravo, Chick! You’ve got good ears, if you are crazy upon one
+subject.”
+
+And so speaking, Cyrus, with a chuckle of joy, unslung the tin
+drinking-cup which hung at his belt, filled and refilled it, drinking
+long, inspiriting draughts before he prepared to fill the camp-kettle.
+
+“The best water I ever tasted, Dol!” he exclaimed, smacking his lips.
+“It’s ice-cold. There’s not much of it, but it has quality, if not
+quantity.”
+
+The long-sought well was, in truth, a tiny one. It came bubbling up,
+clear and pellucid, from the bowels of the earth, and showed its
+laughing face amid a cluster of bushes—which all bent close to look at
+it lovingly—half-way up the knoll. A wee stream trickled down from
+it,—dribble—dribble—a rivulet that had once been twice its present
+size, judging from the wide margin of spattered clay at each side.
+
+Dol had been following his companion’s example, and drinking joyfully
+before thinking of aught else. When the moment came for him to
+straighten his back, and rise upon his legs, instead of this natural
+proceeding, he suddenly crouched close to the ground, his breath coming
+in quick puffs, his eyes dilating, a froth of excitement on his lips.
+
+“What on earth are you staring at?” asked Cyrus. “You look positively
+crazy.”
+
+For answer, the English boy shot up from his lowly posture, seized his
+companion by the arm, making him drop the camp-kettle, which he was
+just filling, and forced him to scan the soft clay by the rivulet.
+
+“Look there—and there!” gurgled Dol, his voice sounding as if he was
+being choked by suppressed hilarity. “I told you we’d find them, and
+you didn’t believe me! Aren’t those moose-tracks? They’re not
+deer-tracks, anyhow; they’re too big. I may be a greenhorn, but I know
+that much.”
+
+“They _are_ moose-tracks,” Cyrus answered slowly, almost unbelievingly,
+though the evidence was before him. “They certainly are moose-tracks,”
+he repeated, “and very recent ones too. A moose has been drinking here,
+perhaps not half an hour ago. He can’t be far away.”
+
+Garst was now warming into excitement himself. His bass tones became
+guttural and almost inarticulate, while he lowered them to prevent
+their travelling. On the reddish clay at his feet were foot-marks very
+like the prints of a large mastiff. He studied them one by one, even
+tracing the outline with his forefinger.
+
+“Then I’m going to call,” whispered Dol, his words tremulous and
+stifled. “Lie low, Cy! You promised you’d give me a fair chance; you’ll
+have to keep your word.”
+
+“I’ll do it too,” was the answering whisper. “But let’s get higher up
+on the knoll, behind those big bushes at the top. And listen, Dol, if a
+moose makes a noise anywhere near, we must scoot for the trees before
+he comes out from cover. I’ve got to answer to your father for you.”
+
+It was an intense moment in Dol Farrar’s life; sensation reached its
+highest pitch, as he crouched low behind a prickly screen, put the
+birch-bark horn to his mouth, and slowly breathed through it with the
+full power of his young lungs, marvellously strengthened by the forest
+life of past weeks.
+
+There was a minute’s interval while he removed it again, and drew in
+all the air he could contain. Then a call rose upon the evening air, so
+touching, so plaintive, with such a rising, quavering impatience as it
+surged out towards the woods,—whither the boy-caller’s face was
+turned,—that Cyrus could scarcely suppress a “Bravo!”
+
+The summons died away in a piteous grunt. A second time the call rose
+and fell. On the third repetition it broke off, as usual, in an abrupt
+roar, which seemed to strike the tops of the giant trees, and boom
+among them.
+
+A froth was on Dol Farrar’s lips, his eyes were reddened, he puffed
+hard through spread nostrils, like a young horse which has been trying
+its mettle for the first time, as he lowered that moose-horn, lifted
+his head, and cocked his ears to listen.
+
+Two soundless minutes passed. Dol, who, if he had mastered the hunter’s
+call, had certainly not mastered his patience, put the bark-trumpet
+again to his lips, determined to try the effect of a surpassingly
+expressive grunt.
+
+But he never executed this false movement, which would have given away
+the trick at once.
+
+A bellow—a short, snorting, challenging bellow—burst the silence,
+coming from the very edge of the woods. It brought Cyrus to his feet
+with a jump. It so startled the ambitious moose-caller, that, in rising
+hurriedly from his squatting position, he lost his balance, and rolled
+over and over to the bottom of the knoll, smashing the horn into a
+hundred pieces.
+
+He picked himself up unhurt, but with a sensation as if all the bells
+in Christendom were doing a jumbled ringing in his head. And loud above
+this inward din he heard the sound, so well remembered, as of an axe
+striking repeatedly against a tree, the terrible chopping noises of a
+bull-moose, not two hundred yards away.
+
+No sooner had he scrambled to his legs, than Garst was at his side,
+gripping his arm, and forcing him forward at a headlong run.
+
+“You’ve done it this time with a vengeance!” bawled the Bostonian.
+“He’s coming for us straight! And we without our rifles! The trees! The
+trees! It’s our only chance!”
+
+With the belling still in his head, and so bewildered by his terrible
+success that he felt as if his senses were shooting off hither and
+thither like rockets, leaving him mad, Dol nevertheless ran as he had
+never run before, shoulder to shoulder with his comrade, dashing
+wildly for a clump of hemlocks over a hundred yards distant. Yet, for
+the life of him, he could not help glancing back once over his
+shoulder, to see the creature which he had humbugged, luring it from
+its forest shelter, and which now pursued him.
+
+The moose was charging after them full tilt, gaining rapidly too, his
+long thin legs, enormous antlers, broad, upreared nose, and the green
+glare in his starting eyes, making him look like some strange animal of
+a former earth. Dol at last trembled with actual fear. He gave a
+shuddering leap, and forced his legs, which seemed threatened with
+paralysis, to wilder speed.
+
+“Climb up that hemlock! Get as high as you can!” shrieked Cyrus,
+stopping to give him an upward shove as they reached the first friendly
+trunk.
+
+Dol obeyed. Gasping and wild-eyed, he dug his nails into the bark,
+clambering up somehow until he reached a forked branch about eight feet
+from the ground. Here strength failed. He could only cling dizzily,
+feeling that he hung between life and death.
+
+The moose was now snorting like a war-horse beneath. The brute stood
+off for a minute, then charged the hemlock furiously, and butted it
+with his antlers till it shook to its roots, the sharp prongs of those
+terrible horns coming within half an inch of Dol’s feet.
+
+With a gurgle of horror the boy tried to reach a higher limb, and
+succeeded; for at the same moment a timely shout encouraged him. Cyrus
+was bawling at the top of his voice from a tree ten feet distant:—
+
+“Are you all right, Dol? Don’t be scared. Hold on like grim death, and
+we can laugh at the old termagant now.”
+
+“I’m—I’m all right,” sang out Dol, though his voice shook, as did every
+twig of his hemlock, which the moose was assaulting again. “But he’s
+frantic to get at me.”
+
+“Never mind. He can’t do it, you know. Only don’t you go turning dizzy
+or losing your balance. Ha! you old spindle-legged monster, stand off
+from that tree. Take a turn at mine now, for a change. You can’t shake
+me down, if you butt till midnight.”
+
+Garst’s last sentences were hurled at the moose. The Bostonian, having
+reached a safe height, thrust his face out from his screen of branches,
+waving first an arm, and then a leg, at the besieging foe, hoping that
+the force of those battering antlers would be directed against his
+hemlock, so that his friend’s nerves might get a chance to recover.
+
+The ruse succeeded. The moose, reminded that there was a second enemy,
+charged the other tree; stood off for a minute to get breath, then
+charged it again, snorting, bellowing, and knocking his jaws together
+with a crunching, chopping noise.
+
+“Ha! that’s how he makes the row like a man with an axe—by hammering
+his jaws on each other. Well, well! but this is a regular picnic, Dol,”
+sang out Cyrus jubilantly, caring nothing for the shocks, and
+forgetting camp, water, peril, everything, in his joy at getting a
+chance to leisurely study the creature he had come so far to visit.
+
+“I owe you something for this, little man!” he carolled on in triumph,
+as he watched every wild movement of the moose. “This is a show we’ll
+only see once in our lives. It’s worth a hundred dollars a performance.
+Butt and snort till you’re tired, you ‘Awful Jabberwock!’”—this to the
+bull-moose. “We’ve come hundreds of miles to see you, and the more you
+carry on the better we’ll be pleased.”
+
+Indeed, the wrathful king of forests seemed in no hurry to cut short
+his pantomime. He ramped and raged, tearing from one tree to another,
+expending paroxysms of force in vain attempts to overturn one or the
+other of them. The ground seemed to shake under his thundering hoofs.
+His eyes were full of green fire; his nostrils twitched; the black
+tassel or “bell” hanging from his shaggy throat shook with every angry
+movement; his muffle, the big overhanging upper lip, was spotted with
+foam.
+
+As he gulped, grunted, snorted, and roared, his uncouth, guttural
+noises made him seem more than ever like a curious creature of earth’s
+earliest ages.
+
+“We came pretty near to being goners, Dol, I tell you!” carolled Cyrus
+again from his high perch in the hemlock, carrying on a by-play with
+the enemy between each sentence. “How in the name of wonder did you
+manage such a call? It would have moved the heart-strings of any moose.
+I was lying flat, you know, peeping through a little gap in the bushes,
+and you had scarcely taken the horn from your mouth when I saw the old
+fellow come stamping out of the woods. My! wasn’t he a sight? He stood
+for a minute looking about for the fancied cow; then he bellowed, and
+started towards the knoll. I knew we had better run for our lives. As
+soon as he saw us he gave chase.”
+
+“And ‘the fancied cow’ should go tumbling down the knoll like a rolling
+jackass, and smash that grand horn to bits!” lamented Dol, who now sat
+serenely on his bough, with a firm clasp of the hemlock trunk, and a
+reckless enjoyment of the situation which far surpassed his
+companion’s.
+
+Cyrus began to have an occasional twinge of uneasiness about the
+possible length of the siege, after his first exuberance subsided; but
+the younger boy, his short terror overcome, had no misgivings. He
+coquetted with the moose through a thick screen of foliage, shook the
+branches at him, gibed and taunted him, enjoying the extra fury he
+aroused.
+
+But suddenly the old bull, having kept up his wild movements for nearly
+an hour, resolved on a change of tactics. He stood stock-still and
+lowered his head.
+
+“Goodness! He has made up his mind to ‘stick us out!’” gasped Cyrus.
+
+“What’s that?” said Dol.
+
+“Don’t you see? He’s going to lay siege in good earnest—wait till we’re
+forced to come down. Here’s a state of things! We can’t roost in these
+trees all night.”
+
+The hemlocks were throwing ever-lengthening shadows on the grass. A
+slow eclipse was stealing over everything. The motionless moose became
+an uncouth black shape. Garst muttered uneasily. His fingers tingled
+for his rifle—a very unusual thing with him. His eyes peered through
+the creeping darkness in puzzled search for some suggestion, some
+possibility of escape.
+
+“If it were only myself!” he whispered, as if talking to his hemlock.
+“If it were only myself, I wouldn’t care a pin. ’Twould do me no great
+harm to perch here for hours. But an English youngster, on his first
+camping-trip! Why, the chill of a forest night might ruin him. He
+wouldn’t howl or make a fuss, for both those Farrar boys have lots of
+grit, but he’d never get over it. Dol!” he wound up, raising his voice
+to a sharp pitch. “Say, Dol, I’m going to try a shout for help. Herb
+must be getting anxious about us by this time. If we could once make
+him hear, he could try some trick to lure this old curmudgeon away, or
+creep up and shoot him. Something must be done.”
+
+Fetching a deep breath, Cyrus sent a distance-piercing “Coo-hoo!”
+ringing through the night-air. He followed it with another.
+
+But, so far as he could hear, the hails fetched no answer, save from
+the moose-jailer. The brute was stirred into a fresh tantrum by the
+noise. He charged the hemlocks once more, butted and shook them like a
+veritable demon.
+
+When his paroxysm had subsided, and he stood off to get breath, Garst
+hailed again.
+
+Glad sound! An answer this time! First, a shrill, long “Coo-hoo!” Next,
+Herb’s voice was heard pealing from far away in the bog: “What’s up,
+boys? Where in the world are you?”
+
+“Here in the trees—treed by a bull-moose!” yelled Cyrus. “He’s the
+maddest old monster you ever saw. Could you coax him off, or sneak up
+and shoot him? He means to keep us prisoners all night.”
+
+There was no wordy answer. But presently the treed heroes heard an odd,
+bird-like whistle. Dol thought it came from a feathered creature; his
+more experienced companion guessed that the guide’s lips gave it as a
+signal that he was coming, but that he didn’t want to draw the moose’s
+attention in his direction just yet.
+
+Such a quarter of an hour followed! With the fresh spurt of anger the
+bull-moose became more savage than ever. He grunted, tramped, and
+hooked the trees with his horns, so that the pair who were perched like
+night-birds on the branches had to hold on for dear life, lest a
+surprising shock should dislodge them. Whenever the creature stood off,
+to gather more fury, they could have counted their heart-beats while
+they listened, breathlessly anxious to, know what action the
+approaching woodsman would take.
+
+Once Cyrus spoke.
+
+“Dol Farrar,” he said, “I guess this caps all the adventures that you
+or I have had up to date. No wonder you felt all day as if you were
+working up to something. I’ll believe in presentiments in future.”
+
+The words had scarcely passed his lips, when there was the sharp bang!
+bang! of a rifle not twenty yards distant. A bright sputter of fire cut
+the darkness beneath the hemlocks.
+
+The moose’s blind rage threatened to be his own undoing. While he was
+fighting an imaginary danger, ears and nostrils half-choked by fury,
+through the calm night Herb Heal, Winchester in hand, had crept
+noiselessly on, till he reached the very trees which sheltered his
+friends.
+
+Once, twice, three times the rifle snapped. The first shot missed
+altogether. At the second, the moose rose upon his hind-legs, with a
+sharp sound of fright and pain, quite unlike his former noises. Then he
+gave a quick jump.
+
+“Great Governor’s Ghost! he’s gone;” yelled Cyrus, who had swung
+himself down a few feet, and was hanging by one arm, in his anxiety to
+see the result of the firing. “You needn’t shoot again, Herb! He’s off!
+Let him go!”
+
+“I guess that second shot cut some hair from him, and drew blood too,”
+answered Herb, his deep voice giving the pair a queer sensation as they
+heard it right beneath. “It was too dark to see plain, but I think he
+reared; and that’s a sign that he was hurt, little or much. Don’t drop
+down for a minute, boys, till we see whether he has bolted for good.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XX. Triumph
+
+
+He had bolted for good, vanished into the mysterious deeps of the
+primeval forest, whether hurt unto death, or merely “nipped” in a
+fore-leg, as Herb inclined to think, nobody knew.
+
+“It’s too dark to see blood-marks, if there are any, so we can’t trail
+him to-night. If he’s hit bad—but I guess he ain’t—we can track him in
+the morning,” said the guide; as, after an interval of listening, the
+rescued pair dropped down from their perches. “Did he chase you, boys?
+Where on earth did you come on him?”
+
+Talking together, their words tumbling out like a torrent let loose,
+Cyrus Garst and Dol Farrar gave an account of the past two
+hours—strangest hours of their lives—filling up the picture of them bit
+by bit.
+
+“Whew! whew! You did have a narrow squeak, boys, and a scarey time; but
+I guess you had a lot of fun out of the old snorter,” said Herb, his
+rare laugh jingling out, starting the forest echoes like a clang of
+bells. “You’ve won those antlers, Dol—won ’em like a man. Blest, but
+you have! I promised ’em to the first fellow who called up a moose; and
+nary a woodsman in Maine could have done it better. I’m powerful glad
+’twasn’t your own death-call you gave. I’ll keep my eye on you now till
+you leave these woods. Where’s the horn?”
+
+“Smashed to bits,” answered Dol regretfully.
+
+“And the camp-kettle?”
+
+“Lying by the spring, over there on the knoll, unless the moose kicked
+it to pieces,” said Cyrus.
+
+“My senses! you’re a healthy pair to send for water, ain’t ye? Let’s
+cruise off and find it. I guess you’ll be wanting a drink of hot
+coffee, after roosting in them trees for so long.”
+
+Garst led the way to the spring. Its pretty hum sounded like an angel’s
+whisper through the night, after the tumult of the past scene. Herb
+fumbled in his leather wallet, brought out a match and a small piece of
+birch-bark, and kindled a light. With some groping, the kettle was
+found; it was filled, and the party started for camp.
+
+“I heard the distant challenge of a bull-moose a couple of hours ago,”
+said the guide, as they went along. “I never suspicioned he was
+attacking you; but after the camp was a’ ready, and you hadn’t turned
+up, I got kind o’ scared. I left Neal to tend the fire and toast the
+pork, and started out to search. I s’pose I took the wrong direction;
+for I hollered, and got no answer. Afterwards, when I was travelling
+about the bog, I heard a ‘Coo-hoo!’ and the noises of an angry moose.
+Then I guessed there was trouble.”
+
+“Won’t Neal look blue when he hears that he was toasting pork while we
+were perched in those trees, with the moose waltzing below!” exclaimed
+Dol. “Well, Cy, I’ve won the antlers, and I’ve got my ripping story for
+the Manchester fellows. I don’t care how soon we turn home now.”
+
+“You don’t, don’t ye?” said the guide. “Well, I should s’pose you’d
+want to trail up that moose to-morrow, and see what has become of him.”
+
+“Of course I do! I forgot that.”
+
+And Dol Farrar, who had thought his record of adventure and triumph so
+full that it could hold no more, realized that there is always for
+ambition a farther point.
+
+Neal did feel a little blue over the thought of what he had missed.
+But, being a generous-hearted fellow, he tasted his young brother’s
+joy, when the latter cuddled close to him upon the evergreen boughs
+that night, muttering, as if the whole earth lay conquered at his
+feet:—
+
+“My legs are as stiff as ramrods, but who’d think of his legs after
+such a night as we’ve had?
+
+“I say, Neal, this is life; the little humbugging scrapes we used to
+call adventures at home are only play for girls. It’s something to talk
+about for a lifetime, when a fellow comes to close quarters with a
+creature like that moose. I said I’d get the better of his ears, and I
+did it. Pinch me, old boy, if I begin a moose-call in my sleep.”
+
+Several times during the night Neal found it necessary to obey this
+injunction, else had there been no peace in the camp. But, in spite of
+Dol’s ravings and riotings in his excited dreams, the party enjoyed a
+needed ten hours’ slumber, all save Herb, who, as usual, was astir the
+next morning while his comrades were yet snoring.
+
+He got his fire going well, and baked a great flat loaf of bread in his
+frying-pan, setting the pan amid hot ashes and covering it over.
+Previous to this, he had made a pilgrimage to the distant spring, to
+fill his kettle for coffee and bread-making, and had carefully examined
+the ground about the clump of hemlocks.
+
+The result of his investigation was given to the boys as they ate their
+breakfast under the shade of a cedar, with a sky above them whose
+morning glories were here and there overshot by leaden tints.
+
+“I guess we’ve got a pretty fair chance of trailing that moose,” he
+said. “I found both hair and blood on the spot where he was wounded.
+I’m for following up his tracks, though I guess they’ll take us a bit
+up the mountain. If he’s hurt bad, ’twould be kind o’ merciful to end
+his sufferings. If he ain’t, we can let him get off.”
+
+“Right, as you always are, Herb,” answered Cyrus. “But what on earth
+made the creature bolt so suddenly? If you had seen him five minutes
+before he was shot, you’d have said he had as much fight in him as a
+lion.”
+
+“That’s the way with moose a’most always. Their courage ain’t that o’
+flesh-eating animals. It’s only a spurt; though it’s a pretty big spurt
+sometimes, as you boys know now. It’ll fail ’em in a minute, when you
+least expect it. And, you see, that one last night didn’t know where
+his wound came from. I guess he thought he was struck by lightning or a
+thunder-ball, so he skipped. Talking of thunder-balls, boys,” wound up
+Herb, “I shouldn’t be surprised if the old Mountain Spirit, who lives
+up a-top there, gave us a rattling welcome with his thunders to-day.
+The air is awful heavy for this time of year. Perhaps we’d better give
+up the trailing after all.”
+
+“Nonsense!” exclaimed Dol indignantly. “Do you think a shower will melt
+us? Or that we’ll squeal like girls at a few flashes of lightning?
+’Twould be jolly good fun to see old Pamolah sending off his
+artillery.”
+
+“Well, there’d be no special danger, I guess, if we were past the heavy
+timber growth before the storm began. There’s lots of rocky dens on the
+mountain side where we could shelter under a granite ledge, and be
+safer than we’d be here in tent. Or we might come a-near our old log
+camp. I guess, if that’s standing yet, you’d like to see it. Say! we’ll
+leave it to Cyrus. He’s boss, ain’t he?”
+
+Cyrus, desperately anxious to know whether it would be life or death
+for the wounded moose, and regarding the signs of bad weather as by no
+means certain, decided in favor of the expedition. The campers
+hurriedly swallowed the remainder of their breakfast, and made ready
+for an immediate start.
+
+“In trailing a moose the first rule is: go as light as you can; that
+is, don’t carry an ounce more stuff than is necessary. Even a man’s
+rifle is apt to get in his way when he has to scramble over windfalls,
+or slump between big bowlders of rock, which a’most tear the clothes
+off his back. And we may have to do some pretty tall climbing. So leave
+all your traps in the tent, boys; I’ll fasten it down tight. There
+won’t be any human robbers prowling around, you bet! Bears and coons
+are the only burglars of these woods, and they don’t do much mischief
+in daytime.”
+
+The guide rapidly gave these directions, his breezy voice setting a
+current of energy astir, like a wind-gust cutting through a quiet
+grove, while he rolled his indispensable axe, some bread that was left
+from the meal, and a lump of pork into a little bundle, which he
+strapped on his back.
+
+“Now,” he said, “if that trail should give us a long tramp, or if you
+boys should take a notion to go a good ways up Katahdin, or anything
+turns up to hinder our getting back to camp till nightfall, I’ve our
+snack right here. I can light a fire in two minutes, to toast our pork;
+and we’ll wash it down with mountain water, the best drink for
+climbers. I could rig you up a snug shelter, too, in case of accidents.
+A woodsman ain’t in it without his axe.”
+
+To what strange work that axe would be put ere night again closed its
+shutters over granite peaks and evergreen forest, Herb Heal little
+knew; nor could he have guessed that the coming hours would make the
+most heart-stirring day of his stirring life. If he could, would he
+have started out this morning with a happy-go-lucky whistle, softly
+modulated on his lips, and no more sober burden on his mind than the
+trail of that moose?
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXI. On Katahdin
+
+
+“See there, boys, I told you so,” said Herb, as the party reached the
+ever-to-be-remembered clump of hemlocks, the beginning of the trail
+which they were ready to follow up like sleuth-hounds. “There’s plenty
+of hair; I guess I singed him in two places.”
+
+He pointed to some shaggy clotted locks on the grass at his feet, and
+then to a small maroon-colored stain beside them.
+
+“Is that blood?” asked Neal.
+
+“Blood, sure enough, though there ain’t much of it. But I’ll tell you
+what! I’d as soon there wasn’t any. I wish it had been light enough
+last night for me to act barber, and
+only cut some hair from that moose, instead of wounding him. It might
+have answered the purpose as well, and sent him walking.”
+
+“I don’t believe it would have done anything of the kind,” exclaimed
+Dol. “He was far too red-hot an old customer to bolt because a bullet
+shaved him.”
+
+“Well, I don’t set up to be soft-hearted like Cyrus here; and I’m ready
+enough to bag my meat when I want it,” said the woodsman. “But sure’s
+you live, boys, I never wounded a free game creature yet, and seed it
+get away to pull a hurt limb and a cruel pain with it through the
+woods, that I could feel chipper afterwards. It’s only your delicate
+city fellows who come out here for a shot once a year, who can chuckle
+over the pools of blood a wounded moose leaves behind him. Sho! it’s
+not manly.”
+
+A start was now made on the trail, Herb leading, and showing such
+wonderful skill as a trailer that the English boys began to believe his
+long residence in the woods had developed in him supernatural senses.
+
+“That moose was shot through the right fore-leg,” he whispered, as the
+trackers reached the edge of the forest.
+
+“How do you know?” gasped the Farrars.
+
+The woodsman answered by kneeling, bending his face close to the
+ground, and drawing his brown finger successively round three prints on
+a soft patch of earth, which the unpractised eyes could scarcely
+discern.
+
+“There’s no mark of the right fore-hoof,” he whispered again presently;
+“nothing but _that_,” pointing to another dark red blotch, which the
+boys would have mistaken for maroon-tinted moss.
+
+A breathless, wordless, toiling hour followed. Through the dense woods,
+which sloped steadily upward, clothing Katahdin’s highlands, Herb Heal
+travelled on, now and again halting when the trail, because of freshly
+fallen pine-needles or leaves, became quite invisible. Again he would
+crouch close to the ground, make a circle with his finger round the
+last visible print, and work out from that, trying various directions,
+until he knew that he was again on the track which the limping moose
+had travelled before him.
+
+His comrades followed in single file, carrying their rifles in front of
+their bodies instead of on their shoulders, so that there might be no
+danger of a sudden clang or rattle from the barrels striking the trees.
+Following the example of their guide, each one carefully avoided
+stepping on crackling twigs or dry branches, or rustling against bushes
+or boughs. The latter they would take gingerly in their hands as they
+approached them, bend them out of the way, and gently release them as
+they passed. Heroically they forebore to growl when their legs were
+scraped by jagged bowlders or prickly shrubs, giving thanks inwardly to
+the manufacturers of their stout tweeds that their clothes held
+together, instead of hanging on them like streamers on a rag-bush.
+
+It was a good, practical lesson in moose-trailing; but, save for the
+knowledge gained by the three who had never stalked a moose before, it
+was a failure.
+
+The air beneath the dense foliage grew depressing—suffocating. Each one
+longed breathlessly for the minute when he should emerge from this
+heavy timber-growth, even to do more rugged climbing. Distant rumbles
+were heard. Herb’s prophecy was being fulfilled. Pamolah was grumbling
+at the trailers, and sending out his Thunder Sons to bid them back.
+
+But it was too late for retreat. If they gave up their purpose, turned
+and fled to camp, the storm, which was surely coming, would catch them
+under the interlacing trees, a danger which the guide was especially
+anxious to avoid. He pressed on with quickened steps, stooping no more
+to make circles round the moose’s prints. Old Pamolah’s threatenings
+grew increasingly sullen. At last the desired break in the woods was
+reached; the trackers found themselves on the open side of Katahdin,
+surrounded by a tangled growth of alders and white birches struggling
+up between granite rocks; then the mountain artillery broke forth with
+terrifying clatter.
+
+A loud, long thunder-roll was echoed from crag, slide, forest, spur,
+and basin. The “home of storms” was a fort of noise.
+
+“Ha! there’ll be a big cannonading this time, I guess. Pamolah is going
+to let fly at us with big shot, little shot, fire and water—all the
+forces the old scoundrel has,” said Herb Heal, at last breaking the
+silence which had been kept on the trail, and looking aloft towards the
+five peaks guarding that mysterious basin, from which heavy, lurid
+clouds drifted down.
+
+At the same time a blustering, mighty wind-gust half swept the four
+climbers from their feet. A great flash of globe lightning cut the air
+like a dazzling fire-ball.
+
+“We’ll have to quit our trailing, and scoot for shelter, I’m thinking!”
+exclaimed Cyrus.
+
+“Good land, I should say so!” agreed the guide. “The bull-moose likes
+thunder. He’s away in some thick hole in the forest now, recovering
+himself. We couldn’t have come up with him anyhow, boys, for them
+blood-spots had stopped. I guess his leg wasn’t smashed; and he’ll soon
+be as big a bully as ever. Follow me now, quick! Mind yer steps,
+though! Them bushes are awful catchy!”
+
+Undazzled by the lightning’s frequent flare, unstaggered by the
+down-rushing wind, as if the mountain thunders were only the roll of an
+organ about his ears, Herb Heal sprang onward and upward, tugging his
+comrades one by one up many a precipitous ledge, and pulling them to
+their feet again when the tripping bushes brought their noses to the
+ground and their heels into the air.
+
+“Hitch on to me, Dol!” he cried, suddenly turning on that youngster,
+who was trying to get his second breath. “Tie on to me tight. I’ll tow
+you up! I wish we could ha’ reached that old log camp, boys. ’Twould be
+a stunning shelter, for it has a wall of rock to the back. But it’s
+higher up, and off to the right. There! I see the den I’m aiming for.”
+
+A few energetic bounds brought Herb, with Dol in tow, to a platform of
+rock, which rose above a bed of blueberry bushes. It narrowed into a
+sort of cave, roofed by an overhanging bowlder.
+
+“We’ll be snug enough under this rock!” he exclaimed, pointing to the
+canopy. “Creep in, boys. We’ll have tubs of rain, and a pelting of
+hail. The rumpus is only beginning.”
+
+So it was. The storm had been creeping from its cradle. Now it swept
+down with an awful whirl and commingling of elements.
+
+The boys, peering out from their rocky nest, saw a magnificent panorama
+beneath them. The regiments of the air were at war. Lightning chains
+encircled the heavens, lighting up the forests below. Winds charged
+down the mountain-side, sweeping stones and bushes before them.
+Hail-bullets rattled in volleys. Thunder-artillery boomed until the
+very rocks seemed to shake.
+
+“It’s fine!” exclaimed Cyrus. “It’s super-fine!”
+
+Then a curtain of thick rain partly hid the warfare, the lightning
+still rioting through it like a beacon of battle.
+
+“The stones up above will have to be pretty firmly fixed to keep their
+places,” said Herb. “Boys, I hope there ain’t a-going to be slides on
+the mountain after this.”
+
+“Slides?” echoed Dol questioningly.
+
+“Landslides, kid. Say! if you want to be scared until your bones feel
+limp, you’ve got to hear a great big block of granite come ploughing
+down from the top ’o the mountain, bringing earth and bushes along with
+it, and smashing even the rocks to splinters as it pounds along.”
+
+“I guess that’s a sensation we’d rather be spared,” said Cyrus gravely.
+
+And under the quieting spell of the airy warfare there was silence for
+a while.
+
+“Do you think it’s lightening up, Herb?” asked Neal, after the storm
+had raged for three-quarters of an hour.
+
+“I guess it is. The rain is stopping too. But we’ll have an awful
+slushy time of it getting back to camp. To plough through them soaked
+forests below would be enough to give you city fellows a shaking ague.”
+
+“Couldn’t we climb on to your old log camp?” suggested Garst. “If we
+have the luck to find the old shanty holding together, we can light a
+fire there after things dry out a bit, and eat our snack. Then we
+needn’t be in a hurry to get down. We’ll risk it, anyhow.”
+
+“I reckon that’s about the only thing to be done,” assented the guide.
+
+And in twenty minutes’ time the four were again straining up Katahdin,
+clutching slippery rocks, sinking in sodden earth, shivering as they
+were besprinkled by every bush and dwarfed tree, and dreadfully
+hampered with their rifles.
+
+“Never mind, boys; we’ll get there! Clinch yer teeth, and don’t squirm!
+Once we’re past this tangle, the bit of climbing that’s left will be as
+easy as rolling off a log!”
+
+So shouted Herb cheerfully, as he tore a way with hand and foot through
+the stunted growth of alders and birch, which, beaten down by the
+winds, was now an almost impassable, sopping tangle.
+
+“Keep in my tracks!” he bellowed again. “Gracious! but this sort o’
+work is as slow as molasses crawling up-hill in winter.”
+
+But ten minutes later, when the dripping jungle was behind, he dropped
+his jesting tone.
+
+He came to a full stop, catching his breath with a big gulp.
+
+“Boys,” he cried, “it’s standing yet! I see it—the old home-camp! There
+it is above us on that bit of a platform, with the big rock behind it.
+And I’ve kep’ saying to myself for the last quarter of an hour that we
+wouldn’t find it—that we’d find nary a thing but mildewed logs!”
+
+A wealth of memories was in the woodsman’s eyes as he gazed up at the
+timber nest, the log camp which his own hands had put up, standing on a
+narrow plateau, and built against a protecting wall of rock that rose
+in jagged might to a height of thirty or forty feet.
+
+An earth bank or ridge, covered with hardy mosses and mountain
+creepers, sloped gently up to the sheltered platform. To climb this
+was, indeed, “as easy as rolling off a log.”
+
+“We used to have a good beaten path here, but I guess it’s all growed
+over,” said Herb in a thick voice, as if certain cords in his throat
+were swelling. “Many’s the time I’ve blessed the sight of that old
+home-camp, boys, after a hard week’s trapping. Hundert’s o’ night’s
+I’ve slept snug inside them log walls when blasts was a-sweeping and
+bellowing around, like as if they’d rip the mountain open, and tear its
+very rocks out.”
+
+While the guide spoke he was leaping up the ridge. A few minutes, and
+he stood, a towering figure, on the platform above, waving his battered
+hat in salute to the old camp.
+
+“I guess some traveller has been sheltering here lately!” he cried to
+Neal Farrar, as the latter overtook him. “There’s a litter around,”
+pointing to dry sticks and withered bushes strewn upon the
+camping-ground. “And the door’s standing open. I wonder who found the
+old shanty?”
+
+Neal remembered, hours afterwards, that at the moment he felt an odd
+awakening stir in him, a stir which, shooting from head to foot, seemed
+to warn him that he was nearing a sensation, the biggest sensation of
+this wilderness trip.
+
+He heard the voices of Cyrus and Dol hallooing behind; but they sounded
+away back and indistinct, for his ears were bent towards the deserted
+camp, listening with breathless expectation for something, he didn’t
+know what.
+
+One minute the vague suspense lasted, while he followed Herb towards
+the hut. Then heaven and earth and his own heart seemed to stand still.
+
+Through the wide-open door of the shanty came random, crooning snatches
+of sound. Was the guttural voice which made them human? The English boy
+scarcely knew. But as the noise swelled, like the moaning of a dry wind
+among trees, he began, as it were, to disentangle it. Words shaped
+themselves, Indian words which he had heard before on the guide’s
+tongue.
+
+“_N’loan pes-saus, mok glint ont-aven,
+Glint ont-aven, nosh morgun_.”
+
+
+These lines from the “Star Song,” the song which Herb had learned from
+his traitor chum, floated out to him upon Katahdin’s breeze. They
+struck young Farrar’s ears in staggering tones, like a knell, the
+sadness of which he could not at the moment understand. But he had a
+vague impression that the mysterious singer in the deserted camp
+attached no meaning to what he chanted.
+
+“Look out, I say! I don’t want to come a cropper here.”
+
+It was Dol’s young voice which rang out shrilly among the mountain
+echoes. Side by side with Cyrus, the boy had just gained the top of the
+ridge when the guide suddenly backed upon him, Herb’s great
+shoulder-blade knocking him in the face, so that he had to plant his
+feet firmly to avoid spinning back.
+
+But Herb had heard that guttural crooning. Just now he could hear
+nothing else.
+
+Twice he made a heaving effort to speak, and the voice cracked in his
+throat.
+
+Then, as he sprang for the camp-door, four words stumbled from his
+lips:—
+
+“By thunder! it’s Chris.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXII. The Old Home-Camp
+
+
+The silence which followed that ejaculation was like the hush of earth
+before a thunder-storm.
+
+Not a syllable passed the lips of the boys as they followed Herb into
+the log hut, but feeling seemed wagging a startled tongue in each
+finger-tip which convulsively pressed the rifles.
+
+And not another articulate sentence came from the guide; only his
+throat swelled with a deep, amazed gurgle as he reached the interior of
+the shanty, and dropped his eyes upon the individual who raised that
+queer chanting.
+
+On a bed of withered spruce boughs, strewn higgledy-piggledy upon the
+camp-floor—mother earth—lay the form of a man. Thin wisps of blue-black
+hair, long untrimmed, trailed over his face and neck, which looked as
+if they were carved out of yellow bone. His figure was skeleton-like.
+His lips—the lips which at the entrance of the strangers never ceased
+their wild crooning—were swollen and fever-scorched. His black eyes,
+disfigured by a hideous squint, rolled with the sick fancies of
+delirium.
+
+Cyrus and the Farrars, while they looked upon him, felt that, even if
+they had never heard Herb’s exclamation, they would have had no
+difficulty in identifying the creature, remembering that story which
+had thrilled them by the camp-fire at Millinokett. It was Herb Heal’s
+traitor chum—the half-breed, Cross-eyed Chris.
+
+And Herb, backing off from the withered couch as far as the limited
+space of the cabin would allow, stood with his shoulders against the
+mouldy logs of the wall, his eyes like peep-holes to a volcano, gulping
+and gurgling, while he swallowed back a fire of amazed excitement and
+defeated anger, for which his backwoods vocabulary was too cheap.
+
+A flame seemed scorching and hissing about his heart while he
+remembered that during some hour of every day for five years, since
+last he had seen the “hound” who robbed him, he had sworn that, if ever
+he caught the thief, he would pounce upon him with a woodsman’s
+vengeance.
+
+“I couldn’t touch him now—the scum! But I’ll be switched if I’ll do a
+thing to help him!” he hissed, the flame leaping to his lips.
+
+Yet he had a strange sensation, as if that vow was broken like an
+egg-shell even while he made it. He knew that “the two creatures which
+had fought inside of him, tooth and claw,” about the fate of his enemy,
+were pinching his heart by turns in a last hot conflict.
+
+His eyes shot flinty sparks; he drew his breath in hard puffs; his
+knotted throat twitched and swelled, while they (the man and the brute)
+strove within him; and all the time he stood staring in grisly silence
+at the half-breed.
+
+The latter still continued his Indian croon; though from the crazy roll
+of his malformed eyes it was plain that he knew not whether he chanted
+about the stars, his old friends and guides, or about anything else in
+heaven or earth.
+
+But one thing quickly became clear to Cyrus, and then to the Farrar
+boys,—less accustomed to tragedy than their comrade,—that this strange
+personage, in whose veins the blood of white men and red men met,
+carrying in its turbid flow the weaknesses of two races, was singing
+his swan-song, the last chant he would ever raise on earth.
+
+At their first entrance, as their bodies interfered with the broad
+light streaming through the cabin-door, Chris had lifted towards them a
+scared, shrinking stare. But, apparently, he took them for the shadows
+which walked in the dreams of his delirium. Not a ray of recognition
+lightened the blankness of that stare as Herb’s big figure passed
+before him. Letting his eyes wander aimlessly again from log wall to
+log wall, from withered bed to mouldy rafters, his lips continued their
+crooning, which sank with his weakening breath, then rose again to sink
+once more, like the last wind-gusts when the storm is over.
+
+Suddenly his shrunken body shivered in every limb. The humming ceased.
+His yellow teeth tapped upon each other in trouble and fear. He raised
+himself to a squatting posture, with his knee-bones to his chin, the
+wisps of hair tumbling upon his naked chest.
+
+“It’s dark—heap dark!” he whimpered, between long gasps. “Can’t strike
+the trail—can’t find the home-camp. Herb—Herb Heal—ole pard—’twas I
+took ’em—the skins. ’Twas—a dog’s trick. Take it out—o’ my hide—if yer
+wants to—yah! Heap sick!”
+
+Not a ray of sense was yet in the half-breed’s eyes. An imaginary,
+vengeance-dealing Herb was before him; but he never turned a glance
+towards the real, and now forgiving, old chum, who leaned against the
+wall not ten feet away. His voice dropped to a guttural rumble, in
+which Indian sounds mingled with English.
+
+But the flame at Herb’s heart was quenched at the first whimpered word.
+His stiffened muscles and lips relaxed. With a gurgle of sorrow, he
+crossed the camp-floor, and dropped into a crawling position on the
+faded spruces.
+
+“Chris!” he cried thickly. “Chris,—poor old pard,—don’t ye know me?
+Look, man! Herb is right here—Herb Heal, yer old chum. You’re ‘heap
+sick’ for sure; but we’ll haul you off to a settlement or to our camp,
+and I’ll bring Doc along in two days. He’ll”—
+
+But Cross-eyed Chris became past hearing, his flicker of strength had
+failed; he keeled over, and lay, with his limp legs curled up, faint
+and speechless, upon the dead evergreens.
+
+“You ain’t a-going to die!” gasped Herb defiantly. “I’ll be jiggered if
+you be, jest as I’ve found you! Say, boys! Cyrus! Neal! rub him a bit,
+will ye? We ain’t got no brandy, I’ll build a fire, and warm some
+coffee.”
+
+It was strange work for the hands of the Bostonian, and stranger yet
+for those of young Farrar,—son of an English merchant-prince,—this
+straightening and rubbing of a dying half-Indian, a “scum,” as Herb
+called him, drunkard, and thief. Yet there was no flash of hesitation
+on Farrar’s part, as they brought their warm friction to bear upon the
+chill yellow skin, piebald from dirt and the stains of travel, as if it
+were the very mission which had brought them to Katahdin.
+
+They had grave thoughts meanwhile that the old mountain was decidedly
+gloomy in its omens, first a thunder-storm and then a tragedy; for, rub
+as they might with brotherly hands, they could not pass their own
+warmth into the body of the half-breed, though he still lived.
+
+But the mountain had not ended its terrors yet.
+
+Its mumbling lips began to speak, with a threatening, low at first like
+muttered curses, but swelling into a nameless noise—a rumbling,
+pounding, creeping, crashing.
+
+“Great Governor’s Ghost! what’s that?” gasped Cyrus, stopping his
+rubbing. “Pamolah or some other fiend seems to be bombarding us from
+the top now.”
+
+“It’s more thunder rolling over us,” said Neal; but as he spoke his
+tongue turned stiff with fear.
+
+“Sounds as if the whole mountain was tumbling to pieces. Perhaps it’s
+the end of the world,” suggested Dol, as a succession of booming shocks
+from above seemed to shake the camping-ground under his feet.
+
+There was one second of awful indecision. The boys looked at each
+other, at the dying man, at the roof above them, in the stiffness of
+uncertain terror.
+
+Then a figure leaped into their midst, with an armful of dry sticks,
+which he dashed from him. It was Herb, with the fuel for a fire. And,
+for the first and last time in his history, so far as these friends of
+his knew it, there was that big fear in his face which is most terrible
+when it looks out of the eyes of a naturally brave man.
+
+“Boys, where’s yer senses?” he yelled cuttingly. “Out, for your lives!
+Run! There’s a slide above us on the mountain!”
+
+“Him?” questioned Cyrus’s stiff lips, as he pointed to the breathing
+wreck on the spruce boughs. “He’s not dead yet.”
+
+“D’ye think I’d leave him? Clear out of this camp—you, or we’ll be
+buried in less’n two minutes! To the right! Off this ridge! Got yer
+rifles? I’m coming!”
+
+The woodsman flung out the words while his brawny arms hoisted the body
+of his old chum. His comrades had already disappeared when he turned
+and sprang for the camp-door with his limp burden, but his moccasined
+foot kicked against something.
+
+A great hiccough which was almost a sob rose from Herb’s throat. It was
+his one valuable possession, his 45-90 Winchester rifle, his second
+self, which he had rested against the log wall.
+
+“Good-by, Old Blazes!” he grunted. “You never went back on me, but I
+can’t lug him and you! My stars! but that was a narrow squeak.”
+
+For, as he cleared the camping-ground with a blind dash, with head bent
+and tongue caught between his clenched teeth, with a boom like a
+Gatling gun, a great block of granite from the summit of Katahdin
+struck the rock which sheltered the old camp, breaking a big piece off
+it, and shot on with mighty impetus down the mountain.
+
+An avalanche of loose earth, stones, and bushes, brought down by this
+battering-ram of the landslide, piled themselves upon the log hut,
+smashing to kindling-wood its walls, which had stood many a hard storm,
+burying them out of sight, and flinging wide showers of dust and small
+missiles.
+
+A scattered rain of clay caught Herb upon the head, and lodged, some of
+it, on the little pack containing axe and lunch which was strapped upon
+his shoulders.
+
+He shook. His grip loosened. The limp, dragging body in his arms sank
+until the feet touched the earth.
+
+But with the supreme effort, moral and physical, of his life, the
+forest guide gathered it tight again.
+
+“I’ll be blowed if I’ll drop him now,” he gasped. “He ain’t nothing but
+a bag o’ bones, anyhow.”
+
+Only a strong man in the hour of his best strength could have done it.
+With a defiant snort Herb charged through the choking dust-clouds,
+pelted by flying pebbles, sods, and fragments of sticks.
+
+“This way, boys!” he roared, after five straining, staggering minutes,
+as he caught a glimpse of his comrades ahead, tearing off to the right,
+as he had bidden them. “You may let up now. We’re safe enough.”
+
+They faced back, and saw him make a few reeling, descending steps, then
+lay what now seemed to be an out-and-out lifeless man on a bed of moss
+beneath a dwarfed spruce.
+
+The nerves of the three were in a jumping condition, their brains felt
+befuddled, and their hearts sinking and melting in the midst of their
+bones, from the astounding shock and terror of the land-slide. But, as
+they beheld the guide deposit his burden, with its helplessly trailing
+head and limbs, a cheer in unsteady tones rang above the slackening
+rattle of earth and stones, and the far-away boom of the granite-block
+as it buried itself in the forest beneath.
+
+“Hurrah! for you, Herb, old boy,” yelled Cyrus triumphantly. “That was
+the grittiest thing I ever saw done’ Hurrah! Hurrah! Hoo-ray!”
+
+The English boys, open-throated, swelled the peal.
+
+But their cheering broke off as they came near, and saw the mask-like
+face over which Herb bent.
+
+“Is he gone, poor fellow?” asked Garst. “What do you suppose caused
+it—the slide?”
+
+“Why, it was a thundering big lump of granite from the top o’ the
+mountain,” answered Herb, replying to the second question. “That plaguy
+heavy rain must ha’ loosened the earth around it the clay and bushes
+that kep’ it in place. So it got kind o’ top-heavy, and came slumping
+and pitching down, slow at first, and then a’most as quick as a
+cannon-ball, bringing all that pile along with it. I’ve seen the like
+before; but, sho! I never came so near being buried by it.”
+
+He pointed as he spoke to the late camping-ground, with its lodgment of
+clay, sods, pygmy trees, and pieces of rock, big and little.
+
+
+Illustration: “Herb Charged Through The Choking Dust-Clouds.”
+
+
+“The old camp’s clean wiped out, boys,” he said; “and I guess one of
+the men that built it is gone, or a’most gone, too. Stick your arm
+under his head, Cyrus, while I hunt for some water.”
+
+Garst did as he was bidden, but his help was not needed long. The guide
+went off like a racer, covering the ground at a stretching gallop. He
+remembered well the clear Katahdin spring, which had supplied the
+home-camp during that long-past trapping winter. He returned with his
+tin mug full.
+
+When the ice-cold drops touched Chris’s forehead, and lay on his parted
+lips, gem-like drops which he was past swallowing, his malformed eyes
+slowly opened. There was intelligence in them, shining through the
+gathering death-film, like a sinking light in a lantern.
+
+He was groping in the dim border-land now, and in it he recognized his
+old partner with shadowy wonder; for delirium was past, with the other
+storms of a storm-beaten life.
+
+“Herb,” he gurgled in snatches, the words being half heard, half
+guessed at, “’twas I—took ’em—the skins—an’ the antlers. I wanted—to
+get—to the ole camp—an’ let you—take it out o’ me—afore I—keeled over.”
+
+Herb had taken Cyrus’s place, and was upholding him with a tenderness
+which showed that the guide’s heart was in this hour melted to a jelly.
+Two tears were dammed up inside his eyelids, which were so unused to
+tears that they held them in. He neither wiped nor winked them away
+before he answered:—
+
+“Don’t you fret about that—poor kid. We’ll chuck that old business
+clean out o’ mind. You’ve jest got to suck this water and try to
+chipper up, and—we’ll make camp together again.”
+
+But Herb knew as well as he knew anything that the man who had robbed
+him was long past “chippering up,” and was starting alone to the unseen
+camping-grounds.
+
+“How long since you got back here?” he’ asked, close to the dulling
+ear.
+
+“Couldn’t—keep—track—o’ days. Got—turned—round—in woods.
+Lost—trail—heap—long—getting—to—th’ old—camp.”
+
+The words seemed freezing on the lips which uttered them. Herb asked no
+more questions. Silence was broken only by the rolling voice of the
+land-slide, which had not yet ceased. Occasional volleys of loose earth
+and stones, dislodged or shaken by the down-plunging granite, still
+kept falling at intervals on the buried camp.
+
+At one unusually loud rattle, Chris’s lips moved again. In those
+strange gutturals which the boys had heard in the hut, he rumbled an
+Indian sentence, repeating it in English with scared, breaking breaths.
+
+It was a prayer of her tribe which his mother had taught him to say at
+morning and eve:—
+
+“God—I—am—weak—Pity—me!”
+
+“Heap—noise! Heap—dark!” he gasped. “Can’t—find—th’ old—camp.”
+
+“You’re near it now, old chum,” said Herb, trying to soothe him. “It’s
+the home-camp.”
+
+“We’ll—camp—to-ge-ther?”
+
+“We will again, sure.”
+
+The last stone pounded down on the heap above the old camp; and Herb
+gently laid flat the body of the man he had sworn to shoot, closed the
+malformed eyes, and turned away, that the fellows he was guiding might
+not see his face.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIII. Brother’s Work
+
+
+They buried Chris upon Katahdin’s breast. It was a good cemetery for
+woodsmen, so Herb said, granite above and forest beneath.
+
+But, good or bad, this was the one thing to be done. An attempt to
+transfer the body to a distant settlement would be objectless labor;
+for, as far as the guide knew, the half-breed had not a friend to be
+interested in his fate, father and mother having died before Herb found
+him in the snow-heaped forest.
+
+There were three reliable witnesses, besides the man who was known to
+have a grudge against him, to testify as to the cause and manner of his
+death when the party returned to Greenville; so no suspicious finger
+could point at Herb Heal, with a hint that he had carried out his old
+threat.
+
+How long Chris, in lonely, crazed repentance, had sheltered in the camp
+on the mountain-side could only be a matter of guess. Herb inclined to
+think that he had been there for weeks,—months, perhaps,—judging from
+the withered spruce bed and the dry boughs and sticks upon the
+camping-ground, which had evidently been gathered and broken for fuel.
+His ravings made it clear that, on returning to the old haunts after
+years of absence, he had missed the trail he used to know, and wandered
+wearily in the dense woods about the foot of Katahdin before he escaped
+from the prison of trees, and climbed to the hut he sought.
+
+Such wanderings, Herb declared, generally ended in “a man having wheels
+in his head,” being half or wholly insane, though he might keep
+sufficient wits to provide himself with food and warmth, as Chris had
+done while his strength held out. This was not long; for the
+half-breed’s words suggested that he felt near to the great change he
+roughly called “keeling over,” when he started to find his cheated
+partner.
+
+But Cyrus, while he watched the guide making preparations for the
+mountain burial, pictured the poor weakling tramping for hundreds of
+miles through rugged forest-land, doubtless with aching knee-joints and
+feet, that he might make upon his own skin justice for the skins which
+he had stolen, and so, in the only way he knew, square things with his
+wronged chum. And the city man thought, with a tear of pity, that even
+that poor drink-fuddled mind must have been lit by some ray of longing
+for goodness.
+
+It was a strange funeral.
+
+The guide chose a spot where the earth had been much softened by the
+recent rain; and, with the ingenuity of a man accustomed to wilderness
+shifts, he broke up the drenched ground with the axe which he took from
+his shoulders.
+
+That axe, which had so often made camp, had never before made a grave;
+the Farrars doubted that it ever would. But Herb worked away upon his
+knees, moisture dripping from his skin, putting sorrow for years of
+anger into every blow of his arms. Then, stopping a while, he went off
+down the mountain to the nearest belt of trees, and cut a limb from
+one, out of which, with his hunting-knife, he fashioned a rude wooden
+implement, a cross between a spade and shovel.
+
+With this he scooped out the broken earth until a grave appeared over
+three feet deep. He lined it with fragrant spruce-boughs from the
+wind-beaten tangle below.
+
+These Cyrus and Dol had busied themselves in cutting. Neal thought of
+other work for his fingers. Getting hold of Herb’s axe when the owner
+was not using it, he felled one of the dwarf white birches. Out of its
+light, delicate wood, with the help of his big pocket-knife and a ball
+of twine that was hidden somewhere about him, he made a very
+presentable cross, to point out to future hunters on Katahdin the
+otherwise unmarked grave.
+
+He was a bit of a genius at wood-carving, and surveyed his work with
+satisfaction when he considered it finished, having neatly cut upon it
+the name, “Chris Kemp,” with the date, “October 20th, 1891.”
+
+“Couldn’t you add a text or motto of some kind?” suggested Dol,
+glancing over his shoulder. “Twould make it more like the things one
+sees in cemeteries. You’re such a dab at that sort of work.”
+
+“Can’t think of anything,” answered the elder brother.
+
+Then, with a sudden lighting of his face, he seized the knife again,
+and worked in, in fine lettering, the frightened prayer he had heard on
+the half-breed’s lips:—
+
+“God, I am weak; pity me!”
+
+Herb and Cyrus lowered the body into its resting-place, and covered it
+with the green spruces.
+
+The four campers knelt bare-headed by the grave.
+
+“Couldn’t one of you boys say a bit of a prayer?” asked Herb in a thick
+voice. “I ain’t used to spouting.”
+
+All former help had been easily given. This was a harder matter, yet
+not so difficult as it would have been amid a city congregation.
+
+Garst tried to recall some suitable prayer from a funeral service; so
+did Neal. Both failed.
+
+But here upon Katahdin’s side, where, in the large forces of storm and
+slide, in forest and granite, through every wind-swept bush, waving
+blade, and tinted lichen, breathed a whisper from God, it seemed no
+unnatural thing for a man or a boy to speak to his Father.
+
+“Can’t one of you fellers say a prayer?” asked Herb again.
+
+Then the river of feeling in Cyrus broke the dam of reserve, and flowed
+over his lips in a prayer such as he had never before uttered.
+
+It was the prayer of a son who was for the minute absorbed in his
+Father.
+
+It left the five, those who were camping here and one who had gone to
+unseen camping-grounds, with son-like trust to the Father’s dealings.
+
+Herb and the Farrars responded to it with heart-eager “Amens!” the
+fervor of which was new to their lips.
+
+“I thank you as if he were my own brother, boys,” said the woodsman,
+while he filled in the grave, and planted Neal’s cross at its head.
+“Sho! when it comes to a time like we’ve been through to-day, a man, if
+he has anything but a gizzard in him, must feel as how we’re all
+brothers,—every man-jack of us,—white men, red men, half-and-half men,
+whatever we are or wherever we sprung.”
+
+“A fellow is always hearing that sort of thing,” said Neal Farrar to
+Cyrus. “But I’m blessed if I ever felt it stick in me before! that
+we’re all of the one stuff, you know—we and that poor beggar. Some of
+us seem to get such precious long odds over the others.”
+
+“All the more reason why we should do our level best to pull the
+backward ones up to us,” answered the American.
+
+The words struck into the ears of Dol—that youngster listening with a
+soberness of attention seldom seen in his flash-light eyes.
+
+A few years afterwards, when Neal Farrar was a newly blown lieutenant
+in his Queen’s Twelfth Lancers, as full of heroic impulses and
+enthusiasms as a modern young officer may be,—while his half-fledged
+ambitions were hanging on the chances of active service, and the
+golden, remote possibility of his one day being a V.C.,—there was a
+peaceful honor which clung to him unsought.
+
+During his first year of army life, he became the paragon of every poor
+private and raw recruit struggling with the miseries of goose-step,
+with whom he came even into momentary contact. For sometimes through a
+word or act, sometimes through a flash of the eye, or a look about the
+mouth, during the brief interchange of a military salute, these
+“backward ones” saw that the progressive young officer looked on them,
+not as men-machines, but as brothers, as important in the great schemes
+of the nation and the world as he was himself; that he was proud to
+serve with them, and would be prouder still to help them if he could.
+
+It was an understanding which inspired many a tempted or newly joined
+fellow to drill himself morally as his sergeant drilled him physically,
+with a determination to become as fine a soldier and forward a man as
+his paragon.
+
+But only one American friend of Lieutenant Farrar’s, who has let out
+the secret to the writer, knows that the binding truth of human
+brotherhood was first born into him when, on Katahdin’s side, he helped
+to bury a thieving half-Indian.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIV. “Keeping Things Even”
+
+
+“Now, you musn’t be moping, boys, because of this day’s work that you
+took a hand in, and that wasn’t in your play-bill when you come to
+these woods. We’ll have to try and even things up to-morrow with some
+big sport. You look kind o’ wilted.”
+
+So said Herb when the tired party were half-way back to camp, doing the
+descent of the mountain in a silence clouded by the scene which they
+had been through.
+
+The woodsman seemed troubled with a rasping in his throat. He cleared
+it twice and spat before he could open a passage for a decently
+cheerful voice in which to suggest a rise of spirits. But Herb was too
+faithful a guide to bear the thought that his employers’ trip should
+end in any gloom because the one painful chapter in his own life had
+closed forever. Moreover, although more than once, as he fought his way
+through a jungle or jumped a windfall, something nipped his heart,
+pinching him up inside, and making his eyes leak, he felt that the
+thing had ended well for him—and for Chris.
+
+Herb, in his simple faith, scarcely doubted that the old chum, whom he
+had forgiven, had reached a Home-Camp where his broken will and stunted
+life might be repaired, and grow as they had poor chance to grow here.
+
+“Say, boys!” he burst forth, a few minutes after his protest against
+“moping,” and when the band were within sight of the spring whence they
+had started, an age back, as it seemed, on the trail of the moose.
+“Say, boys! I’ve been all these years raging at Chris. Seems to me now
+as if he was a poor sort of overgrowed baby, and not so bad a thief as
+the chump who gave him that whiskey, and stole his senses. It’s a
+thundering big pity that man hadn’t the burying of him to-day.
+
+“He was always the under dog,—was Chris,” he went on slowly, as if he
+was seeking from his own heart an excuse for those unforeseen impulses
+which had worked it and his body during the past five hours. “Whites
+and Injuns jumped on him. They said he was criss-cross all through,
+same as his eyes. But he warn’t. Never seed a half-breed that had less
+gall and more grit, except when the hanker for whiskey would creep up
+in him, and boss him. He could no more stand agen it, and the things it
+made him do, than a jack-rabbit.”
+
+“Another reason why we Americans ought to feel our responsibility
+towards every man in whose veins runs Indian blood, a thousand times
+more hotly than we do!” burst out Cyrus. “It maddens a fellow to think
+that we made them the under dogs, and as much by giving them a ‘boss,’
+as you say, in fire-water, as by anything else.”
+
+“I kind o’ think that way myself sometimes,” said Herb.
+
+And there was silence until the guide cried:—
+
+“Here’s our camp, boys. I’ll bet you’re glad to see it. I must get the
+kettle, and cruise off for water. ’Tain’t likely I’ll trust one of you
+fellers after last night. But you can hustle round and build the
+camp-fire while I’m gone.”
+
+Herb had a shrewd motive in this. He knew that there is nothing which
+will cure the blues in a camper, if he is touched by that affliction,
+rare in forest life, like the building of his fire, watching the little
+flames creep from the dull, dead wood, to roar and soar aloft in
+gold-red pennons of good cheer.
+
+The result proved his wisdom. When he returned in a very short time
+from that ever-to-be-famous spring, with his brimming kettle, he found
+a glorious fire, and three tired but cheerful fellows watching it, its
+reflection playing like a jack-o’-lantern in each pair of eyes.
+
+“Now I’ll have supper ready in a jiffy,” he said. “I guess you boys
+feel like eating one another. Jerusha! we never touched our snack—nary
+a crumb of it.”
+
+In the strange happenings and chaotic feelings of the day, hunger,
+together with the bread and pork for satisfying it which Herb had
+carried up the mountain, were forgotten until now.
+
+“Never mind! We’ll make up for it. Only hurry up!” pleaded Dol. “We’re
+like bears, we’re so hungry.”
+
+“Like bears! You’re a sight more like calves with their mouths open,
+waiting for something to swallow,” answered Herb, his eyes flashing
+impudence, while, with an energy apparently no less brisk than when he
+started out in the morning, he rushed his preparations for supper.
+
+“Say I’m like a Sukey, and I’ll go for you!” roared Dol, a gurgling
+laugh breaking from him, the first which had been heard since the four
+struggled through that tangle on Katahdin to a sight of the old camp.
+
+Once or twice during supper the mirth, which had been frozen in each
+camper’s breast by a sight of the drifted wreck of a human life, warmed
+again spasmodically. Herb did his manly best to fan its flame, though
+his heart was still pinched by a feeling of double loss.
+
+Later in the evening, when the party were huddling close to the
+camp-fire, he lifted his right hand and looked at it blankly.
+
+“My!” he gasped, “but it will feel awful queer and empty without Old
+Blazes. That rifle was a reg’lar corker, boys. I was saving up for
+three years to buy it. An’ it never went back on me. Times when I’ve
+gone far off hunting, and had nary a chance to speak
+to a human for weeks, I’d get to talking to it like as if ’twas a
+living thing. When I wasn’t afeard of scaring game, I’d fire a round to
+make it answer back and drive away lonesomeness. Folks might ha’
+thought I was loony, only there was none to see. Well, it’s smashed to
+chips now, ’long with the old camp.”
+
+“What awfully selfish jackasses we were, to skip off with our own
+rifles, and never think of yours, or that you couldn’t save it,
+carrying that poor fellow! I feel like kicking myself,” said Cyrus,
+sharp vexation in his voice. “But that slide business sprang on us so
+quickly. The sudden rumbling, rattling, and pounding jumbled a fellow’s
+wits. I scarcely understood what was up, even when we were scooting for
+our lives.”
+
+“I felt a bit white-livered myself, I tell ye; and I’m more hardened to
+slides than you are,” was the woodsman’s answer.
+
+The confession, taken in the light of his conduct, made him doubly a
+hero to his city friends.
+
+They thought of him staggering along the mountain, blinded, bewildered,
+pelted by clay, with that dragging burden in his arms, a heart tossed
+by danger’s keenest realization in his breast. And they were silent
+before the high courage which can recognize fear, yet refuse to it the
+mastery.
+
+Neal, whose secret musings were generally crossed by a military thread,
+seeing that he had chosen the career of a cavalry-soldier, and hoped
+soon to enter Sandhurst College, stared into the heart of the
+camp-fire, glowering at fate, because she had not ordained that Herb
+should serve the queen with him, and wear upon his resolute heart—as it
+might reasonably be expected he would—the Victoria Cross.
+
+Young Farrar’s feeling was so strong that it swept his lips at last.
+
+“Blow it all! Herb,” he cried. “It’s a tearing pity that you can’t come
+into the English Lancers with me. I don’t suppose I’ll ever be a V.C.,
+but you would sooner or later as sure as gun’s iron.”
+
+“A ‘V.C.!’ What’s that?” asked Herb.
+
+“A Vigorous Christian, to be sure!” put in Cyrus, who was progressive
+and peaceful, teasingly.
+
+But the English boy, full of the dignity of the subject to him,
+summoned his best eloquence to describe to the American backwoodsman
+that little cross of iron, Victoria’s guerdon, which entitles its
+possessor to write those two notable letters after his name, and which
+only hero-hearts may wear.
+
+But a vision of himself, stripped of “sweater” and moccasins, in
+cavalry rig, becrossed and beribboned, serving under another flag than
+the Stars and Stripes, was too much for Herb’s gravity and for the grim
+regrets which wrung him to-night.
+
+“Oh, sugar!” he gasped; and his laughter was like a rocket shooting up
+from his mighty throat, and exploding in a hundred sparkles of
+merriment.
+
+He laughed long. He laughed insistently. His comrades were won to join
+in.
+
+When the fun had subsided, Garst said:—
+
+“Herb Heal, old man, there’s something in you to-night which reminds me
+of a line I’m rather stuck on.”
+
+“Let’s have it!” cried Herb.
+
+And Cyrus quoted:—
+
+“As for this here earth,
+It takes lots of laffin’ to keep things even!”
+
+
+“Now you’ve hit it! The man that wrote that had a pile o’ sense. Come,
+boys, it’s been an awful full day. Let’s turn in!”
+
+As he spoke, Herb began to replenish the fire, and make things snug in
+the camp for the night.
+
+But shortly after, when he threw himself on the spuce-boughs near them,
+the boys heard him murmur, deep in his throat, as if he took strength
+from the words:—
+
+“It takes lots of laffin’ to keep things even!”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXV. A Little Caribou Quarrel
+
+
+But things on this old planet seemed even enough the next day, when,
+after a dozen hours of much needed sleep, the campers’ eyes opened upon
+a scene which might have stirred any sluggish blood—and they were not
+sluggards.
+
+A fresh breath of frost was in the air to quicken circulation and
+hunger. Under a smiling sun an October breeze frolicked through leaves
+with tints of fire and gold, humming, while it swiftly skimmed over
+their beauties, as if it was reading a wind’s poem of autumn.
+
+Katahdin looked as though it had suddenly taken on the white crown of
+age, with age’s stately calm. The weather had grown colder during the
+night. Summer—the balmy Indian summer, with its late spells of
+sultriness—had taken a weeping departure yesterday. To-day there was no
+threatening of rain-storm or slide. The mountain’s principal peaks had
+fleecy wraps of snow.
+
+“Ha! Old Katahdin has put on its nightcap,” exclaimed Cyrus, when the
+trio issued from their tent in the morning. “Listen, you fellows! This
+is the 21st of October. I propose that we start back to our home-camp
+to-morrow. It will take us two days to reach Millinokett Lake. Then
+we’ll set our faces towards civilization the first week in November, or
+thereabouts.”
+
+“Oh, bother it! So soon!” protested Dol.
+
+“Now, Young Rattlebrain,”—Garst took the calm tone of
+leadership,—“please consider that this is the first time you’ve camped
+out in Maine woods. You might find it fun to be snowed up in camp
+during a first fall, and to tramp homewards through a thawing slush.
+But your father wouldn’t relish its effects on your British
+constitution. And out here—once we’re well into November—there’s no
+knowing when the temperature
+may drop to zero with mighty short notice. I’ve often turned in at
+night, feeling as if I were on ‘India’s coral strands’ and woke up next
+morning thinking I had popped off in my sleep to ‘Greenland’s icy
+mountains.’ Herb Heal! you know what tricks a thermometer, if we had
+one, might play in our camp from this out; talk sense to these
+fellows.”
+
+Herb, who had risen an hour before his charges, had already fetched
+fresh water, coaxed up the fire, and was busily mixing flapjacks for
+breakfast. His ears, however, had caught the drift of the talk.
+
+“Guess Cyrus is right,” he said. “Seeing as it’s the first time you
+Britishers have slept off your spring mattresses, I’d say, light out
+for the city and steam-heat afore the snow comes. Oh! you needn’t get
+your mad up. I ain’t thinking you’d growl at being snowed in. I know
+better.
+
+“By the great horn spoon! I b’lieve I’ll go right along to Greenville
+with you,” exclaimed the guide a minute later. “I might get a chance to
+pick up a bargain of a second-hand rifle there. And I guess you’d be
+mighty sick o’ your luck, Dol, if you had to lug them moose-antlers
+part o’ the way yerself.
+I ain’t stuck on carrying ’em either, if we can get a jumper.”
+
+But there was a third reason, still more powerful than these two, why
+he should make a trip to the distant town, which stirred Herb’s mind
+while he stirred his cakes. His sturdy sense told him that it would be
+well he should put in an appearance when Cyrus made a statement before
+the Greenville coroner as to the cause and manner of Chris’s death.
+
+“Now, you boys, we don’t want no fooling this blessed day,” he said,
+when breakfast was in order, and the campers were emptying for the
+second time their tin mugs of coffee. “There’s sport before us—tearing
+good sport. Whatever do you s’pose I come on this morning when I was
+cruising over the bog for water? Caribou-tracks! Caribou-tracks, as
+sure as there’s a caribou in Maine!
+
+“Who’s for following ’em? We hain’t got much provisions left; and I
+guess a chunk of broiled caribou-steak about as big as a horse’s upper
+lip would cheer each of us up, and make us feel first-rate. What say,
+boys?”
+
+“By all that’s glorious!” ejaculated Cyrus, his eyes striking light.
+“Caribou-signs! Of course we’ll follow them. A bit of fresh meat
+would be pretty acceptable, and a good view of a herd of caribou would
+be still more so—to me, at any rate. That would just about top off our
+exploring to a T.”
+
+“We’ve got to be mighty spry, then,” said the woodsman, lurching to his
+feet, muscles swelling, and nostrils spreading like a sleuth-hound’s.
+“If you want caribou, you’ve got to take ’em while they’re around. Old
+hunters have a saying: ‘They’re here to-day, to-morrow nowhere.’ And
+that’s about the size of it.”
+
+“Let’s start off this minute!” Dol jerked out the words while he bolted
+the last salt shreds of his pork. “Hurry up, you fellows! You’re as
+slow as snails. I’d eat the jolliest meal that was ever cooked in three
+minutes.”
+
+“No wonder you squirm and shout all night, then, until sane people with
+good digestions feel ready to blow your head off,” laughed Cyrus, who
+was one of the laggards; but he disposed of the last mouthfuls of his
+own meal with little regard for his digestive canal.
+
+In rather less than twenty minutes the four were scanning with wide
+eyes certain fresh foot-marks, plainly printed on a patch of soft
+oozing clay, midway on the boggy tract.
+
+“Whew! Bless me! Those caribou-tracks?” Cyrus caught his breath with
+amazement while he crouched to examine them. “Why, they’re bigger than
+any moose-tracks we’ve seen!”
+
+“Isn’t that great?” gasped Dol.
+
+“Well, come to think of it, it is,” answered the guide, in the stealthy
+tones of an expectant hunter; “for a full-grown bull-caribou don’t
+stand so high as a full-sized moose by two or three feet, and he don’t
+weigh more’n half as much. Still, for all that, caribou deer beat every
+other animal of the deer tribe, so far’s I know, in the size of their
+hoofs, as you’ll see bime-by if luck’s with us! And my stars! how they
+scud along on them big hoofs. I’d back ’em in a race against the
+smartest of your city chaps that ever spun through Maine on his
+new-fangled ‘wheel,’ that he’s so sot on.”
+
+Garst, who was an enthusiastic cyclist, with a gurgle of unbelieving
+mirth, prepared to dispute this. There might have ensued a wordy
+sparring about caribou versus bicycle, had not the guide been impressed
+with the necessity for prompt action at the expense of speech.
+
+“We must quit our talk and get a move on,” he whispered, and led the
+forward march across the bog, his eyes every now and again narrowing
+into two gleaming slits, as if he were debating within himself, while
+he studied the ground or some bush which showed signs of being nibbled
+or trampled. Then he would sweep the horizon with long-range vision.
+
+But not a tuft of hair or glancing horn hove in sight.
+
+The marsh was left behind. The hoof-marks were lost in a wide meadowy
+sweep of open ground, bounded at a distance by an irregular line of
+hills, sparsely covered with spruce-trees.
+
+Towards these Herb headed, leaving Katahdin away back in the rear.
+
+“’Shaw! I’m afeard they’re ‘nowhere’ by this time,” he whispered, when
+the hunters reached the rising ground, glancing at Dol, who stepped
+lightly beside him.
+
+The boy’s lips parted to breathe out compressed disappointment; but his
+answer was lost in a sharp whirr! whirr! and a sudden flutter of wings
+above his head. His eyes went aloft towards a bough about eight feet
+from the ground. So did Herb’s, and lit with a new, whimsical hope.
+
+“A spruce partridge!” hissed the guide, his voice thrilling even in its
+stealthy whisper. “That’s luck—dead sure! The Injuns say, ‘The red eye
+never tells a lie;’” and the woodsman pointed out the strip of bare red
+skin above the beady eyes of the bird, which cuddled itself on its
+branch, and looked down at them unfrighted.
+
+Dol Farrar, who in this region of moose-birds and moose-calls could
+believe in anything, felt both his spirits and credulity rise together.
+He managed to keep abreast of the trained hunter, as the latter, with
+swift, stretching, silent steps climbed the hill. And he heard the
+hunter’s sudden cluck of triumph as he reached the top, and looked down
+upon the valley at the other side, the inarticulate sound being
+followed by one softly rung word,—
+
+“Caribou!”
+
+“Caribou? They look awfully like quiet Alderney cows, except for the
+big antlers!” The amazed exclamation stirred the English boy’s tongue,
+but he did not make it audible.
+
+Following Herb’s example, he stretched himself flat upon his stomach
+under a spruce, and stared over the brow of the hill at a forest
+pantomime which was being acted in the valley.
+
+Cautiously slipping from tree to tree, Cyrus and Neal, who had lagged a
+few steps behind, joined the leaders, and lay low, eagerly gazing too.
+
+On its farther side the hill was yet more sparsely covered, the
+scattered spruces showing gaps between them where the lumberman’s axe
+had made havoc. Through these openings, which were as shafts of light
+amid the evergreen’s waving play, the hunters saw the sun silver a
+brown pool in the valley. A few maples and birches waved their
+shrivelling splendors of scarlet and buff at irregular distances from
+the water. And in and out among these trees moved in graceful woodland
+frolic four or five large animals,—perhaps more,—their doings being
+plainly seen by the watchers on the hill.
+
+Their coats, like those of the smaller deer, were of a brown which
+seemed to have caught its dye from the autumnal tints surrounding them.
+In shape they justified Dol’s criticism; for they certainly were not
+unlike cows of the Alderney breed, save for the widely branching horns.
+
+Of the strength of these antlers the hidden spectators got sudden,
+startling proof, as the two largest caribou drew off from the rest, and
+charged each other in a real or sham fight, the battle-clang of their
+meeting horns sounding far away to the hill-top.
+
+“Them two bulls are having a big time of it. Look at ’em now, with the
+small one. That’s a stranger in the herd,” hummed Herb into the ear of
+the boy next to him, his voice so light and even that it might have
+been but the murmur of a falling leaf. “It’s an all-fired pity that
+we’re jest too far off for a shot.”
+
+The “stranger,” which the woodsman’s long-range eye had singled out,
+was of a smaller size and paler color than the other caribou; and
+Herb—who could interpret the forest pantomime far better than he would
+have explained the acting of human beings on a stage—told his
+companions in whispers and signs that it was in distressed dread of its
+company.
+
+The attentions which the rest paid to it seemed at first only friendly
+and facetious. The two big bulls, after trying their mettle against
+each other for a minute, separated, and moved towards it, prodded it
+lightly with their horns, and playfully bit its sides, a sport in which
+the other members of the herd joined.
+
+“They’re playing it, like a cat with a mouse; but I guess they’ll
+murder it in the long run if it’s sickly or weak. Caribou are the
+biggest bullies in these woods—to each other,” whispered Herb.
+
+“By the great horn spoon! they’re doing for it now,” he gasped, a
+minute later. “Sho!... if I only had my old Winchester here, I’d soon
+stop their lynching. Try it, you, Cyrus! You’re a sure shot, an’ you
+can creep within a hundred yards of ’em without being scented. Try it,
+man!”
+
+The guide’s flashing eyes and quick signs conveyed half his meaning;
+his excited sentences were so low that Garst only caught fag-ends of
+them. But they were emphasized unexpectedly by a faint bleating sound
+rising from the valley,—the helpless bleat of a buffeted creature.
+
+“We want meat, and I’m going to spring a surprise on those bullies,”
+muttered Cyrus, setting his teeth.
+
+Still lying flat, he shot his eyes down the hill-slope, forming a plan
+of descent; then he lifted the rifle beside him, and jammed some fresh
+cartridges into the magazine.
+
+Ere a dozen long breaths had been drawn, he was stealthily moving
+towards the valley, slipping from spruce to spruce—an arrowlike,
+unnoticeable figure in his dark gray tweeds.
+
+He was close to the foot of the hill when the three breathless fellows
+above saw him raise his rifle, just as the unfortunate little caribou,
+after many efforts to escape, had been beaten to its knees.
+
+“He’ll drop one, sure! He’s a crack shot—is Cyrus! There! he’s drawing
+bead. Bravo!... he’s floored the biggest!”
+
+Herb’s gusty breath blew the sentences through his nostrils, while the
+sudden, explosive bang of the Winchester cut through all other sounds,
+and set the air a-quiver.
+
+Twice Cyrus fired.
+
+The largest bull-caribou leaped three feet upward, wheeled about,
+staggered to his knees. A third shot stopped his bullying forever.
+
+“Hurrah! I guess you’ve got the leader—the best of the herd. That other
+bull was a buster too! You might ha’ dropped him, if you’d been in the
+humor!” bellowed the guide, springing to his legs, and letting out his
+pent-up wind in a full-blast roar of triumph.
+
+He well knew that Cyrus, “being a queer specimen sportsman,” and the
+right sort after all, would be satisfied with the one inevitable deed
+of death.
+
+As their leader fell, the caribou raised their heads, stared in
+stiffened wonder for a few seconds, offering a steady mark for the
+smoking rifle if it had been in the grasp of a butcher. Then, as though
+propelled by one shock, they cut for the wood at dazzling speed.
+
+A minute—and they were in the distance as tufts of hair blown before a
+storm-wind.
+
+The half-killed weakling sought shelter more slowly in another
+direction.
+
+“Well done, Cy!”
+
+“Congratulations, old man!”
+
+“You’ve got a trophy now. You’ll never leave this splendid head behind.
+My eye, what antlers!”
+
+Such were the exclamations blown to Garst’s ears by the hot breath of
+his English friends, as they reached his side, and stooped with him to
+examine the fallen forest beauty.
+
+“No; I guess we can manage to haul the head back to camp, with as much
+meat as we need. You’ll have your ‘chunk of caribou-steak as big as a
+horse’s upper lip,’ to-night, Herb, and bigger if you want it. I’m
+tickled at getting the antlers, especially as I didn’t shoot this
+beauty for the sake of them. I’ll hook them on my shoulders when we
+start back to Millinokett to-morrow.”
+
+So answered the successful hunter, tingling with some pride in the
+skill which, because of his reverence for all life, he generally kept
+out of sight.
+
+And he stuck to his purpose about the antlers.
+
+Cheered and invigorated by a sumptuous supper and breakfast of broiled
+caribou-steaks, supplemented by Herb’s lightest cakes, and carrying
+some of the meat with them as provision for the way, the campers
+accomplished their backward tramp to the log camp on Millinokett Lake
+in fulness of strength and spirits.
+
+Once or twice during the journey, when the guide was stalking ahead,
+and thought himself unnoticed, the city fellows saw him lift his right
+hand and look at it for a full minute. Then it swung heavily back to
+his side.
+
+“He’s missing his rifle, the partner that never went back on him,” said
+Cyrus. “Say, boys! I’ve got an idea!”
+
+“Out with it if it’s worth anything,” grunted Dol. “I never have ideas
+these days. Too much doing. I don’t feel as if there was a steady peg
+in me to hang one on.”
+
+“Oh! quit your nonsense, Chick, and listen. Herb will wait for us in a
+few minutes,” was the Boston man’s impatient rejoinder.
+
+Then followed a low-toned consultation, in the course of which such
+talk as this was heard:—
+
+“Our Pater will want to shell out when he hears about Chris.”
+
+“So will mine. He’ll be for sending Herb a cool five hundred or
+thousand dollars, right away. And, as likely as not, Herb would feel
+flaring mad, and ready to chuck it in his face. He’s not the sort of
+fellow to stand being paid by an outsider for a plucky act, done in the
+best hour of his life.”
+
+“Oh, I say! wouldn’t it be decenter to manage the thing ourselves,
+without letting anybody who doesn’t know him meddle in it?” This
+suggestion was in Dol’s voice. “Neal and I could draw our allowances
+for three months in advance; the Pater will be willing enough. We’ll be
+precious hard up without them, but we’ll rub through somehow. Then you
+can chip in an even third, Cy, and we’ll order an A I rifle,—the best
+ever invented, from the best company in America,—silver plate, with his
+name,—and all the rest of it. I’d swamp my allowance for a year to see
+Herb’s face when he gets it.”
+
+“That’s the plan! You do have occasional moments of wisdom, Dol; I’ll
+say that much for you,” commented the leader. “Well, Herb has taken a
+special sort of liking to you. You may tip him a hint to wait in
+Greenville for a few days, and not to go looking for second-hand rifles
+till he hears from us. Better not say anything until we’re just
+parting. Ten to one, though, you’ll blurt the whole thing out in some
+harebrained minute, or give it away in your sleep.”
+
+“Blow me if I do!” answered Dol solemnly.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVI. Doc Again
+
+
+Herb, turning back at that minute to wait for his party, experienced a
+shock of curiosity which was new to him, at seeing the three in close
+counsel, shouldering each other upon a trail a couple of feet wide.
+
+But the sensation passed. Dol for once was not guilty of an
+indiscretion, waking or sleeping. The woodsman got no hint of what
+matter had been discussed until more than two weeks later, when he
+stood in the main street of Greenville, beside a tanned, muscular,
+newly shaven trio, waiting for their departure for Boston.
+
+A few pleasant days, marked by no particular excitements, had been
+spent at the log camp on Millinokett after that wonderful trip into the
+forests of Katahdin. Then the weather turned suddenly blustering and
+cold; and Cyrus, as captain, ordered an immediate forced march to
+Greenville.
+
+Under Herb’s guidance that march was made with singularly few
+hardships. He managed to hire a “jumper” from a new settler who had a
+farm a couple of miles from their camp. This contrivance was a rough
+sort of sled, formed of two stout ash saplings, and hitched to a
+courageous horse. The “jumper’s” one merit was that it could travel
+along many a rough trail where wheels would be splintered at the
+outset. But since, as Herb said, it went at “a succession of dead
+jumps,” no camper was willing to trust his bones to its tender mercies.
+However, it answered admirably for carrying the tent, knapsacks, and
+trophies of the party, tightly strapped in place, including Neal’s
+bear-skin, which was duly called for, and the moose-antlers, more
+precious in Dol’s sight than if they had been made of beaten gold.
+
+Thus the campers journeyed homeward with their backs as light as their
+spirits, caring little for the chills of a couple of nights spent under
+canvas and rubber coverings.
+
+Two gala evenings they had,—one with Uncle Eb in his bark hut near
+Squaw Pond, where they were regaled with a sumptuous supper, for “coons
+war in eatin’ order now;” and the second with Doctor Phil Buck at his
+little frame house near Moosehead Lake.
+
+Dear old Doc was as ever a power,—a power to welcome, uplift,
+entertain.
+
+The campers sought him immediately on their arrival at Greenville; and
+he stood by them while Cyrus made a full statement before the local
+coroner about the death and burial of the half-breed, Chris Kemp, the
+Farrars and Herb confirming what was said with due dignity.
+
+But dignity was blown to the four winds by the very unprofessional and
+very woodsman-like cheer that Doc raised, and that was echoed
+thunderously by Joe Flint and a few other guides and loungers who had
+collected to hear the story, when Cyrus described the splendid rush
+which Herb made, with the dying man in his arms, and the clay of the
+landslide half smothering him.
+
+“I’m sorry I wasn’t near to try and do something for the poor fellow,”
+said the doctor, later on, when his friends were gathered round a
+blazing wood-fire in his own snug house. “But I doubt if I could have
+helped him. I guess he was born with the hankering for whiskey, and
+when that is in the mongrel blood of a half-breed it is pretty sure to
+wreck him some time. We must leave him to God, boys, and to changes
+larger than we know.”
+
+“I’ve a letter for you, Neal,” added the host presently in a lighter
+tone. “It was directed to my care. It is from Philadelphia, from Royal
+Sinclair, I think.”
+
+Neal slit the envelope which was handed to him, and read the few lines
+it contained aloud, with a longing burst of laughter.
+
+Royal was as short with his pen as he was dash-away with his tongue.
+The letter was a brief but pressing invitation to Cyrus and the Farrars
+to visit their camping acquaintances of the Maine wilds at the
+Sinclairs’ home in Philadelphia before the English boys recrossed the
+Atlantic.
+
+“Come you must!” wrote Roy. “We’ve promised to give a big spread, and
+invite all the crowd we train with to meet you. We’ll have a great old
+time, and bring out our best yarns. Don’t let me catch you refusing!”
+
+
+Illustration: Greenville,—“Farewell To The Woods.”
+
+
+“We won’t if we can help it,” commented Neal; “if only we can coax the
+Pater to give us another week in jolly America.”
+
+The campers slept upon mattresses that night for the first time in many
+weeks.
+
+The following morning saw them grouped in the main street of
+Greenville, with Doc and Herb on hand for a final farewell, waiting for
+the departure of the coach which was to bear them a little part of the
+way towards Boston civilization.
+
+Dol was turning over in his jostled thoughts the delicate wording of
+the hint which he was to convey to Herb about the rifle, when he became
+aware that Doctor Phil was pinching his shoulder, and saying, while he
+drew Neal’s attention in the same way:—
+
+“Well, you fellows! I’m glad to have known you. If you ever come to
+Maine again, remember that there’s one old forest fogy who’ll have a
+delightful welcome for you in his house or camp, not to speak of the
+thing he calls his heart. And I hope you’ll keep a pleasant corner in
+your memories for our Pine Tree State, and for American States
+generally, so far as you’ve seen them.”
+
+Dol tried to answer; but recalling the evening when, wrecked at heart,
+with stinging feet, he had stumbled at last into the trail to Doc’s
+camp, he could only mutter, “Dash it all!” and rub his leaking eyes.
+
+“Of course I’ll think in an hour from now of all the things I want to
+say,” began Neal helplessly, and stopped. “But I’ll tell you how I
+feel, Doc,” he added, with a sudden rush of breath: “I think I can
+never see your Stars and Stripes again without taking off my hat to
+them, and feeling that they’re about equal to my own flag.”
+
+“Neatly put, Neal! I couldn’t have done it better,” laughed Cyrus.
+
+“Shake!” and Doc offered his hand in a heart-grip, while the hairs on
+it bristled. “Boy! long life to that feeling. You men who are now being
+hatched will show us one day what Young England and Young America, as a
+grand brotherhood under comrade flags, can do to give this old earth a
+lift which she has never had yet towards peace and prosperity. We’re
+looking to you for it!”
+
+“Hur-r-r-rup!” cheered Herb, subduing his shout to the requirements of
+a settlement, but sending his battered hat some ten feet into the air,
+and recovering it with a dexterous shoot of his long arm, by way of
+giving his friends an inspiring send-off.
+
+“Tell you what it is!” he said suddenly, turning upon the Farrars, “I
+never guided
+Britishers till now; but, wherever you sprung from, you’re clean grit.
+If a man is that, it don’t matter a whistle to me what country riz
+him.”
+
+A few minutes afterwards, with a jingle, jangle, lurch, and rattle, the
+stage-coach was swaying its way out of Greenville. Dol, stooping from
+his seat upon it, gripped the guide’s hand in a wringing good-by.
+
+“Herb,” he said, “we three fellows want you to stay here for a few
+days, and not to do anything about a second-hand rifle until you hear
+from us. Mind!”
+
+
+
+And so it happened that, ten days or so later, while the three were
+enjoying the hospitalities of the Sinclairs and “their crowd” in the
+Quaker City, Herb, who was still in Greenville, waiting for a fresh
+engagement as guide, was accosted by the driver of the coach from
+Bangor.
+
+“Herb Heal, here’s a bully parcel for you,” said the Jehu, with a
+knowing grin. “Came from Boston, I guess. I war booked to take
+pertik’lar care of it.”
+
+And Herb, feeling his strong fingers tingle, undid many wrappers, and
+hauled out, before the eyes of Greenville loungers, a rifle such
+as it is the desire of every Maine woodsman’s heart to possess.
+
+A best grade, 45-90, half-magazine Winchester it was, fitted with
+shot-gun stock and Lyman sights, and bearing a gleaming silver plate,
+on which was prettily lettered:—
+
+HERB HEAL
+
+In Memory Of October, 1891.
+
+Underneath was engraved a miniature pine, its trunk bearing three sets
+of initials.
+
+Herb stalked straight off a distance of one mile to Doctor Buck’s
+house, pushed the door open as if it had been the door of a wilderness
+camp, and shot himself into Doc’s little study.
+
+“Look what those three gamy fellows have sent me,” he said; and his
+eyes were now like Millinokett Lake under a full sun-burst. “I thought
+the old one was a corker, but this”—
+
+Here the woodsman’s dictionary gave out.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVII. Christmas on the Other Side
+
+
+“‘Christmas, 1893.’ Those last two figures are a bit crooked; aren’t
+they, Dol?” said a tall, soldierly fellow, who was no longer a boy, yet
+could scarcely in his own country call himself a man.
+
+He read the date critically, having fixed it as the centre-piece in a
+festive arch of holly and bunting, which spanned the hall of a mansion
+in Victoria Park, Manchester.
+
+“I believe that’s better,” he added, straightening a tipsy “93,” and
+bounding from a chair-back on which he was perched, to step quickly
+backward, with a something in gait and bearing that suggested a cavalry
+swing.
+
+“‘Christmas, 1893,’” he read musingly again. “Goodness! to think it’s
+two years since we laid eyes on old Cyrus, and that he has landed on
+English soil before this, may be here any minute—and Sinclair too. I
+guess”—these two words were brought out with a smile, as if the speaker
+was putting himself in touch with the happiness of a by-gone time—“I
+guess that ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ will look home-like to them.”
+
+And Neal Farrar, just back for a short vacation from Sandhurst Military
+College, twice gravely saluted the gay bunting with which his Christmas
+arch was draped, where the Union Jack of old England kissed the
+American Stars and Stripes.
+
+“I say!” he exclaimed, turning to a tall youth, who had been inspecting
+his operations, “that Liverpool train must be beastly late, Dol. Those
+fellows ought to be here before this. The Mater will be in a stew. She
+ordered dinner at five, as the youngsters dine with us, of course,
+to-day, and it’s past that now.”
+
+“Hush! will you? I’ll vow that cab is stopping! Yes! By all that’s
+splendid, there they are!” and Dol Farrar’s joy-whoop rang through the
+English oaken hall with scarcely less vehemence than it had rung in
+former days through the dim aisles of the Maine forests.
+
+A sound of spinning cab-wheels abruptly stopping, a noise of men’s feet
+on the steps outside, and the hall-door was flung wide by two pairs of
+welcoming hands.
+
+“Cyrus! Royal! Got here at last? Oh! but this is jolly.”
+
+“Neal, dear old boy, how goes it? Dol, you’re a giant. I wouldn’t have
+known you.”
+
+Such were the most coherent of the greetings which followed, as two
+visitors, in travelling rig, their faces reddened by eight days at sea
+in midwinter, crossed the threshold.
+
+There could be no difficulty in recognizing Cyrus Garst’s well-knit
+figure and speculative eyes, though a sprouting beard changed somewhat
+the lower part of his face. And if Royal Sinclair’s tall shoulders and
+brand-new mustache were at all unfamiliar, anybody who had once heard
+the click and hum of his hasty tongue would scarcely question his
+identity.
+
+The Americans had steamed over the Atlantic amid bluster of elements,
+purposing a tour through southern France and Italy. And they were to
+take part, before proceeding to the Continent, in the festivities of an
+English Christmas at the Farrars’ home in Manchester.
+
+“Oh, but this is jolly!” cried Neal again, his voice so thickened by
+the joy of welcome that—embryo cavalry man though he was—he could bring
+out nothing more forceful than the one boyish exclamation.
+
+Dol’s throat was freer. Sinclair and he raised a regular tornado in the
+handsome hall. Questions and answers, only half distinguishable, blew
+between them, with explosions of laughter, and a thunder of claps on
+each other’s shoulders. When their gale was at its noisiest, Royal’s
+part of it abruptly sank to a dead calm, stopped by “an angel
+unawares.”
+
+A girl of sixteen, with hair like the brown and gold of a pheasant’s
+breast, opened a drawing-room door, stepped to Neal’s side, and
+whispered,—
+
+“Introduce me!”
+
+“My sister,” said Neal, recovering self-possession. “Myrtle, I believe
+I’ll let you guess for yourself which is Garst and which is Sinclair.”
+
+“Well, I’ve heard so much about you for the past two years that I know
+you already,
+all but your looks. So I’m sure to guess right,” said Myrtle Farrar,
+scrutinizing the Americans with a pretty welcoming glance, then giving
+to each a glad hand-shake.
+
+Royal’s tongue grew for once less active than his eyes, which were so
+caught by the golden shades on the pheasant-like head that for a minute
+he could see nothing else. Even Cyrus, who was accustomed to look upon
+himself as the cool-blooded senior among his band of intimates, tingled
+a little.
+
+“You’re just in time for dinner—I’m so glad,” laughed Miss Myrtle. “A
+Christmas dinner with a whole tribe of Farrars, big and little.”
+
+“But our baggage hasn’t come on yet,” answered Garst ruefully. “Will
+Mrs. Farrar excuse our appearing in travelling rig?”
+
+“Indeed she will!” answered for herself a fair, motherly-looking
+English woman, as pretty as Myrtle save for the gold-brown hair, while
+she came a few steps into the hall to welcome her sons’ friends.
+
+Five minutes afterwards the Americans found themselves seated at a
+table garlanded with red-berried holly, trailing ivy, and pearl-eyed
+mistletoe, and surrounded by a round dozen of Farrars, including
+several youngsters whose general place was in schoolroom or nursery,
+but who, even to a tot of three, were promoted to dine in splendor on
+Christmas Day.
+
+“Well, this is festive!” remarked Cyrus to Myrtle, who sat next to him,
+when, after much preparatory feasting, an English plum-pudding,
+wreathed, decorated, and steaming, came upon the scene. Fluttering amid
+the almonds which studded its top were two wee pink-stemmed flags. And
+here again, in compliment to the newly arrived guests, the
+“Star-Spangled Banner” kissed the English Union Jack.
+
+“Say, Neal!” exclaimed Cyrus, his eyes keenly bright as he looked at
+the toy standards, “wouldn’t this sort of thing delight our friend Doc?
+By the way, that reminds me, I have a package for you from him, and a
+message from Herb Heal too. Herb wants to know ‘when those gamy
+Britishers are coming out to hunt moose again?’ And Doc has sent you a
+little bundle of beaver-clippings. They are from an ash-tree two feet
+in circumference, felled by that beaver colony which we came across
+near the _brûlée_ where you shot your bear and covered yourself with
+glory. Doc asked you to put the wood in sight on Christmas Night, and
+to think of the Maine woods.”
+
+“Think of them!” Neal ejaculated. “Bless the dear old brick! does he
+think we could ever forget them and the stunning times we had in camp
+and on trail?”
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Camp and Trail, by Isabel Hornibrook
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13946 ***
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+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13946 ***</div>
+
+<h1>Camp and Trail</h1>
+
+<h4>A Story of the Maine Woods</h4>
+
+<h2>by Isabel Hornibrook</h2>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:55%;">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="cover" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">
+TO<br/>
+J.L.H.</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus01"></a>
+<img src="images/illus01.jpg" width="380" height="600" alt="Illustration: " />
+<p class="caption"><b>The Moose Was Now Snorting Like a War-Horse Beneath</b><br/></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="pref01"></a>Preface</h2>
+
+<p>
+In adding another to the list of stories bearing on that subject of perennial
+interest to boys, adventures in camp and on trail among the woods and lakes of
+Northern Maine, one thought has been the inspiration that led me on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is this: To prove to high-mettled lads, American, and English as well, that
+forest quarters, to be the most jovial quarters on earth, need not be made a
+shambles. Sensation may reach its finest pitch, excitement be an unfailing
+fillip, and fun the leaven which leavens the camping-trip from start to finish,
+even though the triumph of killing for triumph&rsquo;s sake be left out of the
+play-bill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is a higher sport in preservation than in
+destruction,&rdquo; says a veteran hunter, whose forest experiences and
+descriptions have in part enriched this story. I commend the opinion to
+boy-readers, trusting that they may become &ldquo;queer specimen
+sportsmen,&rdquo; after the pattern of Cyrus Garst; and find a more
+entrancing excitement in studying the live wild things of the forest
+than in gloating over a dying tremor, or examining a senseless mass of
+horn, hide, and hoofs, after the life-spring which worked the mechanism
+has been stilled forever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One other desire has trodden on the heels of the first: That Young England and
+Young America may be inspired with a wish to understand each other better, to
+take each other frankly and simply for the manhood in each; and that thus
+misconception and prejudice may disappear like mists of an old-day dream.
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+ISABEL HORNIBROOK.
+</p>
+
+<h2>Contents</h2>
+
+<table summary="" style="">
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap01">Chapter I. Jacking For Deer</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap02">Chapter II. A Spill-Out</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap03">Chapter III. Life in a Bark Hut</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap04">Chapter IV. Whither Bound?</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap05">Chapter V. A Coon Hunt</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap06">Chapter VI. After Black Ducks</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap07">Chapter VII. A Forest Guide-Post</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap08">Chapter VIII. Another Camp</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap09">Chapter IX. A Sunday Among the Pines</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap10">Chapter X. Forward All!</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap11">Chapter XI. Beaver Works</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap12">Chapter XII. &ldquo;Go It, Old Bruin!&rdquo;</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap13">Chapter XIII. &ldquo;The Skin Is Yours.&rdquo;</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap14">Chapter XIV. A Lucky Hunter</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap15">Chapter XV. A Fallen King</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap16">Chapter XVI. Moose-Calling</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap17">Chapter XVII. Herb&rsquo;s Yarns</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap18">Chapter XVIII. To Lonelier Wilds</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap19">Chapter XIX. Treed By a Moose</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap20">Chapter XX. Triumph</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap21">Chapter XXI. On Katahdin</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap22">Chapter XXII. The Old Home-Camp</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap23">Chapter XXIII. Brother's Work</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap24">Chapter XXIV. &ldquo;Keeping Things Even&rdquo;</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap25">Chapter XXV. A Little Caribou Quarrel</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap26">Chapter XXVI. Doc Again</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap27">Chapter XXVII. Christmas on the Other Side</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>List Of Illustrations</h2>
+
+<table summary="" style="">
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus01">The Moose Was Now Snorting Like A War-Horse Beneath.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus02">&ldquo;There Is Moosehead Lake.&rdquo;</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus03">Dol Sights A Friendly Camp.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus04">In The Shadow Of Katahdin.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus05">&ldquo;Go It, Old Bruin! Go It While You Can!&rdquo;</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus06">&ldquo;Herb Heal.&rdquo;</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus07">A Fallen King.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus08">The Camp On Millinokett Lake.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus09">&ldquo;Herb Charged Through The Choking Dust-Clouds.&rdquo;</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus10">Greenville,&mdash;&ldquo;Farewell To The Woods.&rdquo;</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<h2>Camp And Trail</h2>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig01.jpg" width="400" height="164" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap01"></a>Chapter I.<br/>Jacking For Deer</h2>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, Neal Farrar, you&rsquo;ve got to be as still as the night itself,
+remember. If you bounce, or turn, or draw a long breath, you won&rsquo;t have a
+rag of reputation as a deer-hunter to take back to England. Sneeze once, and
+we&rsquo;re done for. That means more diet of flapjacks and pork, instead of
+venison steaks. And I guess your city appetite won&rsquo;t rally to pork much
+longer, even in the wilds.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Neal Farrar sighed as if there was something in that.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, you know, it&rsquo;s just when an unlucky fellow would give his
+life not to sneeze that he&rsquo;s sure to bring out a thumping big one,&rdquo;
+he said plaintively.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, keep it back like a hero if your head bursts in the
+attempt,&rdquo; was the reply with a muffled laugh. &ldquo;When you know that
+the canoe is gliding along somehow, but you can&rsquo;t hear a sound or feel a
+motion, and you begin to wonder whether you&rsquo;re in the air or on water,
+flying or floating, imagine that you&rsquo;re the ghost of some old Indian
+hunter who used to jack for deer on Squaw Pond, and be stonily silent.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh! I say, stop chaffing,&rdquo; whispered Neal impetuously.
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re enough to make a fellow feel creepy before ever he starts.
+I could bear the worst racket on earth better than a dead quiet.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This dialogue was exchanged in low but excited voices between a young man of
+about one and twenty, and a lad who was apparently five years his junior, while
+they waded knee-deep in water among the long, rank grasses and circular pads of
+water-lilies which border the banks of Squaw Pond, a small lake in the forest
+region of northern Maine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The hour was somewhere about eleven
+
+o&rsquo;clock. The night was intensely still, without a zephyr stirring among
+the trees, and of that wavering darkness caused by a half-clouded moon. On the
+black and green water close to the bank rocked a light birch-bark canoe, a
+ticklish craft, which a puff might overturn. The young man who had urged the
+necessity for silence was groping round it, fumbling with the sharp bow, in
+which he fixed a short pole or &ldquo;jack-staff,&rdquo; with some
+object&mdash;at present no one could discern what&mdash;on top.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There, I&rsquo;ve got the jack rigged up!&rdquo; he whispered presently.
+&ldquo;Step in now, Neal, and I&rsquo;ll open it. Have you got your rifle at
+half-cock? That&rsquo;s right. Be careful. A fellow would need to have his hair
+parted in the middle in a birch box like this. Remember, mum&rsquo;s the
+word!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The lad obeyed, seating himself as noiselessly as he could in the bow of the
+canoe, and threw his rifle on his shoulder in a convenient position for
+shooting, with a freedom which showed he was accustomed to firearms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the same time his companion stepped into the canoe, having first touched the
+dark object on the pole just over Neal&rsquo;s head. Instantly
+
+it changed into a brilliant, scintillating, silvery eye, which flashed forward
+a stream of white light on a line with the pointed gun, cutting the black face
+of the pond in twain as with a silver blade, and making the leaves on shore
+glisten like oxidized coins.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The effect of this sudden illumination was so sudden and beautiful that the boy
+for a minute or two held his rifle in unsteady hands while the canoe glided out
+from the bank. An exclamation began in his throat which ended in an indistinct
+gurgle. Remembering that he was pledged to silence, he settled himself to be as
+wordless and motionless as if his living body had become a statue.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From his position no revealing radiance fell on him. He sat in shadow beside
+that glinting eye, which was really a good-sized lantern, fitted at the back
+with a powerful silvered reflector, and in front with a glass lens, the light
+being thrown directly ahead. It was provided also with a sliding door that
+could be noiselessly slipped over the glass with a touch, causing the blackness
+of a total eclipse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was the deer-hunters&rsquo; &ldquo;jack-lamp,&rdquo; familiarly called by
+Neal&rsquo;s companion the &ldquo;jack.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And now it may be readily guessed in what thrilling night-work these canoe-men
+are engaged as they skim over Squaw Pond, with no swish of paddle, nor jar of
+motion, nor even a noisy breath, disturbing the brooding silence through which
+they glide. They are &ldquo;jacking&rdquo; or &ldquo;floating&rdquo; for deer,
+showing the radiant eye of their silvery jack to attract any antlered buck or
+graceful doe which may come forth from the screen of the forest to drink at
+this quiet hour amid the tangled grasses and lily-pads at the pond&rsquo;s
+brink.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, a deer, be it buck, doe, or fawn in the spotted coat, will stand as if
+moonstruck, if it hears no sound; to gaze at the lantern, studying the meteor
+which has crossed its world as an astronomer might investigate a rare, radiant
+comet. So it offers a steady mark for the sportsman&rsquo;s bullet, if he can
+glide near enough to discern its outline and take aim. There is one exception
+to this rule. If the wary animal has ever been startled by a shot fired from
+under the jack, trust him never to watch a light again, though it shine like
+the Kohinoor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for Neal Farrar, this was his first attempt at playing the part of midnight
+hunter; and I am bound to say that&mdash;being English
+
+born and city bred&mdash;he found the situation much too mystifying for his
+peace of mind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He knew that the canoe was moving, moving rapidly; for giant pines along the
+shore, looking solid and black as mourning pillars, shot by him as if theirs
+were the motion, with an effect indescribably weird. Now and again a gray pine
+stump, appearing, if the light struck it, twice its real size, passed like a
+shimmering ghost. But he felt not the slightest tremor of advance, heard no
+swish or ripple of paddle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A moisture oozed from his skin, and gathered in heavy drips under the brim of
+his hat, as he began to wonder whether the light bark skiff was working through
+the water at all, or skimming in some unnatural way above it. For the life of
+him he could not settle this doubt. And, fearful of balking the expedition by a
+stir, he dared not turn his head to investigate the doings of his comrade,
+Cyrus Garst.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cyrus, though also city bred, was an American, and evidently an old hand at the
+present business. The Maine wilds had long been his playground. He had studied
+the knack of noiseless paddling under the teaching of a skilled forest guide
+until he fairly brought it
+
+to perfection. And, in perfection, it is about the most wizard-like art
+practised in the nineteenth century.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The silent propulsion was managed thus: the grand master of the paddle gripped
+its cross handle in both hands, working it so that its broad blade cut the
+water first backward then forward so dexterously that not even his own
+practised hearing could detect a sound; nor could he any more than Neal feel a
+sensation of motion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The birch-bark skiff skimmed onward as if borne on unseen pinions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To Neal Farrar, who had been brought up amid the tumult of rival noises and the
+practical surroundings of Manchester, England, who was a stranger to the
+solitudes of primitive forests, and almost a stranger to weird experiences, the
+silent advance was a mystery. And it began to be a hateful one; for he had not
+even the poor explanation of it which has been given in this record.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was only his third night in Maine wilds; and I fear that his friend Cyrus,
+when inviting him to join in the jacking excursion, had refrained from
+explaining the canoe mystery, mischievously promising himself considerable fun
+from the English lad&rsquo;s bewilderment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Neal&rsquo;s hearing was strained to catch any sound of big game beating about
+amid the bushes on shore or splashing in the water, but none reached him. The
+night seemed to grow stiller, stiller, ever stiller, as they glided towards the
+head of the pond, until the dead quiet started strange, imaginary noises.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a pounding as of dull hammers in his ears, a belling in his head, and
+a drumming at his heart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was tortured by a wild desire to yell his loudest, and defy the brooding
+silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another&mdash;a midnight watchman&mdash;broke it instead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Whoo-ho-ho-whah-whoo!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was the thrilling scream of a big-eyed owl as he chased a squirrel to its
+death, and proceeded to banquet in unwinking solemnity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Whoo-ho-ho-whah-whoo!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Neal started,&mdash;who wouldn&rsquo;t?&mdash;and joggled the canoe, thereby
+nearly ending the night hunt at once by the untimely discharge of his rifle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had barely regained some measure of steadiness, though he felt as if needles
+were sticking into him all over, when at last there was a crashing amid the
+bushes on the right bank, not a hundred yards distant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Noiselessly as ever the canoe shot around, turning the jack&rsquo;s eye in that
+direction. A minute later a magnificent buck, swinging his antlers proudly,
+dashed into the pond, and stooped his small red tongue to drink, licking in the
+water greedily with a soft, lapping sound.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Neal silently cocked his rifle, almost choking with excitement; then paused for
+a few seconds to brace up and control the nervous terrors which had possessed
+him, before his eye singled out the spot in the deer&rsquo;s neck which his
+bullet must pierce. But he found his operations further delayed; for the animal
+suddenly lifted its head, scattered feathery spray from its horns and hoofs,
+and retired a few steps up the bank.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In its former position every part of its body was visibly outlined under the
+silver light of the jack. Now a successful shot would be difficult, though it
+might be managed. The boy leaned slightly forward, trying to hold his gun dead
+straight and take cool aim, when the most curious of all the curious sensations
+he had felt this night ran through him, seeming to scorch like electricity from
+his scalp to his feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From the stand which the deer had taken,
+
+its body was in shadow. All that the sportsman could discern were two living,
+glowing eyes, staring&mdash;so it appeared to him&mdash;straight into his, like
+starry search-lights, as if they read the death-purpose in the boy&rsquo;s
+heart, and begged him to desist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was all over with Neal Farrar&rsquo;s shot. He lowered his rifle, while the
+speech, which could no longer be repressed, rattled in his throat before it
+broke forth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll go crazy if I don&rsquo;t speak!&rdquo; he cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the first word the buck went scudding like the wind through the forest,
+doubtless vowing by the shades of his ancestors that he never would stand to
+gaze at a light again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And&mdash;and&mdash;I can&rsquo;t shoot the thing while it&rsquo;s
+looking at me like that!&rdquo; the boy blurted out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You dunderhead! What do you mean?&rdquo; gasped Cyrus, breaking silence
+in a gusty whisper of mingled anger and amusement. &ldquo;You won&rsquo;t get a
+chance to shoot it or anything else now. You&rsquo;ve lost us our meat for
+to-night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I couldn&rsquo;t help it,&rdquo; Neal whispered back. &ldquo;For
+pity&rsquo;s sake, what has been moving this canoe? The quiet was enough to set
+a fellow mad! And then that buck stared
+
+straight at me like a human thing. I could see nothing but two burning eyes
+with white rings round them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stuff!&rdquo; was the American&rsquo;s answer. &ldquo;He was gazing at
+the jack, not at you. He couldn&rsquo;t see an inch of you with that light just
+over your head. But it would have been a hard shot anyhow, for his nose was
+towards you, and ten to one you&rsquo;d have made a clean miss.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he added, after five minutes of acute listening, &ldquo;I
+guess we may give over jacking for to-night. That first cry of yours was enough
+to set a regiment of deer scampering. I&rsquo;m only half mad after all at your
+losing a chance at such a splendid buck. It was something to see him as he
+stooped to drink in the glare of the jack, a midnight forest picture such as
+one wants to remember. Long may he flourish! We wouldn&rsquo;t have started out
+to rid him of his glorious life if we weren&rsquo;t half-starved on flapjacks
+and ends of pork. Let&rsquo;s get back to camp! I guess you felt a few new
+sensations to-night, eh, Neal Farrar?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig02.jpg" width="400" height="167" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap02"></a>Chapter II.<br/>A Spill-Out</h2>
+
+<p>
+Indeed, shocks and sensations seemed to ride rampant that night in endless
+succession; a fact which Neal presently realized, as does every daring young
+fellow who visits the Maine wilderness for the first time, whatever be his
+object.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ere turning the canoe towards home, Cyrus drove it a few feet nearer to shore,
+again warily listening for any further sound of game. Just then another wild,
+whooping scream cleft the night air; and, on looking towards the bank, Neal
+beheld his owlship, who had finished the squirrel, seated on an aged
+windfall,<a href="#fn-1" name="fnref-1" id="fnref-1"><sup>[1]</sup></a> one end
+of which dipped into the water. The gray bird on the gray old trunk formed a
+second thrilling midnight picture, but at this moment young Farrar was in no
+mood for studying effects. He felt rather unstrung by his recent emotions; and,
+though he was by no means an imaginative youth, he actually took it into his
+head half seriously that the whooping, hooting thing was taunting him with
+making a failure of the jacking business. Without pausing to consider whether
+the owl would furnish meat for the camp or not, he let fly at him suddenly with
+his rifle.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-1" id="fn-1"></a> <a href="#fnref-1">[1]</a>
+A forest tree which has been blown down.
+</p>
+<p>
+The fate of that ghostly, big-eyed creature will be forever one of those
+mysteries which Neal Farrar would like to solve. Whether the heavy bullet
+intended for deer laid him open&mdash;which is improbable&mdash;or whether it
+didn&rsquo;t, nobody had a chance to discover. Being unused to birch-bark
+canoes, the sportsman gave a slight lurch aside after he had discharged his
+leaden messenger of death, startled doubtless by the loud, unexpected echoes
+which reverberated through the forest after his shot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hold on!&rdquo; cried Cyrus, trying to avert a ducking by a
+counter-motion. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll tip us over!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Too late! The birch skiff spun round,
+
+rocked crazily for a second or two, and keeled over, spilling both its
+occupants into the black and silver water of the pond.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of course they ducked under, and of course they rose, gurgling and spluttering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You didn&rsquo;t lose the rifle, Neal, did you?&rdquo; gasped the
+American directly he could speak.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not I! I held on to it like grim death.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good for you! To lose a hundred-and-fifty-dollar gun when we&rsquo;re
+starting into the wilds would be maddening.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then, just because they were extremely healthy, happy, vigorous fellows, whose
+lungs had been drinking in pure, exhilarating ozone and fragrant odors of
+pine-balsam and were thereby expanded, they took a cheerful view of this duck
+under, and made the midnight forest echo, echo, and re-echo, with peals and
+gusts and shouts of laughter, while they struggled to right their canoe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The merry jingles rang on in challenge and answer, repeating from both sides of
+the pond, until they reached at last the wooded slopes and mighty bowlders of
+Old Squaw Mountain, a peak whose &ldquo;star-crowned head&rdquo; could be
+imagined rather than discerned against the horizon, near the distant shore from
+which the hunters had started. Here
+
+echo ran riot. It seemed to their excited fancies as if the ghost of Old Squaw
+herself, the disappointed Indian mother who had, according to tradition, lived
+so long in loneliness upon this mountain, were joining in their mirth with
+haggish peals.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The canoe had turned bottom uppermost. On righting it they found that the
+jack-staff had been dislodged. The jack was floating gayly away over the
+ripples; its light, being in an air-tight case, was unquenched.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Swim ashore with the rifle, Neal,&rdquo; said Cyrus. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll
+pick up the jack. Did you ever see anything so absurdly comical as it looks,
+dodging off on its own hook like a big, wandering eye?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With his comrade&rsquo;s help young Farrar succeeded in getting the gun across
+his back, slinging it round him by its leather shoulder-strap; then he struck
+out for the bank, having scarcely twenty yards to swim before he reached
+shallow water.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, for the first time to-night, the moon shone fully out from her veil of
+cloud, casting a flood of silver radiance, and showing him a scene in white and
+black, still and clear as a steel engraving, of a beauty so unimagined and
+grand that it seemed a little awful. It
+
+gave him a sudden respect for the unreclaimed, seldom-trodden region to which
+his craving for adventure had brought him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The outline of Old Squaw Mountain could be plainly discerned, a dark, towering
+shape against the horizon. A few stars glinted like a diamond diadem above its
+brow. Down its sides and from the base stretched a sable mantle of forest,
+enwrapping Squaw Pond, of which the moon made a mirror.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My! I think this would make the fellows in Manchester open their eyes a
+bit,&rdquo; muttered Neal aloud. &ldquo;Only one feels as if he ought to see
+some old Indian brave such as Cyrus tells about,&mdash;a Touch-the-Cloud, or
+Whistling Elk, or Spotted Tail, come gliding towards him out of the woods in
+his paint and feather toggery. Glad I didn&rsquo;t visit Maine a hundred years
+ago, though, when there&rsquo;d have been a chance of such a meeting.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Still muttering, young Farrar kicked off his high rubber boots, and dragged off
+his coat. He proceeded to shake and wring the water from his upper garments,
+listening intently, and glancing half expectantly into the pitch-black shadows
+at the edges of the forest, as if he might hear the stealthy steps and see
+
+the savage form of the superseded red man emerge therefrom.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ugh! I mind the ducking now more than I did a while ago,&rdquo; he
+murmured. &ldquo;The water wasn&rsquo;t cold. Why, we bathed at the other end
+of the pond late last evening! But these wet clothes are precious
+uncomfortable. I wish we were nearer to camp. Good Gracious! What&rsquo;s
+that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He stood stock-still and erect, his flesh shrinking a little, while his
+drenched flannel shirt clung yet more closely and clammily to his skin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A distant noise was wafted to his ears through the forest behind. It began like
+the gentle, mellow lowing of a cow at evening, swelled into a quavering,
+appealing crescendo cadence, and gradually died away. Almost as the last note
+ceased another commenced at the same low pitch, with only the rest of a
+heart-beat between the two, and surged forth into a plaintive yet tempestuous
+call, which sank as before. It was followed by a third, terminating in an
+impatient roar. The weird solo ran through several scales in its performance,
+rising, wailing, booming, sinking, ever varying in expression. It marked a new
+era in Neal&rsquo;s experience of sounds, and
+
+left him choking with bewilderment about what sort of forest creature it could
+be which uttered such a call.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He began to get out some bungling description when Cyrus joined him shortly
+afterwards, but the American had had a lively time of it while recovering his
+jack-light and righting the canoe on mid-pond. He was in no mood for
+explanations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Keep the yarn, whatever it is, till to-morrow, Neal,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t hear anything special. Perhaps I was too far away.
+I&rsquo;m so wet and jaded that I feel as limp as a washed-out rag. Let&rsquo;s
+get back to camp as fast as we can.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig03.jpg" width="400" height="163" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap03"></a>Chapter III.<br/>Life in a Bark Hut</h2>
+
+<p>
+It was two o&rsquo;clock in the morning when the tired, draggled pair stumbled
+ashore at the place where they embarked, hauled up their birch skiff, leaving
+it to repose, bottom uppermost, under a screen of bushes, and then stood for
+some minutes in deliberation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure I hope we can find the trail all right,&rdquo; said
+Cyrus. &ldquo;Yes, I see the blazes on the trees. Here&rsquo;s luck!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had been turning the jack-lamp on either side of him, trying to discover the
+&ldquo;blazes,&rdquo; or notches cut in some of the trunks, which marked the
+&ldquo;blazed trail&rdquo;&mdash;in other words, the spotted line through the
+
+otherwise trackless forest, which would lead him whither he wanted to go.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It required considerable experience and unending watchfulness to follow these
+&ldquo;blazes&rdquo;; but young Garst seemed to have the instinct of a true
+woodsman, and went ahead unfalteringly, if vigilantly, while Neal followed
+closely in his tracks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After rather a lengthy trudge, they reached a point where the ground sloped
+gently upward into a low bluff. Still keeping to the trail, they ascended this
+eminence, finding the forest not so dense, and the walking easier than it had
+been hitherto. Gaining the top, they emerged upon an open patch, which had been
+cleared of its erect, massive pines, and the long-hidden earth laid bare to the
+sky by the lumberman&rsquo;s axe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here the eagerly desired sight&mdash;that sight of all others to the tired
+camper; namely, the camp itself, with its cheery, blazing camp-fire&mdash;burst
+upon their view, sheltered by a group of sapling pines, which had grown up
+since their giant brothers went to make timber.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, a Maine camp, as every one knows, may consist of any temporary shelter you
+choose to name, according to the tastes and
+
+opportunities of its occupants, from a fair white canvas home to a log cabin or
+a hastily erected canopy of spruce boughs. In the present instance it was a
+&ldquo;wangen,&rdquo; or hut of strong bark, such as is sometimes used by
+lumbermen to rest and sleep in when they are driving their floats of timber
+down one of the rivers of this region to a distant town, which is a centre of
+the lumber trade.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cyrus and Neal were making across the clearing in the direction of the
+camp-fire with revived spirits, when the American suddenly grabbed his friend
+by the arm, and drew him behind a clump of low bushes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hold on a minute!&rdquo; he whispered. &ldquo;By all that&rsquo;s
+glorious, there&rsquo;s Uncle Eb singing his favorite song! It&rsquo;s worth
+hearing. You never listened to such music in England.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t suppose I ever did,&rdquo; answered Neal, suppressed
+laughter making him shake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Upon a gray pine stump, beside the blaze, which he was feeding with a hemlock
+bough, sat a battered-looking yet lively personage. Had he been standing
+upright upon the remnant of trunk, he would certainly, in the bright but
+changeful firelight, have deceived an onlooker into believing him to be a
+continuation
+
+of it; for the baggy tweed trousers which he wore on his immense legs, and
+which partially hid his loose-fitting brogans, or woodsman&rsquo;s boots, his
+thick, knitted jersey, his mop of woolly hair, with the cap of coon&rsquo;s fur
+that adorned it, were a striking mixture of grays, all bordering upon the color
+of the stump. His skin, however, was a fine contrast, shining as he bent
+towards the flame like the outside of a copper kettle. In daylight it would be
+three shades darker, because the thick coral lips, gleaming teeth, and
+prominent, friendly eyes of the individual, betrayed him to be in his own
+words, &ldquo;a colored gen&rsquo;leman;&rdquo; that is, a full-blooded negro,
+and a free American citizen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Beside him, squatting upon his haunches and wagging his shaggy tail, was a
+good-sized dog, not of pure breed, but undoubtedly possessed of fire and
+fidelity, as was shown by the eye he raised to his master. His red coat and
+general formation showed that his father had been an Irish setter, though he
+seemed to have other and fiercer blood in his veins, mingling with that of this
+gentle parent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To him the negro was chanting a war-song,&mdash;some lines by a popular writer
+which he
+
+had found in an old newspaper, and had set to a curious tune of his own
+composition, rendering the performance more inspiriting by sundry wild whoops,
+and an occasional whacking of his teeth together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here are two verses, under the influence of which the dog worked himself up to
+such excitement that he seemed to feel the ghosts of rabbits slain&mdash;for he
+could smell no live ones&mdash;hovering near him:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;I raise my gun whar de rabbit run&mdash;<br/>
+    Ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!<br/>
+En de rabbit say:<br/>
+    &lsquo;Gimme time ter pray,<br/>
+Fer I ain&rsquo;t got long fer to stay, to stay!&rsquo;<br/>
+    Oh, ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!<br/>
+<br/>
+&ldquo;Ketch him, oh, ketch him!<br/>
+Run ter de place en fetch him!<br/>
+De bell done chime<br/>
+Fer de breakfast time&mdash;<br/>
+    Oh, ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If there are any more verses, Uncle Eb, keep them until we&rsquo;ve had
+supper, or breakfast, or whatever you like to call a meal at this unearthly
+hour. I&rsquo;m so hungry that I could chew nails!&rdquo; cried Cyrus,
+springing from behind the bushes, and reaching the, camp-fire with a few
+strides, Neal following him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sakes alive! yonkers; is dat you?&rdquo; cried the darkey, uprearing his
+gray figure. &ldquo;I&rsquo;se mighty glad to see you back. Whar&rsquo;s yer
+meat? Left it in de canoe mebbe? De buck too big to drag &rsquo;long to
+camp&mdash;eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a wicked rolling of Uncle Eb&rsquo;s eyes while he spoke. Evidently
+from the looks of the sportsmen he guessed immediately what had been the result
+of their excursion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No luck and no buck to-night!&rdquo; answered Garst. &ldquo;But
+don&rsquo;t roast us, Uncle Eb. Get us something to eat quicker than lightning
+or we&rsquo;ll go for you&mdash;at least we would if we weren&rsquo;t entirely
+played out. It isn&rsquo;t everybody who can manage a hard shot as cleverly as
+you do, when he can only see the eyes of an animal. And that was the one chance
+we got.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No man living ever heard a further word from Cyrus as to how his English friend
+bore the scares of a first night&rsquo;s jacking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ya-as, dat&rsquo;s a ticklish shot. Most folks is skeered o&rsquo;
+trying it,&rdquo; drawled out Ebenezer Grout, a professional guide as well as
+&ldquo;colored gen&rsquo;leman,&rdquo; familiarly called by visitors to this
+region who hired the use of his hut and his services, &ldquo;Uncle Eb.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s some comfort for you,&rdquo; whispered Cyrus slyly into
+Neal&rsquo;s ear. Aloud he said, addressing the guide, &ldquo;We had a
+spill-out, too, as a crown-all. I&rsquo;m mighty glad that this is the second
+of October, not November, and that the weather is as warm as summer; otherwise
+we&rsquo;d be in a pretty bad way from chill. I feel shivery. Hurry up, and get
+us some steaming hot coffee and flapjacks, Uncle Eb, while we fling off these
+wet clothes. The trouble is we haven&rsquo;t got any dry ones.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hain&rsquo;t got no oder suits?&rdquo; queried the woodsman. &ldquo;Den
+go &rsquo;long, boys, and rig yerselves up in yer blankets. Ye can pertend to
+be Injuns fer to-night. Like enough dis ain&rsquo;t de worst shift ye&rsquo;ll
+have to make &rsquo;fore ye get out o&rsquo; dese parts.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As the draggled pair were making towards the hut, which stood about six feet
+from the fire, to follow his advice, its bark door was suddenly pushed wide
+open. Forth stepped, or rather staggered, another boy, younger and shorter than
+Neal. His tumbled fair hair was here and there adorned with a green
+pine-needle, which was not remarkable, considering that he had just arisen from
+a bed of pine boughs. Sundry others were clinging to the surface of the warm,
+fleecy blankets in which he was wrapped, and his feet were thrust into a pair
+of moccasins. He had the appearance and voice of a person awaking from sound
+sleep.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say, you fellows, it&rsquo;s about time you got back!&rdquo; he said,
+rubbing his heavy eyes, and addressing the hunters. &ldquo;I hope you&rsquo;ve
+had some luck. I dreamt that I was smacking my lips over a venison
+steak.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Smack &rsquo;em w&rsquo;en you git it, honey!&rdquo; remarked Uncle Eb,
+while he mixed a plain batter of flour, baking-powder, and cold water, which he
+dropped in big spoonfuls on a frying-pan, previously greased, proceeding to fry
+the mixture over his camp-fire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The thin, round cakes which presently appeared were the &ldquo;flapjacks&rdquo;
+despised by Cyrus as insufficient diet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Without waiting to answer the new boy&rsquo;s greeting, the hunters had
+disappeared into the bark shanty. When next they issued forth they were rigged
+up Indian fashion in moccasins and blankets, the latter being doubled and
+draped over their underclothing,&mdash;of which luckily they had a dry
+supply,&mdash;and gathered round their waists with leather straps. Knitted
+caps, usually worn when sleeping, adorned their heads.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You see, we followed Dol&rsquo;s example and your advice, Uncle
+Eb,&rdquo; said Cyrus, as they seated themselves by the camp-fire. &ldquo;And I
+tell you these make tip-top dressing-gowns when you&rsquo;re feeling a little
+bit chilly after a drenching. We didn&rsquo;t bring along a second suit of
+tweeds for the simple reason that we mean to do some pretty rough tramping with
+our packs on our backs, and then a fellow is likely to grumble at any
+unnecessary pound of weight he carries.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shuah&mdash;shuah!&rdquo; assented Uncle Eb.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And that is why we left our fishing-rods behind,&rdquo; continued Garst.
+&ldquo;You see, our main object this trip is neither hunting nor fishing. But a
+creel of gamey trout from Squaw Pond would come in handy now to replenish our
+larder.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wal, I b&rsquo;lieve I&rsquo;ll fix up a rod to-mo-oh an&rsquo; hook a
+few, fer de pork&rsquo;s givin&rsquo; out. Hain&rsquo;t got mich use fer trout
+meself. Dey&rsquo;s kind o&rsquo; tasteless eatin&rsquo; if a man can git a bit
+o&rsquo; fat coon or a fatty [hare], let &rsquo;lone ven&rsquo;zon.
+Pork&rsquo;s a sight better&rsquo;n &rsquo;em to my mind.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While Uncle Eb was giving his views on food, he was hurriedly
+&ldquo;bilin&rsquo;&rdquo; coffee, frying unlimited flapjacks, and breaking up
+some
+
+crystal cakes of maple sugar, which he melted into a sirup, and poured over
+them.
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;De bell done chime<br/>
+Fer de breakfast time!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+he shouted gleefully when all was accomplished. &ldquo;Heah, yonkers! I guess
+we may call dis meal breakfast jest as well as not, fer it&rsquo;s neah to dawn
+now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And the trio fell to voraciously, as he handed them each a steaming tin mug and
+an equally steaming plate. The newly awakened youngster, who had been cuddling
+his head sleepily against Neal&rsquo;s shoulder (a glance showed that they were
+brothers), had clamored for his share of the banquet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You haven&rsquo;t been lonely, Dol, I hope, have you?&rdquo; said Cyrus,
+as a whole flapjack, doubled over and drenched in sirup, disappeared down his
+capacious throat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not I,&rdquo; answered Dol (Adolphus Farrar, ladies and gentlemen),
+shutting and opening a pair of steel-gray eyes with a sort of quick snap.
+&ldquo;Uncle Eb and I sat by the fire until twelve o&rsquo;clock. He sang
+songs, and told tip-top stories about coon hunts. I tell you it was fun!
+I&rsquo;d rather see a coon hunt than go out at night jacking, especially if I
+
+got a ducking instead of a deer, like some bungling fellows I know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be saucy, Young England, or I&rsquo;ll go for you when
+I&rsquo;ve finished eating,&rdquo; laughed Cyrus good-humoredly. &ldquo;Who
+told you what we got?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol winked at Uncle Eb, who had, indeed, entertained him with giggling jokes
+about the unsuccessful hunters while they were stripping off their wet
+garments.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Adolphus, being the youngest of the camping-party, was favored with the softest
+pine-bough bed and the best of the limited luxuries which the camp possessed,
+with unlimited nicknames,&mdash;from &ldquo;Young England&rdquo; to
+&ldquo;Shaver&rdquo; or &ldquo;Chick,&rdquo; according to the whims of his
+comrades.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say, Uncle Eb, we&rsquo;re having a fine old time to-night&mdash;all
+sorts of experiences! I guess you may as well finish that song we interrupted
+while we&rsquo;re finishing our meal.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All rightee, gen&rsquo;lemen!&rdquo; answered the jolly guide and cook.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The dog Tiger had retreated to the back of the camp-fire, where he lay
+blissfully snoozing; but at a booming &ldquo;Whoop-ee!&rdquo; from his master,
+which formed a prelude to the following verses, he shot up like a rocket, and
+
+manifested all his former signs of excitement.
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;Dey&rsquo;s a big fat goose whar de turkey roos&rsquo;&mdash;<br/>
+    Ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!<br/>
+En de goose&mdash;he say,<br/>
+    &lsquo;Hit&rsquo;ll soon be day,<br/>
+En I got no feders fer ter give away!&rsquo;<br/>
+    Oh, ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!<br/>
+<br/>
+&ldquo;Ketch him, oh, ketch him,<br/>
+Run ter de roos&rsquo; en fetch him!<br/>
+He ain&rsquo;t gwine tell<br/>
+On de dinner bell&mdash;<br/>
+    Ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Scoot &rsquo;long to bed now, you yonkers, or ye&rsquo;ll look like
+spooks to-mo-oh! Hit&rsquo;s day a&rsquo;ready,&rdquo; cried the singer
+directly he had whooped out his last note.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And the &ldquo;yonkers,&rdquo; nothing loath, for they had finished their
+repast, sprang up to obey him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t it a comfort that we haven&rsquo;t any trouble of undressing
+and getting into our bedclothes, fellows?&rdquo; Cyrus said, as they reached
+the wangen, and prepared to throw themselves upon the fragrant camp-bed of
+fresh green pine-boughs, which made the bark hut smell more healthily than a
+palace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The natural mattress was wide enough to accommodate three. The boughs were laid
+
+down in rows with the under side up, and overlapped each other. To be sure, an
+occasional twig might poke a sleeper&rsquo;s ribs, but what mattered that? To
+the English boys especially&mdash;having the charm of entire novelty&mdash;it
+was a matchless bed, wholesome, restful, and rich with balsamic odors hitherto
+unknown.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The trio were stupidly tired; but on the American continent no happier or
+healthier youths could have been found.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It had, indeed, been a night big with experiences; and there was one still to
+come, which, to Neal Farrar at any rate, was as novel as the rest. He had
+thrown himself upon his bough couch, too weary to offer anything but the
+gladness of his heart for worship, when Cyrus touched his arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look there!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;If a fellow could see that without
+feeling some sensations go through him which he never felt before, he
+wouldn&rsquo;t be worth much!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He pointed through the open door of the hut at the sky above the clearing, over
+which was stealing a pearly hue of dawn, shot with a tinge of rosy light, like
+the fire in the heart of an opal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This made a royal canopy over the towering
+
+head of Old Squaw Mountain,&mdash;near by now and plainly visible,&mdash;which
+had not yet lost its starry diadem, though the gems were paling one by one. The
+shoulders of the peak wore a mantle of purple, and the forest which clothed its
+bulk was changing from the blackness of a mourning robe to the emerald green of
+a sea-nymph&rsquo;s drapery.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The shutters of Night were rolling back, and young Day was stepping out to cast
+her first smile on a waiting earth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As the watchers in the hut caught that smile, every thought which rose in them
+was a daybreak song to the God who is light, and the secret of every dawning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With the day-smile kissing their faces they fell asleep, feeling that they were
+wrapped in the embrace of the invisible King.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig04.jpg" width="400" height="166" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap04"></a>Chapter IV.<br/>Whither Bound?</h2>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where from? Whither bound?&rdquo; It is not often that a man or boy
+burns to put these questions&mdash;which ships signal to each other when they
+pass upon the ocean&mdash;to some individual who hurries by him on a crowded
+thoroughfare, whose name perhaps he knows, but whose hand he has never clasped,
+of whose thoughts, feelings, and capabilities he is ignorant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But just let him meet that same fellow during a holiday trip to some wild
+sea-beach or lonely mountain, let an acquaintance spring up, let him observe
+the habits of the other traveller, discovering a few of his weak points and
+some of his good ones, and then he wishes
+
+to ask, &ldquo;Where do you hail from? Whither are you bound?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Therefore, having encountered three fairly good-looking, jovial, well-disposed
+young fellows amid the solitudes of a Maine forest, having spent some eventful
+hours in their company, learning how they behaved in certain emergencies, it is
+but natural that the reader should wish to know their ordinary occupations,
+with their reasons for venturing into these wilds, and the goal they wish to
+reach, before he journeys with them farther.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Just at present, being fast asleep, dreaming, and&mdash;if I must say
+it&mdash;snoring like troopers, upon their mattresses of pine boughs, they are
+unable to give any information about themselves. But the friend who has been
+authorized to record their travels will be happy to satisfy all reasonable
+curiosity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To begin, then, with the &ldquo;boss&rdquo; of the party, Cyrus Garst, the
+writer would say that he is a student of Harvard University, and a brainy,
+energetic, robust son of America. Among his college classmates he is regarded
+as a bit of a hero; for, in spite of his comparative youth, he is an
+enterprising traveller and a veteran camper, whose camp-fire has blazed in some
+of the wildest solitudes of his native
+
+land. For his hobby is natural history, and his playground the &ldquo;forest
+primeval,&rdquo; where he studies American animals amid the lonely passes which
+they choose for their lairs and beats.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Every year when Harvard&rsquo;s learned halls are closed for the long summer
+vacation,&mdash;sometimes at other seasons too,&mdash;he starts off on a trip
+to a wilderness region, with his knapsack on his back, his rifle on his
+shoulder, and often carrying his camera as well.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once in a while he has been accompanied by a bosom friend or two. More
+frequently he has gone alone, hiring the services of a professional guide
+accustomed to the locality he visits. Now, such a guide is the indispensable
+figure in every woodland trip. He is expected to supply the main part of his
+employer&rsquo;s camp &ldquo;kit&rdquo;; namely, a tent or some shelter to
+sleep under, cooking utensils, axes, etc., as well as a boat or canoe if such
+be required. And this son of the forest, whose foot can make a bee-line to its
+destination through the densest wooded maze, is not only leader, but cook and
+general-utility man in camp as well. The guide must be equally grand-master of
+paddle, rifle, and frying-pan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For these tireless woodland heroes Cyrus Garst has a general admiration. He has
+always agreed with them famously&mdash;save on one point; and he has never had
+to shorten his wanderings for fear of lengthening their fees. For Cyrus has a
+millionnaire father in the Back Bay of Boston, who is disposed to indulge his
+whims.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The one point of variance is this: while all guides admire young Garst as a
+crack shot with a rifle, he frequently dumfounds them by letting slip stunning
+chances at game, big and little. They call him &ldquo;a queer specimen
+sportsman,&rdquo;&mdash;understanding little his love for the wild offspring of
+the woods,&mdash;because he never uses his gun save when the bareness of his
+larder or the peril of his own life or his chum&rsquo;s demands it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nevertheless, feeling the need of fresh meat, the naturalist was for the moment
+hotly exasperated because his English comrade, Neal Farrar, missed even a poor
+chance at a buck during the midnight excursion on Squaw Pond.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His friends are proud of stating that up to the present Cyrus had proceeded
+well in his friendly acquaintance with wild creatures, his desire being to
+study their habits when alive rather than to pore over their anatomy when dead.
+And he has always reaped a plentiful harvest of fun during his trips, declaring
+that he has &ldquo;the pull over fellows who go into the woods for
+killing,&rdquo; seeing that he can thoroughly enjoy the escape of a game animal
+if he can only catch a sight of it, and perceive how its pluck or cunning
+enables it to baffle pursuing man. There are those who call Cyrus a sportsman
+of the best type. Perhaps they are right.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet in the year of our story, when he had just attained his majority, this
+student of forest life is still unsatisfied, because he has not been able to
+obtain a good view of the behemoth of American woods, the <i>ignis fatuus</i>
+of hunters,&mdash;the mighty moose.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once only, when paddling on a still pond with his experienced guide for
+company, the latter suddenly closed the slide of the jack-lamp, hiding its
+light. At the same moment a dark, splendid monster, tall as a horse and
+swinging a pair of antlers five feet broad, suddenly appeared upon the bank,
+near to which the canoe lay in black shadow. The hunters dared not breathe. It
+was at a season of year when the Maine law exacts a heavy fine for the killing
+of a moose; and even the guide had no desire to send his bullets through the
+law, though he might have riddled the game without compunction.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a minute or two the creature halted at the pond&rsquo;s brink, magnified in
+the mirror of moonlit water into a gigantic, wavering shape. Then with slow,
+solemn tread he walked along the bank ahead, gave a loud snort something like
+the snort of a war-horse, made a crunching, chopping noise with his jaws,
+resembling the sound of a dull axe striking against wood, plunged into the
+lake, and swam across to the opposite shore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If we had fired, he might have come for us full tilt,&rdquo; whispered
+the guide so softly that his words were like a gliding breath. &ldquo;And then
+I tell you we&rsquo;d have had a narrow squeak. He&rsquo;d have kicked the
+canoe into splinters and us out o&rsquo; time in short order.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But a moose won&rsquo;t charge unless he&rsquo;s attacked, will
+he?&rdquo; asked Cyrus, later in the night, when a couple of quacking black
+ducks which had received a dose of lead were lying silent at his feet, and the
+hunters were returning to camp with food.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not often,&rdquo; was the reply. &ldquo;Only at this time o&rsquo; year,
+if they&rsquo;ve got a mate to defend, you can&rsquo;t say for sure what
+they&rsquo;ll do. They won&rsquo;t always fight either, even if they&rsquo;re
+
+wounded, when they can get a chance to bolt. But a moose, if he has to die,
+will be sure to die game, with his face to his enemy; and so will every wild
+animal that I know. I&rsquo;ve even seen a shot partridge flutter up its
+feathers like a game-cock at the fellow who dropped it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Well, this memorable glimpse of his mooseship was obtained in the year before
+our story. And now, in the beginning of October, young Garst was off into Maine
+wilds again, having arranged to &ldquo;do&rdquo; the forest thoroughly after
+his usual fashion, seeing all he could of its countless phases of life, and
+finally to meet this same guide&mdash;a dare-devil fellow who was reported to
+have had adventures in moose-hunting such as other woodsmen did not dream
+of&mdash;at a log camp far in the wilderness. Thence they could proceed to
+solitudes where the voice of man seldom echoed, where the foot of man rarely
+trod, and where moose signs were pretty sure to be found.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But there was one very unusual feature in his present expedition. The student
+of nature, who generally started forth alone, was this year, owing to a freak
+of fate and to his natural good-nature, accompanied by two English lads.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Early in the summer of this same year, Francis Farrar, a wealthy
+cotton-merchant of Manchester, England, visited America on a business-trip, and
+became the guest of Cyrus&rsquo;s father. He brought with him his two sons,
+Neal, aged sixteen and a half, and Adolphus, familiarly called Dol, who was
+more than a year younger.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Both boys had been at a large public school, and physically, as well as
+mentally, were well developed. They were accustomed to spending long vacations
+with their father at wild spots on the seashore, or amid mountains in England
+and Scotland. They could tirelessly do a sixty-mile spin on their
+&ldquo;wheels,&rdquo; were good football players, excellent rowers, formed part
+of the crew of their father&rsquo;s yacht, could skilfully handle gun and
+fishing-rod, but they had never camped out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They knew none of the delights of sleeping in woodland quarters, with only a
+canvas or bark roof, or perhaps a few spruce boughs, between them and the
+sky&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;While a music wild and solemn<br/>
+    From the pine-tree&rsquo;s height<br/>
+Rolls its vast and sea-like volume<br/>
+    On the wind of night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Small wonder, then, that when they heard Cyrus Garst tell of his camping
+excursions, of his jolly times, long tramps, and hairbreadth escapes, their
+hearts swelled with a tremendous longing to accompany him on the trip into
+northern Maine which he was then projecting for the following October.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, Cyrus at the first start-off conceived a liking for these English fellows,
+to whom, for his father&rsquo;s sake, he played the part of genial host. With a
+lordly recognition of his superior years he pronounced them &ldquo;first-rate
+youngsters, with lots of snap in them.&rdquo; And as the acquaintance
+progressed, Neal Farrar, with his erect figure, broad chest, musical voice, and
+wide-apart gray eyes,&mdash;so clear and honest that their glance was a
+beam,&mdash;proved a personage so likable that the student adopted him as
+&ldquo;chum,&rdquo; forgetting those five years which had been a gulf between
+them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol, whose eyes were of a more steely hue than his brother&rsquo;s, striking
+fire readily and showing all manner of flinty lights, who had a downright
+talent for mimicry, and a small share of juvenile self-importance, came in for
+regard of a more indulgent and less equal nature.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Directly he got an inkling of the desire for a forest trip which stirred in the
+boys&rsquo; breasts, making them yearn all day and toss all night, Cyrus gave
+them both a cordial invitation to accompany him into Maine. Mr. Farrar did not
+purpose returning to Europe till midwinter. His consent was easily obtained. He
+presented each of his sons with a new Winchester repeating rifle, with which
+they practised diligently at a target ere the eventful day of the start dawned,
+though their leader emphatically insisted that the prime pleasures of the trip
+were not to be looked for in the slaughter done by their hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wearing the camper&rsquo;s favorite dress of stout gray tweed, the trio left
+Boston on a lovely September evening towards the close of the month, taking a
+fast night train for Maine, brimful of enthusiasm about the wild woods and free
+camp-life. The hue of their clothes was chosen with a view to making their
+figures resemble the forest trunks, so that they would be less likely to
+attract the notice of animals, and might get a chance to creep upon them
+undetected.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+About their waists were their ammunition belts, with pouches well stocked.
+Their large
+
+knapsacks contained blankets, moccasins, and various other necessaries of a
+camper&rsquo;s outfit, including heavy knitted jerseys for chill days and
+nights, and rubber boots reaching high on the legs for wear in wading and
+traversing swampy tracts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+About twenty-four hours later they dropped off the rattling, jingling
+stage-coach which bore them over the latter part of their journey, at the
+flourishing village of Greenville, on the borders of the Maine wilds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here they were greeted by a view, the loveliness of which made the English
+boys, who had never looked on it before, experience strange heart-leaps.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A magnificent sheet of water nearly forty miles long and fourteen broad lay
+before them, studded with islands, girt with evergreen forests and wooded
+peaks. Under the rays of the setting sun its bosom was shot with arrows of
+pale, quivering gold. Banners of gold and flame-color floated over the crests
+of the hills, flinging streamers of light down their emerald sides.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Fellows, there is Moosehead Lake; and I guess you&rsquo;ll find few
+lakes in America or elsewhere that can beat it for beauty,&rdquo; said Cyrus,
+with a patriotic thrill in his voice, for
+
+he had a feeling that he was doing the honors of his country.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His English comrades were warm with admiration, and here, in view of the
+forest-land which was their El Dorado, tingled with anticipation of the
+unknown.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The three rested that night at Greenville, and began their tramping on the
+following morning. They trudged a distance of seven miles or so to the camp of
+Ebenezer Grout, which, as Garst knew, was situated between Squaw Pond and Old
+Squaw Mountain, the latter being one of the finest peaks near Moosehead Lake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Uncle Eb&rdquo; was an old acquaintance of Cyrus&rsquo;s, a dusky,
+lively woodsman, who spent a great part of the year in his lone bark hut, with
+his dog Tiger for company. He subsisted chiefly on what he brought down with
+his rifle, and sometimes earned three dollars a day for guiding tourists up Old
+Squaw or through the adjacent forests.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus02"></a>
+<img src="images/illus02.jpg" width="600" height="443" alt="Illustration: " />
+<p class="caption"><b>There Is Moosehead Lake.</b><br/></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+He was not an ambitious hunter, and rarely pushed far into the solitudes of the
+wilderness in search of moose or other big game. A coon hunt was to him the
+climax of all fun. It was chiefly with a hope that his comrades might enjoy
+some novel entertainment of this kind that Cyrus made his first stoppage at
+Uncle Eb&rsquo;s camp, purposing to sojourn there for a few days.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was not disappointed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The stupidly tired trio had slept for about two hours, while the reader has
+been receiving information second-hand about their past and future, when a
+scratching, scraping, boring noise on the outside of their bark roof
+temporarily disturbed their slumbers. Dol called out noisily, and, as was the
+way of that youngster on sundry occasions, talked some gibberish in his sleep.
+The scraping instantly ceased.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A renewed and blissful season of snoring. Another awakening. More music on the
+roof, evidently caused by the claws of some wild animal, while each of the
+campers was startled by a loud &ldquo;Cluck!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Lie still, fellows! Don&rsquo;t budge. Let&rsquo;s see what the thing
+is,&rdquo; breathed Cyrus in a peculiarly still whisper which he had learned
+from his moose-hunting guide of whom mention has been made.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dead silence in the hut. Redoubled scraping and rattling above, with a
+scattering of bark chips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then light appeared through a jagged hole
+
+just over a string which was stretched across one corner of the cabin, and from
+which dangled sundry articles of camp bric-a-brac, mostly of a tinny nature,
+with Uncle Eb&rsquo;s last morsel of &ldquo;pork.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By all that&rsquo;s glorious! it&rsquo;s a coon,&rdquo; breathed Cyrus,
+but so softly that his companions did not hear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for the two Farrars, they were working up to such a heat of excitement that
+they felt as if life were now only beginning. They had heard of the thievish
+raids made by the black bear on unprotected camps, and of his special fondness
+for pork. Not knowing that there was no chance of an encounter with Bruin so
+near to civilization as this, they peered at that hole in the roof, expecting
+every moment to see a huge, black, snarling snout thrust through it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a pointed gray muzzle which warily appeared instead&mdash;appeared and
+disappeared on the instant. For at this crisis Tiger&rsquo;s shrill bugle-call
+resounded without, giving warning of an attack on the camp. The thing, whatever
+it was, scrambled from the roof, and with a strange, shrill cry of one note
+made towards the woods. The dog followed it, barking for all he was worth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, too, Uncle Eb&rsquo;s booming &ldquo;Whoop-ee!&rdquo; was heard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The hardy old woodsman, after his visitors had gone to roost, instead of
+stretching himself as usual upon his pine mattress, had started off,
+accompanied by Tiger, to visit some traps which he had set in the forest,
+hoping to catch a marten or two. He took the precaution of closing the door of
+the hut when he saw that its inmates were soundly sleeping, thinking meanwhile,
+that, as day was dawning, there was little chance of any wild
+&ldquo;critter&rdquo; coming round the camp during his absence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But a greedy raccoon, which had been prowling near in the woods during the
+night, and had been tantalized to desperation by the smell of the late meal,
+especially by the odor of flapjacks frying in pork fat, had stolen from cover
+after the departure of his natural enemy, the dog.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Finding the coast clear and the camp unguarded, he made himself quietly at
+home, rooted among some potato parings which the guide had thrown aside a day
+or two before, devoured a cold flapjack, and cleaned the camp frying-pan as it
+had never been cleaned before, with his tongue. But his
+
+appetite was whetted, not glutted. Scent or instinct told him that pork,
+molasses, and other eatables were hidden in the bark hut. Here was a golden
+opportunity for Mr. Coon. No one molested him. Meditating a feast, he climbed
+to the roof, and began cautiously to scrape off portions of the bark. The
+rising sun ought to have warned him back to forest depths; but he persisted in
+his scratching, repeating now and again a satisfied cluck.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His hole was made. His keen nose told him that pork was almost within reach,
+when the bugle-call of his enemy&mdash;Tiger&rsquo;s challenging
+bark&mdash;smote upon his ear. Guide and dog were opportunely returning to
+camp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of course, as soon as the marauder scrambled off the roof, Cyrus and the boys
+sprang from their couch. Barefooted, and in night costume, they were already at
+the door of the hut before Uncle Eb was heard booming,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Boys! Boys! Tumble out&mdash;tumble out! Dere&rsquo;s a reg&rsquo;lar
+razzle-dazzle fight goin&rsquo; on heah. Tiger&rsquo;s nabbed de coon.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig05.jpg" width="400" height="167" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap05"></a>Chapter V.<br/>A Coon Hunt</h2>
+
+<p>
+A razzle-dazzle fight it surely was! On one side of the camp, between the
+camping-ground, which Uncle Eb had cleared with many a backache, and the woods,
+was a narrow strip covered with a stunted, prickly growth of wild raspberry
+bushes and tiny cherry-trees. These had sprung up after the pines had been cut
+down, as soon as the sun peeped at the long-hidden earth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Into it the bare-legged trio dared not venture, knowing that they would get a
+worse scratching and tearing than if the coon itself mauled them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But they could see and hear a whirling, howling, clawing, spitting,
+rough-and-tumble
+
+conflict going on in the midst of this miniature jungle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Whew! Whew!&rdquo; gasped Cyrus. &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s your first sight of
+a wild coon, boys. I wish to goodness it had been a different sight, but I
+suppose he must pay for his thieving.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tiger&rsquo;ll make him do dat. Bet yer life he will! He&rsquo;s death
+on coons, if ever a dog was,&rdquo; yelled Uncle Eb, gambolling with
+excitement, his eyes bulging and widening until they looked like oysters on the
+shell.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The soft, battered, gray felt hat which replaced his fur cap in the daytime
+surged off his gray wool, and frisked gently away towards the camp-fire. There,
+coming in contact with a red ember, it scorched and shrivelled into smoking,
+smelling ashes, all unnoticed in the tumult of the fight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Whirling round and round, now under, now over, dog and coon rolled presently
+forth from the bushes, nearer to the feet of the spectators. Then Neal and Dol
+could get a clearer view of the strange animal. A breeze of exclamations came
+from them, mingling with the yelping, snarling, and clucking of the combatants.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good gracious! Look at the stout body and funny little legs of the
+fellow!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Doesn&rsquo;t he fight like a spitfire?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad he&rsquo;s not clawing me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s not much like any picture of a raccoon I ever saw in a
+Natural History!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I guess he wouldn&rsquo;t resemble them greatly, especially in that
+attitude, Dol,&rdquo; said Cyrus, as soon as there was a lull in the
+boys&rsquo; comments.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The raccoon had now rolled on his back, and was fighting so fiercely with teeth
+and claws that a despairing cry broke from Uncle Eb,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yah! He&rsquo;s makin&rsquo; Tiger&rsquo;s wool fly!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was then that the old guide began to deliberate about rushing forward and
+despatching his coonship with the butt end of his rifle. Cyrus would gladly
+have stopped the tussle long before, for there was too much savagery about it
+to suit him; but he could only have done so by stunning or killing one of the
+combatants.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A heart-rending howl from Tiger. The coon had caught him by his lower jaw.
+Uncle Eb, clutching his empty rifle like a club, was starting to the rescue,
+when the dog with a sudden, desperate jerk freed himself. Mad with rage and
+pain, he tried to seize the raccoon&rsquo;s throat. But his enemy managed to
+
+elude the strangling grip, and getting on his feet, again caught Tiger, this
+time by the cheek, causing another agonizing yelp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, however, the undaunted dog whirled round and round with such rapidity as
+to make Mr. Coon relax his hold, and, gathering all his strength, flung the
+wild animal off to a distance of several feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Probably the raccoon felt that he had enough of the conflict, and was doubtful
+about its final issue. He seized the chance for escape. While the spectators
+gasped with excitement, they beheld him, with his head doubled under his
+stomach, roll over and over like a huge gray India-rubber ball, until he
+reached the nearest tree, which happened to be one of the young pines that
+shaded the camp. Quick as lightning he climbed up its trunk, uttering a second
+shrill, far-reaching cry of one note.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Listen! Listen, fellows!&rdquo; cried Cyrus. &ldquo;That raccoon is a
+ventriloquist. The cry seemed to come from somewhere far above him. I had a
+tame coon long ago, and I often heard him call like that. I tell you he&rsquo;s
+a ventriloquist, and a mighty clever one too.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The one piercing note was to warn his mate,&rdquo; went on the
+naturalist, after a moment&rsquo;s
+
+pause; &ldquo;or in all probability, though we have been speaking of the animal
+as &lsquo;he,&rsquo; it is really a female, for I have heard that peculiar call
+given more frequently by a mother to warn her cubs.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All that could now be seen of the animal&mdash;on whose gender new light had
+been cast&mdash;was a gray ball curled up on a tasselled bough near the top of
+the pine-tree, and a glimpse of a black nose over the edge of the limb.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wal! &rsquo;tain&rsquo;t no matter wedder de critter is a male or a
+fimmale; I&rsquo;m a-goin&rsquo; to bring it down from dar mighty quick,&rdquo;
+said Uncle Eb, fumbling with the cartridge-box which was attached to his broad
+leather belt, and preparing to load his rifle, while he cast murderous looks
+aloft.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, you don&rsquo;t, then!&rdquo; said Cyrus hotly. &ldquo;The creature
+has fought pluckily, and it deserves to get a fair chance for its life.
+I&rsquo;ll see that it does too. You oughtn&rsquo;t to be hard on it for liking
+pork, Uncle Eb.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Coons will be gittin&rsquo; into eatin&rsquo; order soon,&rdquo;
+murmured the guide, smacking his lips, and handling his gun undecidedly.
+&ldquo;Roast coon&rsquo;s a heap better&rsquo;n roast lamb.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, they&rsquo;re not in eating order yet, and
+
+won&rsquo;t be till next month,&rdquo; answered Garst. &ldquo;Come,
+you&rsquo;ve got to let this one go, Uncle Eb, to please me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tell ye wot: I&rsquo;ll call Tiger off&rdquo; (Tiger was alternately
+licking his wounds and baying furiously for vengeance about the tree which
+sheltered his enemy), &ldquo;den, wen de coon finds de place clear, bime-by
+he&rsquo;ll light down from dat limb, I&rsquo;ll start off de dog, and let
+&rsquo;em finish de game atween &rsquo;em.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cyrus considered for a minute, then decided that on the coon&rsquo;s behalf he
+might safely accept the compromise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s get into our clothes, fellows!&rdquo; he cried to Neal and
+Dol. &ldquo;Now we&rsquo;re going to have some fair fun! I guess there
+won&rsquo;t be any more fighting; and I want you to see how cunningly the
+raccoon will cheat the dog and escape, if he gets an even chance.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In five minutes the trio were out of their blankets and in their ordinary day
+apparel. The old guide had hung the wet tweeds to dry by the blazing camp-fire
+before he started out to visit his traps, carefully stretching them to prevent
+their &ldquo;swunking&rdquo; (shrinking). Thus they were again fit for wear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A half-hour of waiting ensued, during which every one was on the tiptoe of
+expectation. They had all withdrawn to some distance from the tree. Uncle Eb
+had been obliged to drag Tiger away, and was bathing his cuts out of the camp
+water-bucket in a shady corner. The dog, recognizing that he was a patient,
+submitted without a growl or budge, until his master, who had been keeping a
+keen eye on that pine-tree, suddenly loosed him, and started him off afresh
+with a loud &ldquo;Whoop-ee!&rdquo; and a&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;Ketch him, Tiger! ketch him!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The coon had &ldquo;lighted down.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Away went the wild creature into the woods. Away after him, went dog, guide,
+student, and boys, plunging, tumbling, rushing along helter-skelter, with a
+yell on every lip.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There he is! See him? That gray ball rolling over and over!&rdquo;
+shouted Cyrus. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you what, now; he&rsquo;s going to resort
+to his clever dodge of &lsquo;barking a tree.&rsquo; There never was a general
+yet who could beat a coon for strategy in making a retreat.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The forest surrounding the eminence on which Uncle Eb&rsquo;s camp was situated
+consisted mostly of pines, with here and there the brilliant autumn foliage of
+a maple or
+
+birch showing amid the evergreens. The trees down the sides of the hill were
+not densely crowded, but grew in irregular clumps instead of an unbroken mass.
+This, of course, afforded a better opportunity for the pursuers to catch
+glimpses of the fugitive animal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On finding that it was again chased, the raccoon at first took shelter in a
+dense thicket of scrub oak, which formed in places a tangled undergrowth. Tiger
+quickly followed up its trail, and it was driven thence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Cyrus and the boys caught sight of it spinning over and over like a ball,
+towards a maple-tree with widely projecting limbs and thick foliage; for it
+knew well that in speed it was no match for the dog, and therefore resorted to
+a neat little stratagem. The next minute, being hotly pressed, it scrambled up
+the friendly trunk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s treed again, yonkers! Come on!&rdquo; shouted the guide,
+indifferent to the creature&rsquo;s probable gender.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tiger sat on his haunches at the foot of the maple, setting up a slow, steady
+bark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Keep where you are, fellows! Watch the other side of the tree!&rdquo;
+whispered Cyrus, his face twitching with excitement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In his character of naturalist he had managed
+
+to find out more about the coon&rsquo;s various dodges than even the old guide
+had done.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In breathless wonder the Farrars presently beheld that ingenious raccoon steal
+along to the end of the most projecting limb on a different side of the tree
+from the one it had climbed, so that a screen of boughs and the trunk were
+between it and its adversary.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then it noiselessly dropped from the tip of the branch to the ground,
+alighting, like a skilled acrobat, on its shoulders, doubled its pointed black
+nose under its stomach, and again rolled over and over for a considerable
+distance, when it got on its short legs and scurried away, while Tiger still
+bayed at the foot of the maple-tree, thinking the vanished prey was above.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s what I called the coon&rsquo;s dodge of &lsquo;barking a
+tree,&rsquo;&rdquo; said Cyrus. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you see, when hard pressed,
+he runs up the trunk, leaving his scent on the bark; then he creeps to the
+other side under cover of the foliage, and drops quietly to the ground. So he
+breaks the scent and cheats the dog.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good gracious!&rdquo; exclaimed Neal with an expressive whistle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps it&rsquo;s because of his long gray hairs that he has so much
+wisdom,&rdquo; Dol suggested.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A bright idea, Chick!&rdquo; chuckled the student, tapping the
+boy&rsquo;s shoulder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We keep on speaking of him as &lsquo;he&rsquo; when you said the thing
+was probably a female,&rdquo; put in Neal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That doesn&rsquo;t matter. I&rsquo;m not certain. Look at old Tiger!
+He&rsquo;s having fits now that he has discovered how he&rsquo;s been
+tricked.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The dog was circling out from the tree, with wild, uncertain movements, nosing
+everywhere. Presently he struck the scent again, and darted off like a streak.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the raccoon had by this time reached a dark stream of water which coursed
+through the over-arching forest at the foot of the hill, as if it was flowing
+through a tunnel. Here this astute animal crossed and recrossed under the gloom
+of interlocking trees, mid dense undergrowth, until its trail was altogether
+lost.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tiger, having further &ldquo;fits,&rdquo; nosing about, darting hither and
+thither, venting short, baffled barks, finally gave up in despair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The pursuing party turned back to camp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did ye ever see ennyting to ekal de cunnin&rsquo; o&rsquo; de
+critter,&rdquo; said Uncle Eb gloomily; &ldquo;runnin&rsquo; up dat tree
+on&rsquo;y to jump off, so as he&rsquo;d break de scent an&rsquo; fool de dog?
+Ye&rsquo;ll learn a heap o&rsquo; queer tings in dese woods,
+
+chillun, &rsquo;fore ye get t&rsquo;rough,&rdquo; he added, addressing the
+English lads.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve learned queerer things than we ever imagined or dreamed of,
+already, Uncle Eb,&rdquo; Neal answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile, Cyrus and Dol had begun to discuss the size of the escaped coon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should think it measured about two feet from the tip of its nose to
+the beginning of the tail, and that would add ten or eleven inches. Probably it
+weighed over thirty pounds,&rdquo; said the experienced Garst.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A fine tail it had too!&rdquo; answered Dol; &ldquo;all ringed with
+black and buff&mdash;not black and white as the books say. There was hardly an
+inch of white about the animal anywhere. Its thick gray hair was marked here
+and there with black; wasn&rsquo;t it, Cy?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Rather with a darker shade of gray, bordering on black. I think old
+Tiger can testify that the creature had capable teeth; and it possesses a
+goodly number of them&mdash;forty in all; that&rsquo;s only two less than a
+bear, an animal that might make six of it in size.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Whew! No wonder it&rsquo;s a good fighter!&rdquo; ejaculated Dol.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But the funniest of the coon&rsquo;s or&mdash;to give the animal its
+proper name&mdash;the raccoon&rsquo;s
+
+funny habits is, that while it eats anything and everything, it souses all meat
+in water before beginning a feed. That&rsquo;s what it would have done with our
+bit of pork,&mdash;dragged it to a stream, and washed it well before swallowing
+a morsel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I caught glimpses of a raccoon chasing a jack-rabbit in this very
+section of the woods, last year,&rdquo; went on the student, seeing that Dol
+was breathlessly listening. &ldquo;The big animal killed the little one under a
+dead limb; and I traced its tracks through some mud, where it tugged the rabbit
+to the brink of the nearest brook to be dipped and devoured.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;After the meal, Mr. Coon halted on an old bit of stump as gray as
+himself, close to where I lay under cover, trying to get a peep at his
+operations, but, unluckily, in my excitement I touched a bush, and broke a twig
+not as big as my little finger. I tell you he just jumped off that stump as if
+it scorched him, and disappeared.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What about that tame coon you owned, Cy?&rdquo; Dol asked. &ldquo;You
+haven&rsquo;t got him now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bless your heart, I should think not!&rdquo; Here the student indulged
+in a chuckle of mirth. &ldquo;That coon was the fun and bane
+
+of my life. No fear of my being dull while I had him! I had him as a present,
+when he was only a cub, from a man out here who is my special chum among
+woodsmen, Herb Heal, the guide in whose company we&rsquo;re going to explore
+for moose, and the soundest fellow in wind, limb, and temper that ever I had
+the luck to meet. I guess you English boys will say the same when you know him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well! when my friend Herb bestowed upon me that baby raccoon, I called
+the little innocent &lsquo;Zip,&rsquo; and kept him in-doors, letting him roam
+at will. But after he grew to manhood, I was obliged to banish him to our yard
+and chain him up; and there his piteous, sky-piercing calls, which seemed to
+come from the roof of a house near him, first showed me what a ventriloquist
+the animal can be.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why on earth did you banish him?&rdquo; asked Neal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because his plan of campaign, when loose, was to follow me about like a
+devoted cat, climbing over me whenever he got the chance, with slobbery
+fondness. But as soon as I was out of the way he&rsquo;d steal every mortal
+thing I possessed, from my most precious instruments to my latest tie and
+handkerchiefs. I never saw anything to equal his ingenuity in ferreting out
+such articles, and his incorrigible mischief in destroying them. I chained him
+in the yard after he had torn my father&rsquo;s silk hat into shreds, and made
+off with his favorite spectacles. Whether he wore them or not I don&rsquo;t
+know; he chewed up the case; the glasses no man thereafter saw. I
+couldn&rsquo;t endure his piteous cries for reconciliation while he was in
+banishment, so I gave him away to a friend who was suffering from an imaginary
+ailment, and needed rousing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Talking of fathers, boys, reminds me that I feel responsible to Francis
+Farrar, Esq., for the welfare of his lusty sons. Neal had a pretty tiring time
+last night, and only about two hours&rsquo; sleep since. I don&rsquo;t suppose
+any of us are outrageously hungry, seeing that we had some kind of breakfast at
+an unearthly hour. Here we are at camp! I propose that we turn in, and try to
+sleep until noon. What do you say?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Their leader having wound up his talk, thus, neither of his comrades ventured
+to oppose his suggestion, though they felt little inclined for slumber.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pleasant day-dreams to you, fellows!&rdquo; said Cyrus three minutes
+afterwards, flinging off his coat, and throwing himself on his mattress of
+boughs, while he wiped the steady drip of perspiration from his forehead and
+cheeks. &ldquo;This day is going to be too warm for any more rushing. Our
+variable climate occasionally gives us these hot spells up to the middle of
+October; but they don&rsquo;t last. So much the better for us! We don&rsquo;t
+want sizzling days and oppressive nights, with mosquitoes and black flies to
+make us miserable. October in this country is the camper&rsquo;s
+ideal&mdash;month&rdquo;&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The last sentence was broken by a great yawn, followed presently by a snort and
+an attempt at a shout, which quavered away into a queer little whine. Garst had
+passed into dreamland, where men revel in fragmentary memories and pell-mell
+visions.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig06.jpg" width="400" height="164" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap06"></a>Chapter VI.<br/>After Black Ducks</h2>
+
+<p>
+If Cyrus&rsquo;s dreams were ruffled after the morning&rsquo;s excitement,
+those of his comrades were a perfect chaos.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A slight wind hummed wordless songs through the tasselled tops of the
+pine-trees about the camp. The music was tender and drowsy as a mother&rsquo;s
+lullaby. Contrary to their expectations, Neal and Dol were lulled to sleep by
+it like babies, with a feeling as if some guardian spirit were gliding among
+the tree-tops.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But when slumber held them, when the murmur increased to a surge of sound, sank
+to a ripple and again rolled forth, in their dreams they imagined it the
+scurrying of a
+
+deer&rsquo;s hoofs along some lonely forest deer-path, the rustling of a buck
+through bushes, the splashing of a mighty moose among lily-pads and grasses at
+the margin of a dark pond, the startled cluck of a coon. In fact, that rolling
+music of the pines was translated into every forest sound which they had heard,
+or expected to hear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The excitement of wild scenes, new sensations, strange knowledge, still
+thrilled them even in sleep. Their visions were accordingly wild, rushing,
+jumbled, yet all set in a light so bright as to be bewildering&mdash;a sign
+that health and happiness as great as human boys can enjoy were the possession
+of the dreamers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By and by their pulses grew steadier. Out of this confused rush of imaginings
+grew in the mind of each one steady, absorbing dream. Neal fancied that he was
+on the top of Old Squaw Mountain, and that beneath, above, around him, sounded
+the strangely prolonged weird call, which he had heard at a distance on the
+previous night while Cyrus was recovering the jack-light. Owing to the
+ever-changing excitements of camp-life, he had not questioned his comrade again
+about it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol&rsquo;s visions resolved themselves into a
+
+mighty coon hunt. He tossed on his pine boughs, kicked and jabbered in his
+sleep, with sundry odd little cries and untranslatable mutterings,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go it, Tiger! Go it, old dog! There he is&mdash;up the tree! Ah&rdquo;
+(disgustedly), &ldquo;you&rsquo;re no good!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A lull. Then the dreamer rolled out a string of what may be called gibberish,
+seeing that it consisted of fragments of words and was unintelligible, followed
+by,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The coon&rsquo;s eating the pork&mdash;no, he&rsquo;s b-b-b-barking it!
+Hu-loo-oo!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, say, Chick, give us a chance! We can&rsquo;t sleep with you chirping
+into our ears.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was Cyrus who spoke, shaking with drowsy laughter, and Cyrus&rsquo;s big
+hand gently shook the dreamer&rsquo;s arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What? what? wh-wh-at?&rdquo; gasped Dol, awaking. &ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t
+talking out loud, was I?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not talking aloud! Well, I should smile!&rdquo; answered the camp
+captain. &ldquo;You were making as much noise as a loon, and that&rsquo;s the
+noisiest thing I know. Go to sleep again, young one, and don&rsquo;t have any
+more crazy spells before dinner-time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cyrus removed his hand, shut his eyes, and in a minute or two was breathing
+heavily. Neal, who had been aroused too, followed his example, laughing and
+mumbling something about &ldquo;it&rsquo;s being an old trick of Dol&rsquo;s to
+hunt in his sleep.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the junior member of the party remained awake. After his dreams had been
+dissipated he cared no more for slumber. When he could venture it without
+disturbing his companions, he rose to a sitting posture, and, after squatting
+for a while in meditation, got on his feet, picked up his coat and moccasins,
+and, stealthily as an Indian, crept out of the hut.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The rolling music among the pine-tops had died down; only at long intervals a
+soft, random rustle swept through them. It was nearly midday. The camp-fire was
+almost dead, quenched by the dazzling sunlight which fell in patches on the
+camping-ground, and flooded the clearing beyond the shadow of the pines.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Moreover, the camping-ground was deserted. Neither Uncle Eb nor Tiger could be
+seen, though Dol&rsquo;s eyes sought for them wistfully. But something caught
+his attention. It was a ray of light filtering through the pine boughs and
+glinting on the trigger of an old-fashioned muzzle-loading shot-gun,
+
+which leaned against a corner of the hut. An ancient, glistening powder-horn
+and a coon-skin ammunition pouch hung above it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol lifted the antiquated weapon, withdrew to a short distance, and examined it
+closely. He knew it belonged to the guide, but was rarely used by him since he
+had purchased the 44-calibre Winchester rifle, with which he could do uncommon
+feats in shooting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The shot-gun interested the boy mightily. There was a facsimile of it, swathed
+in green baize, stowed away somewhere in his father&rsquo;s house in
+Manchester. The first time he had ever used fire-arms was on a memorable day
+when his fingers pulled its trigger in his father&rsquo;s garden under
+Neal&rsquo;s direction, and a lean starling fell before his shot. After that he
+had often taken out a fowling-piece of a newer style, and had done pretty well
+with it too.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As he handled the shot-gun, which the guide had bought away back in the year
+&rsquo;55, musing about it under the pines, the thought suddenly tumbled out of
+a corner of his brain that at present there was a brilliant opportunity for him
+to use the gun and all the shooting skill he possessed for the benefit of his
+comrades and himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was no meat in the camp for dinner or supper save the pork on which they
+had feasted since they arrived there, and that was fast giving out. Cyrus, in
+addition to his knapsack, had hauled over from Greenville, where articles of
+camp fare could be procured in abundance, a goodly supply of tea, coffee,
+condensed milk, flour, salt, sugar, etc., in a stout canvas bag, Neal at
+intervals helping him with the burden. For the rest he had trusted to
+Nature&rsquo;s larder, and such food as he might purchase from his guides,
+desiring to go into the woods as &ldquo;light&rdquo; as possible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Uncle Eb had baked bread for his guests after a fashion of his own on the camp
+frying-pan, setting the pan on some glowing coals a foot or so from the fire;
+he had fried unlimited flapjacks, and had cheerfully placed what stores he had
+at their disposal. His three luxuries were novelties to the English lads, being
+pork, maple sugar,&mdash;drawn from the beautiful maple-trees near his
+camp,&mdash;and a small wooden keg of sticky, dark molasses. The sugar was the
+only one which Dol found palatable; and he knew that the Bostonian, Cyrus,
+shared his feeling. To tell the truth, the juvenile Adolphus was not
+fastidious, but
+
+he was suddenly seized with an ambitious desire to vary the diet of the camp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Uncle Eb said that I could use this &lsquo;ole fuzzee,&rsquo; as he
+called it, whenever I liked,&rdquo; he muttered, looking wistfully at the
+shot-gun; &ldquo;and I&rsquo;ve a big mind to give those lazy fellows in there
+a surprise. They spent the night out jacking, and didn&rsquo;t get any meat
+because Cyrus let Neal do the shooting, and he bungled it. It&rsquo;s my turn
+next to go after deer, but I&rsquo;m not going to wait for that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here his steel-gray eyes fell on the moccasins which he had not yet put on, and
+struck fire instantly. His ambition was doubled. For if there is one thing more
+than another which in the forest will stir the pluck of a novice, and make him
+feel like an old woodsman, it is the sight of his Indian footwear. Dol put his
+on, admired their light, comfortable feeling, their soft buckskin, and rashly
+decided that he could dispense with the loose inner soles which Cyrus had
+fitted into them to protect his feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then, being very much of a stranger to American woods, he communed with himself
+after this fashion,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Cyrus says that different tribes of Indians wear differently made
+moccasins, and one redskin, if he sees the tracks of another in soft mud or
+snow, can tell what tribe he belongs to by his footmarks. That&rsquo;s funny! I
+suppose if any old brave was knocking about and saw my tracks in a boggy spot,
+he&rsquo;d think it was a Kickapoo who had passed that way&mdash;not Dol Farrar
+of Manchester, England. These are of the shape worn by the Kickapoo
+tribe&mdash;so Cy says.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m the kid of the camp, I know,&rdquo; he went on, with another
+flash in his eyes, as if there was a bit of flint somewhere in his make-up
+which had struck their steel. &ldquo;But I&rsquo;ll be bound I can do as well
+or better than the others can. I&rsquo;m off now to Squaw Pond. I think I can
+follow the trail easily enough. Uncle Eb showed me yesterday where he had
+spotted some of the trees all the way along to the water. And if I don&rsquo;t
+shoot a couple of black ducks for dinner or supper, I&rsquo;m a duffer, and not
+fit for camping.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He took down the powder-horn and slung it round him, saw that there was plenty
+of meat in the ragged coon-skin ammunition pouch which hung beside it, fastened
+that to his belt, slipped on his coat, and started off, with the &ldquo;ole
+fuzzee&rdquo; on his shoulder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Never a sound did he make as he crossed the clearing, passing the clump of
+bushes behind which Cyrus and Neal had lingered on the previous night to hear
+Uncle Eb&rsquo;s song. Owing to his Indian footwear, silently as the gliding
+redskin himself he entered the woods at a point where he saw a tree with a
+fresh notch carved in it. He knew this marked the beginning of the
+&ldquo;blazed trail,&rdquo; and that he must be very wide-awake and show
+considerable &ldquo;gumption&rdquo; if he wanted to follow that line to the
+pond.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not every tree was spotted. Only at intervals of fifteen or twenty yards he
+came upon a trunk with two small pieces chopped out of it on opposite sides.
+These were Uncle Eb&rsquo;s way-marks. One set of notches would catch his eye
+as he went towards the water, the other would lead him back to camp. Once or
+twice Dol got away from the trail, but he quickly found it again; and in due
+time emerged from the forest twilight into the broad glare of the sun, to see
+Squaw Pond lying before him like a miniature mother-of-pearl sea, so protected
+by its evergreen woods that scarcely a ripple stirred it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He heard the shrill, wild call of a loon, the noisy bird to which Cyrus had
+likened him, and saw its white breast rising above the water, as it swam about
+among the reeds near the opposite bank. The cry was oft repeated, making an
+unearthly din, now joyous, now dreary, among the echoes around the lake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol paused for a minute to listen; but he was bent on business, and did not
+want to be very long away from camp lest his absence should cause alarm. He
+took a careful survey of the scene. Not beholding any fleet of black ducks as
+yet, he loaded his gun, and warily proceeded along the bank towards the head of
+the pond.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Keeping a sharp lookout, he by and by detected something moving among the water
+grasses a little way ahead, and heard a hoarse, squalling &ldquo;Quack!
+quack!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Immediately afterwards a flock of half a dozen ducks sailed forth from their
+shelter, nodding and quacking inquisitively.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A wild drumming was at Dol&rsquo;s heart, and a reckless singing in his ears,
+as he raised his gun to his shoulder, and fired among them. Nevertheless, his
+aim was sure and deadly. Two quackers were killed with one shot! The others
+rose from the water, and with much fluttering and hoarse noise winged their way
+to safety.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How&rsquo;ll they be for meat, I wonder? Won&rsquo;t I have a crow over
+those fellows?&rdquo; shouted Adolphus aloud, with a yell entirely worthy of a
+Kickapoo Indian, when he had recovered from surprise at the success of his own
+shot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He laid down the gun, pulled off his moccasins and socks, rolled up his
+trousers, and waded in for the prize. Truly luck was with him&mdash;so
+far&mdash;in his first venture in this region of the unknown. The water was so
+shallow that, having grabbed the ducks, he splashed out of it, kicking shiny
+drops from his toes, without wetting an inch of his garments.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m the kid of the camp, I know; but I&rsquo;ll be the first
+fellow to bring any decent meat into it. Hooray!&rdquo; he whooped again.
+&ldquo;Shouldn&rsquo;t wonder if these moccasins brought me wonderful luck; one
+can steal about so quietly in them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had hit upon the supreme advantage which the Indian footwear possesses over
+every other for the woodsman. A little later he was to learn its disadvantage,
+having, with foreign inexperience, disdained the extra soles because they were
+not &ldquo;Indian&rdquo; enough for his taste; for the soft buckskin could not
+
+protect from roots and stones a wearer whose flesh was not hardened to every
+kind of forest travelling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But at present Dol bepraised his moccasins; for they had enabled him to sneak
+upon his birds, the wildest of the duck tribe, who generally, at a single
+hoarse &ldquo;Quack!&rdquo; from their leader, will cease their antics in lake
+or stream, and disappear like a skimming breeze before a sportsman can get a
+fair shot at them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a quarter of an hour Dol Farrar sat by this forest pond engaged in the
+cheerful occupation of &ldquo;booming himself,&rdquo; as his friend Cyrus would
+have said. He told himself that he had made a pretty smart beginning, not alone
+in shooting a brace of black ducks, but in successfully following a difficult
+trail on his fourth day in the woods. Henceforth, he thought, there would be
+little reason for him to dread the unknown in this great wilderness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He reclothed his legs, gathered the stiffening claws of the defunct quackers in
+his left hand, picked up his empty &ldquo;ole fuzzee,&rdquo; which had done
+such good service despite its age, and set forth on his return to camp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Retracing his steps along the bank, after some searching he found the beginning
+of the
+
+trail, and started along it with a know-it-all, cheerful confidence in the
+little bit of wood-lore which he had acquired. Hence he now found it
+considerably more difficult to follow the spotted trees. His brain was excited
+and preoccupied; and when once in fancied security he suffered his eyes and
+thoughts to stray for a minute from the trail, every unfamiliar woodland sight
+and sound tempted them to wander farther.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+First it was an old fox, which poked its sharp, inquisitive nose out of a patch
+of undergrowth near at hand. Dol uttered a mad &ldquo;Whoop-ee!&rdquo; and
+heedlessly dashed off a few steps in pursuit. Reynard whisked his brush as much
+as to say, &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t get the better of me, stranger!&rdquo; and
+defiantly trotted away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Recovering his senses, the boy managed to recover the trail too, and was
+keeping to it carefully when a second temptation beset him. A chattering
+squirrel, seated on the low bough of a maple-tree, with his fore paws against
+his white breast, his eyes like twinkling beads, and his restless little head
+playing bo-peep with the intruding boy, began to scold the latter for venturing
+into his forest playground.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol&rsquo;s first thought was full of delighted interest. His second was a
+sanguinary one; namely, that a pair of ducks would only be one meal for four
+campers who were &ldquo;camp-hungry,&rdquo; and that Uncle Eb had spoken of
+squirrels as &ldquo;fust-rate eatin&rsquo;.&rdquo; He handled his gun
+uncertainly, deliberating whether or not he would load it, and try a shot at
+the bright-eyed chatterbox.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before he had decided one way or the other, the squirrel, still scolding and
+playing bo-peep, scampered off his bough, and up the trunk of the maple. Thence
+he quickly made good his escape from one tree to another, affording a whisking,
+momentary view now and again of his white breast or bushy tail. Dol absolutely
+forgot the blazed trail, forgot the stories which he had heard about forest
+perils, forgot every earthly thing but his admiration for the pretty,
+tantalizing fellow; though to do the lad justice, he soon came to the
+conclusion that the camp must be in a worse strait for want of provisions
+before he could have the heart to shoot him. He gave chase nevertheless,
+plunging along in a ziz-zag way over a carpet of moss and dry pine-needles, and
+through some dense tangles of undergrowth, uttering a welcoming screech
+whenever he saw the bright eyes of the little trickster peering down at him
+from a bough.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had travelled farther than he knew before his interest in the game waned. He
+began to feel that it was rather beneath the dignity of a fellow who wore
+moccasins, carried coon-skin pouch and powder-horn, and who was bound for
+remote solitudes in search of the lordly moose, to be interested in such an
+insignificant phase of forest life as the doings of a red squirrel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then he started back to find the trail. He walked a considerable distance. He
+searched hither and thither, straining his eyes anxiously through the
+bewildering gloom of the forest, but never a notched tree could he see.
+Whereupon Dol Farrar called himself some pretty hard names. He remarked that he
+had been a &ldquo;hair-brained fool&rdquo; and a &ldquo;greenhorn&rdquo; ever
+to leave the spotted track, but that he wasn&rsquo;t going to be
+&ldquo;downed;&rdquo; he would search until he found it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And he certainly was enough of a greenhorn not to know that every step he now
+took was carrying him away from the trail, and plunging him into a hopeless,
+pathless labyrinth of woods. For Dol had lost all knowledge of directions, and
+was completely &ldquo;turned round;&rdquo; which means that he was miserably
+lost.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The disaster came about in this way. The forest here was very dense, the giant
+trees interlocked above his head letting so little light filter through their
+foliage that he could scarcely see twenty yards ahead of him, and that in a
+puzzling, shadowy gloom resembling an English twilight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When he ceased chasing the squirrel, he imagined that he retraced his steps
+directly towards the point where he had quitted the trail. In reality, seeing
+nothing to aim for in this bewildering maze of endless trees, turned out of his
+way continually as he dodged in and out around massive trunks, he gradually
+worked farther and farther off the course by which he had come, drifting in
+random directions like a rudderless ship on mid-ocean. This helpless state is
+called, in the phraseology of the northern woods, being &ldquo;turned
+round.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Dol Farrar was spared for the present a thorough realization of the
+dreadful mishap which had befallen him. He had a shocked, breathless, flurried
+feeling, as if scales had suddenly fallen from his eyes, and he saw the dangers
+of the unknown as he had not before seen them. But even in the midst of abusing
+himself for his rash self-confidence, he uttered a cheerful
+&ldquo;Hurrah!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, good gracious!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s another trail!
+Now, where on earth does this lead to? I don&rsquo;t see any spotted
+trees&rdquo;&mdash;looking carefully about&mdash;&ldquo;but it&rsquo;s a
+well-beaten track, a regular plain path, where people have been walking. It
+must lead to our camp. I&rsquo;ll follow it up, anyhow. That will be better
+than dodging around here until I get &lsquo;wheels in my head,&rsquo; as Uncle
+Eb says he did once when he lost his way in the woods, and kept wandering round
+and round in a circle.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Puffing with excitement and revived hope, the boy started off on this new
+trail, which he blessed at first&mdash;oh, how he blessed it!&mdash;as if it
+had been a golden clew to lead him out of his difficulty. To be sure, it was
+not a blazed trail; there were no notches in the trees, but the ground showed
+distinct signs of being frequently and recently travelled over. Though
+footprints were not traceable, moss, earth, and in some places the forest
+undergrowth of dwarfed bushes, were thoroughly pressed and trodden.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol never doubted but that it was a human trail, a track continually used by
+some woodsman; but he thought that the unknown traveller, whoever he was, must
+have agile legs and a taste for athletics, for many times he had to hoist
+himself, his gun, and the ducks over some big windfall which lay right across
+the way. The dead quackers he pitched before him, fearing that by the time he
+got back to camp&mdash;if ever he did?&mdash;their flesh would be too bruised
+to look like respectable meat; for he was obliged to have one hand free to help
+him in scrambling over each fallen tree.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once or twice this strange trail led him through thickets where the bushes grew
+so high as to lash his face. He came to regard slippery, projecting roots and
+rough stones, which galled his feet, protected only by the thin soles of his
+moccasins, as matters of course. His wind decreased, and his blessings ceased.
+Yet he followed on, walking, walking, interminably walking, with now and again
+an interval of climbing or stumbling headlong, accompanied by ejaculations of
+thankfulness that his gun was not loaded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His breath came in hot, strangling gasps, the veins in his head were swollen
+and stinging like whipcords, there was a dull, pounding noise in his ears, and
+a drumming at his heart. He confessed that he was thoroughly
+&ldquo;winded&rdquo; when he had been following the trail for nearly two hours,
+so he seated himself upon a withered stump beside it to rest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had relinquished the idea that the track would bring him out near Uncle
+Eb&rsquo;s camp. Had it led thither, he would have rejoined his comrades long
+before this. His only hope now was that by patiently following it on he might
+reach the camp of some other traveller, or the lonely log cabin of a pioneer
+farmer. He had heard of such farm-settlements being scattered here and there on
+forest clearings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So presently Dol Farrar got to his feet again, when he had recovered breath and
+strength, and told himself pluckily that &ldquo;he wasn&rsquo;t going to knock
+under,&rdquo; that &ldquo;he had been in bad scrapes before now, and had not
+shown the white feather.&rdquo; He gritted his teeth, and resolved that he
+would not show that craven pinion, even in the desperate solitude of these
+baffling woods where no eye could see his weakness. He did not want to have a
+secret, humiliating memory by and by that he had been faltering and distracted
+when his life depended on his wits and endurance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He squared his shoulders sturdily, as if to make the most of the budding
+manhood that was in him, and trudged ahead. And, indeed, he had need to take
+his courage in both hands, and force it to stand by him; for he had not gone
+far when, though the forest still continued dense, he became aware that he was
+beginning a steep ascent. Was the trail going to lead him up a mountain-side?
+The way grew yet more rugged. Every step was a misery. Jagged edges of rock and
+never-ending roots seemed to brand themselves with burning friction upon his
+feet, through their soft buckskin covering. He tried to hearten himself into a
+belief that he must soon reach some mountain camp or settlement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But a bleak horror threw a gray shade upon his face as his staring eyes saw
+that the trail was growing fainter&mdash;fainter&mdash;fainter. At the foot of
+a steep crag, where a mass of earth, stones, and dead spruce-trees showed that
+there had lately been a landslide on the mountain above, he lost it altogether.
+It had led him to a pile of rubbish.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig07.jpg" width="400" height="164" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap07"></a>Chapter VII.<br/>A Forest Guide-Post</h2>
+
+<p>
+At the foot of that crag Dol stood still, while a great shiver crept from his
+neck up the back of his head, stirring his hair. He peered in every direction;
+but there was no sign of a camp, nothing to show that any human foot before his
+had disturbed the solitude of this mountain-side, and no further marks on the
+ground, save one impression on a bed of earth at his feet where some animal had
+lately lain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The disappointment was stupefying.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last a fog of terror settled down upon him,&mdash;a fog which blotted out
+every sight and sound, blotted out even his own thoughts, all except one,
+which, like a danger-signal in a mist, kept booming through his brain:
+&ldquo;Lost! Lost!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By and by he was sitting on the piled-up stones and dirt of the slide; but he
+had no remembrance of getting to this resting-place, for he was still befogged.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Something snorted close to his right ear,&mdash;loud snort, which banished
+stupor, and set his pulses jumping. It was a deer, a beautiful doe in a coat of
+reddish-drab, matching the autumnal tints of the forest, wherever maples,
+birches, and cedars mingled with the evergreens. She had bounded upon him
+suddenly from behind a dead spruce and a mound of earth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was long since the game on this part of the mountain had been disturbed.
+Madam Doe had in all probability never seen a man before, therefore her
+behavior was not peculiar. A shock of surprise thrilled through her graceful
+body as she vented that snort, when she caught sight of the new-fangled gray
+animal who had intruded upon her world, and who sat spell-bound, gazing at her
+with hopeless eyes, in which gradually a light broke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But she did not fear him,&mdash;this creature in gray. She stood stock-still,
+and stared at him, so near that he could see her wink her
+
+starry eyes, with the white rings round them. She stamped one hoof, kicked an
+insect from her ear with another, snorted again, wheeled around, and at last
+broke away for the thick shelter of the trees, lightly and swiftly as a breeze
+which skims from one thicket to another.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Seeing his mother go for the woods, her spotted fawn, which had been frolicking
+among the branches of the fallen spruce-tree, skipped from it, passed Dol with
+a bound which carried him a few feet, and disappeared like a whiff too.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here was a rouser, indeed, which no boy, unless he was in a far-gone state of
+suffering, could withstand. Dol Farrar forgot his terrible predicament. The fog
+had cleared away from his senses, leaving him free to think and act once more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I never!&rdquo; he ejaculated, springing to his feet in amazement.
+&ldquo;Wasn&rsquo;t she a beauty? And wasn&rsquo;t she a snorter? I
+didn&rsquo;t think a deer could make such a row as that. And to stand still and
+stare at me! I wonder whether she took me for some new-fashioned sort of animal
+or a gray old stump.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a few minutes before he again thought of his plight, and then he was not
+
+overcome. He stood perfectly still, trying to review the position coolly, and
+to get a tight grip of his feelings, so that terror might not again master him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m in a worse scrape than I ever dreamt of,&rdquo; he muttered,
+puckering his forehead to do some tall thinking. &ldquo;And I must do something
+to get out of it. But what? That&rsquo;s the question.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wonder if I loaded this &lsquo;ole fuzzee,&rsquo;&rdquo;&mdash;the lad
+was making a valiant effort to cheer himself by being jocular,&mdash;&ldquo;and
+blazed away with it for a while like mad, whether there is any human being
+around who would hear me. Some fellow might be hunting or trapping in this part
+of the forest, or farther up the mountain. But what a blockhead I am! Why on
+earth didn&rsquo;t I do that before I started on this wretched trail?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But alas! as this was Dol Farrar&rsquo;s first adventure in American woods, it
+had not occurred to him to do the right thing at the right time. Had he fired a
+round of signal shots when first he lost the line of spotted trees, he would
+probably have been heard at his camp, and would have been spared the worst
+scare he ever had in his life. The negligence was scarcely his fault, however;
+for Cyrus Garst, who had never before undertaken the responsibility of
+entertaining a pair of inexperienced boys in woodland quarters, had not, at
+this early stage of the trip, arranged with his comrades to fire a certain
+number of shots to signify &ldquo;Help wanted!&rdquo; if one of them should
+stray, or otherwise get into trouble. The idea now cropped up in Dol&rsquo;s
+perplexed mind, through a confused recollection of tales about forest
+misadventures which Uncle Eb had told him by the cheery camp-fire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So he loaded the old shot-gun. It belched forth fire and smoke into space. And
+the thunder of his shot went rolling off in a reverberating din among the
+mountain echoes, until a hundred tongues repeated his appeal for help. Again he
+loaded rapidly and fired. And yet again, with nervous, eager fingers. So on,
+till he had let off half a dozen shots in quick succession.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then he waited, listening as if every pulse in his body had suddenly become an
+ear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But when the last growling echo had died away, not a sound broke the almost
+absolute silence on the mountain-side. Evidently not a human soul was near
+enough to hear or understand his signals of distress.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In these bitter minutes some sensations ran through Dol Farrar which he had
+never known before; and, as he afterwards expressed it, &ldquo;they were enough
+to cover any fellow with goose-flesh.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He felt that he had reached the dreariest point of the unknown, and was a
+lonely, drifting atom in this immense solitude of forest and rock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Never in his life before or afterwards did he come so near to Point Despair as
+when he stumbled down the mountain, spurning that treacherous trail, and going
+wherever his jaded feet found travelling tolerably easy. He had picked up the
+shot-gun; but the black ducks, the primary cause of his misadventure, he clean
+forgot, leaving them lying amid the chaos at the foot of the crag, to have
+their bones picked by some lucky raccoon or fox.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wandering along in a zigzag way, he by and by reached the base of the mountain
+at a point where there was a break in the forest. A patch of dreary-looking
+swamp was before him, covered with clumps of alder-bushes&mdash;a true Slough
+of Despond.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol Farrar knew none of the miseries of plunging through an alder-swamp, but he
+luckily recalled in time a warning from Cyrus that a slight wetting would
+render his moccasins useless. While he halted undecidedly on its brink, he
+pulled out his watch; one glance at this, and another at the sky, which now lay
+open like a scroll above him, gave him a sickening shock. He had started from
+camp at noon; now it was after five o&rsquo;clock. Little more than another
+hour, and not twilight, but the blackness of a total eclipse, would reign in
+the forest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The blood rushed to his head, and his mouth grew feverish at the thought. As he
+licked his cracking lips, he caught a faint, tinkling, rumbling sound of
+falling water somewhere to the right. Of a sudden his sufferings of mind and
+body were merged into one burning desire to drink, and he turned eagerly in
+that direction.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the edge of the woods he found a little fairy, foamy waterfall, which had
+tumbled down from the mountain to be lost in the dismal swamp. But Dol felt
+that it had accomplished its mission when he unfastened the tin drinking-mug
+which hung from his belt, and drank&mdash;drank&mdash;drank! He straightened
+himself again, feeling that some of the bubbling life of the mountain torrent
+had passed into him. His eyes lit on a towering pine-tree just beyond it. And
+then&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Well! if that sky-piercing pine had suddenly changed at a jump into a gray
+post, bearing the inscription, &ldquo;One mile to Boston,&rdquo; Dol Farrar
+could not have been more astonished and relieved than when he saw for the first
+time a rude forest guide-post.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To the dark, knotted trunk was fastened a piece of light, delicate bark,
+stripped from a white-birch tree. On this was scrawled in big letters, by some
+instrument evidently not intended for penmanship:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+&ldquo;FOLLOW THE BLAZED TRAIL AND YOU ARE SAFE.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Another blazed trail! Hurrah!&rdquo; shouted Dol. &ldquo;Won&rsquo;t I
+follow it? I never will follow any other again if I live to be a hundred, and
+come to these woods every year till I die!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The height of his relief could only be measured by the depth of his past
+misery, which would truly have been enough to set a weaker boy crazy. With
+watering eyes and panting breaths that came near to being sobs of gladness, he
+started upon the new trail. It led him off into the forest surrounding the
+swamp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The pine that had been chosen for guide-post was the first in the line of
+spotted trees. The others followed it closely, with intervals of eight or ten
+yards between them; and as the notches in their trunks were freshly cut, Dol
+followed the track without any difficulty for twenty minutes. He had a
+suspicion that he was nearing the end of it; though he was still in forest
+gloom, with light coming in meagre, ever-lessening streaks through the
+pine-tufts above. Then he started more violently than when the deer snorted
+near his ear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly and shrilly the blast of a horn rang through the darkening woodland
+aisles, followed, after a pause of a minute or two, by a second and louder
+blast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then a well-pitched, far-reaching voice sang out:&mdash;&ldquo;Come to supper,
+boys! Come to supper!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good gracious!&rdquo; said Dol, conscious on the instant that he was as
+hollow as a drum. &ldquo;There are enough surprises in these forests to raise
+the hair on a fellow&rsquo;s head half a dozen times a day!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A matter of forty yards more, and a burst of light swam before his eyes. He had
+reached the end of the blazed trail.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig08.jpg" width="400" height="167" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap08"></a>Chapter VIII.<br/>Another Camp</h2>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hello! Come to supper, boys! Come to supper right away!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Half eagerly, half shrinkingly, Dol emerged from the woods, feeling a very
+torment of hunger quickened in him by the tantalizing sound of that
+oft-repeated invitation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A sight met him which, because of what went before and all that came after,
+will be forever chief among the forest pictures which rise in exciting panorama
+before his memory, when camping is a thing of the past.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A broad dash of evening light, the sun&rsquo;s afterglow, fell upon a patch of
+clearing bordered by clumps of slim, outstanding pines, the scouts of their
+massive brethren. That this was used as a camping-ground the first glance
+revealed. A camp which looked to the tired eyes of the lost boy a real
+&ldquo;home-camp,&rdquo; though it consisted of rude log cabins, occupied it. A
+couple of birch-bark canoes reposed amid a network of projecting roots.
+Withered stumps and tree-tops littered the ground.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the foreground of the picture stood a man with a horn in his uplifted hand,
+which he had just taken from his mouth. He was minus a coat; and the
+rough-and-tumble disarray of his attire showed that he had been lounging by his
+camp-fire, or perhaps overseeing the preparation of supper. Dol had a vague
+impression that the individual was not a forest-guide like Uncle Eb, nor a
+rough lumberman such as he had heard of. He would have taken him for a pioneer
+farmer,&mdash;not having yet encountered such a character,&mdash;but there
+could be no farm on this little bit of clearing. And he was too dazed to see
+that there were signs of a cultivated intelligence in the tanned, beaming face
+under the horn-blower&rsquo;s broad-brimmed hat. Indeed, the hat itself, its
+wearer, log huts, canoes, and trees seemed to have a strange propensity to
+waltz before the lad&rsquo;s eyes, and there was a queer waving sensation in
+his own legs, as if they, too, would join in the spinning movement. For as he
+advanced into the light out of the sombre shadows, a dizziness from long
+tramping in the woods, and from a hunger such as he had never before
+experienced, overcame him. He reeled against an outstanding tree, troubled by
+an affliction which Uncle Eb had called &ldquo;wheels in his head.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ho! you boys. Where in thunder are you? Come to supper, or the venison
+will be spoiled!&rdquo; shouted the possessor of the horn again, shutting one
+eye into which a crimson ray was pouring, while he swept the skirts of the
+woods with the other; and there was music as well as bluster in his shout.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lo! the first to answer this fetching invitation was the foot-sore, leg-weary
+boy, pale from exhaustion, with his strange equipment of powder-horn, coon-skin
+pouch, and ancient shot-gun, who, getting partly the better of his giddiness,
+crossed the clearing slowly, as if he was groping his way. Within a few feet of
+the horn-blower he halted; for the man had lowered his horn, and was gazing at
+him with keen, questioning eyes. Dol tried to find suitable speech to express
+his need; but though words came with considerable effort, his voice sounded
+hoarse and creaky in his own ears, and threatened to crack off altogether.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was doing his best to brace up and speak plainly, when his sentence was
+stopped by a noise of pounding footsteps. The next moment he saw himself
+surrounded by three well-grown, daring-looking lads, one about his own age, one
+older, one younger, who were gazing at him with critical curiosity. All the
+pluck in Dol Farrar rose to meet this emergency. He felt as if his legs were
+threatening to smash under him like pipe-stems. There was a whirling and
+buzzing in his head. It seemed as if his words had such a long way to travel
+from his brain to his tongue that they got confused and changed before he
+uttered them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But through it all he was conscious of one clear thought: that he was an
+Old-World boy on parade before these strapping New-World lads. He set his
+teeth, drove his gun hard against the ground, and, as it were, anchored himself
+to it, while strange, doubting lights came into his eyes as he tried to get a
+grip of his senses.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus03"></a>
+<img src="images/illus03.jpg" width="380" height="600" alt="Illustration: " />
+<p class="caption"><b>Dol Sights A Friendly Camp.</b><br/></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+He succeeded. At last he addressed the gentleman with the horn, knowing that he
+was speaking to the point,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good-evening, sir,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&mdash;I&mdash;we&rsquo;re
+camping out somewhere in the woods. I&mdash;I got lost to-day. I&rsquo;ve
+walked an awful distance. Perhaps you could tell me&rdquo;&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the man stepped suddenly forward, with a blaze of welcome in his eyes; for
+he saw the brave effort which the lad was making, and that his strength was
+giving out. He put a kindly arm through Dol&rsquo;s, as if to warmly greet a
+fellow-camper, but really to support him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll not tell you about anything until you&rsquo;ve had a good,
+square meal,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s our way in woodland
+quarters,&mdash;to eat first, and talk afterwards. If you&rsquo;re lost,
+you&rsquo;ve struck a friend&rsquo;s camp, and at the right time too, son; so
+cheer up! After supper you can tell us your yarn, and I guess we can set you
+right.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here at last was a surprise of unmixed blessedness for poor Dol; namely, the
+brotherly hospitality which is always extended to a stranger in a Maine camp,
+whether that be the temporary home of a millionnaire or the shanty of a poor
+logger.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His new friend led him into the largest of the cabins, which contained a
+fireplace built of huge stones, where red flames frisked around fragrant birch
+logs, a camp-bed of evergreen boughs about ten feet wide, a rude table, a
+bench, and a few stools of pine-wood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Over the camp-fire was stooping a bright-eyed, muscular fellow, whose dress
+somewhat resembled Uncle Eb&rsquo;s, but who had no negro blood in his veins.
+He was frying meat; and such tempting whiffs mingled with the steam which
+floated up from his pan, that Dol&rsquo;s nostrils twitched, and his hungry
+longing grew almost unbearable as he inhaled them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I guess this chunk of ven&rsquo;zon is about cooked, Doc,&rdquo; said
+this personage, as Dol&rsquo;s kindly host entered the hut, with him in tow,
+followed closely by the boys of his own camp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right, then! Let&rsquo;s have it!&rdquo; was the reply.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m pretty glad our camp-fare is decent to-night, Joe, for
+we&rsquo;ve a visitor here; a hungry bird who has strayed from his own camp,
+and has wandered through the forest until he looks like a death&rsquo;s head.
+But we&rsquo;ll soon fix him up; won&rsquo;t we, Joe? Give him a mug of hot tea
+right away. Hot tea is worth a dozen of any other drink in the woods for a
+pick-me-up.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A spark of fun kindled in Dol&rsquo;s eyes when he heard himself described as
+&ldquo;a hungry bird.&rdquo; It brightened into an appreciative beam as the
+reviving tea trickled down his throat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eatin&rsquo;s wot he wants, I guess,&rdquo; said Joe, the camp guide and
+cook, placing some meat and a slab of bread of his own baking on a tin plate
+for the guest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol began on them greedily; and though the first mouthful or two threatened to
+sicken him, his squeamishness wore off, and he gained strength with every
+morsel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How do you like Maine venison, my boy? Like it well enough to have
+another piece, eh?&rdquo; asked his host, when he saw that the haggard, gray
+look was leaving the wanderer&rsquo;s face, and that the appalled, dazed
+expression, the result of being lost in the woods, had disappeared from his
+eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think it&rsquo;s the best meat I ever tasted,&rdquo; answered Dol
+heartily. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s so tender, and has a splendid taste.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ha! ha! It ought to be prime,&rdquo; chuckled the owner of the camp.
+&ldquo;It was cut from the quarters of a buck which my nephew here, Royal
+Sinclair,&rdquo; pointing out the tallest of three lads, &ldquo;shot four days
+ago. He was a regular crackerjack&mdash;that buck! I mean, he was as fine a
+deer as ever I saw; weighed over two hundred pounds, had seven prongs to his
+horns on one side and six on the other. Royal is going to take the antlers home
+with him to Philadelphia. We were mighty glad to get him, too; for we have been
+camping here for five weeks, and were running short of provisions. Roy had
+quite an attack of buck-fever over it, though he didn&rsquo;t think he was
+killing the &lsquo;fatted calf&rsquo;, to entertain a visitor; did you,
+Roy?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I guess not, Uncle! But I&rsquo;m pretty glad, all the same,&rdquo;
+answered Royal, with a smiling glance at Dol.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Young Farrar found himself in very pleasant quarters; and, now that he was
+recovering, his laugh rang from one log wall to the other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s &lsquo;buck-fever&rsquo;?&rdquo; he questioned, while Joe
+filled his plate with more venison.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A sort of disease of which you&rsquo;ll learn the meaning before you
+leave these woods,&rdquo; answered his host merrily. &ldquo;It attacks a man
+when he&rsquo;s out after a deer, and makes him feel as if one leg stands firm
+under him, while the other shakes as if it had the palsy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now I guess you&rsquo;d like to know whose
+
+camp you&rsquo;re in, my boy, and then you can tell your story. Well, to begin
+with the most useful member of the party. That knowing-looking fellow over
+there, who cooked your supper, is Joe Flint, the best guide that ever pulled a
+trigger or handled a frying-pan in this region&mdash;barring one. These three
+rascals,&rdquo; here the speaker beamed upon the strapping lads, with whom Dol
+had been exchanging sympathetic glances of curiosity, &ldquo;are my nephews,
+Royal, Will, and Martin Sinclair. And I&mdash;I&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good gracious! Listen to that, Joe! What&rsquo;s up now? Another fellow
+lost in the woods? Somebody is firing a round with his rifle! Perhaps he wants
+help. Those are signal shots, anyhow!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The camper whose horn had been Dol&rsquo;s signal of deliverance, broke off
+abruptly in his introductions, just as he had arrived at the most interesting
+point, and was proclaiming his own identity. He rattled off his short
+exclamations in excitement, and dashed out of the cabin, followed by Joe, his
+nephews, and Dol, the latter limping painfully, for his feet now felt like
+hot-water bags.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That Winchester has spoken eight or ten times,&rdquo; said the leader,
+counting the shots fired by somebody away in the dark recesses of the forest
+from a powerful repeating-rifle. &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s give the fellow, whoever he
+is, an answer, Joe!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He seized his own rifle hastily, loaded the magazine with blank cartridges, and
+fired a noisy salute.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the pause which followed, while all strained their ears to listen, the sound
+of a shrill, distant &ldquo;Coo-hoo!&rdquo; the woodsman&rsquo;s hail, reached
+them from the forest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Joe instantly responded with a vehement &ldquo;Coo-hoo! Coo-hoo-oo!&rdquo; the
+first call being short and brisk, the second prolonged into a roar which showed
+the strength of the guide&rsquo;s lungs,&mdash;a roar that might carry for
+miles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Shortly afterwards there was a crashing and tearing amid some undergrowth near
+the edge of the forest. A man bounded forth from the pitch-black shadows into
+the clearing, where a little daylight still lingered. As he approached the
+group, Dol, who was in the background, gave a startled, yearning cry; but it
+was drowned in a loud burst from his host.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, Cyrus Garst!&rdquo; exclaimed the latter, peering into the
+new-comer&rsquo;s face. &ldquo;How goes it, man? I never expected to see you
+
+here. Surely you haven&rsquo;t come to grief in the woods? You look scared to
+death!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cyrus&mdash;for it was he&mdash;grasped the welcoming hand which the owner of
+this camp extended to him. But his dark eyes did not linger a moment meeting
+the other&rsquo;s. They turned hither and thither, flashing in all directions
+restlessly, like search-lights.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad to see you, Doc,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t
+know you were anywhere near. But I&rsquo;m half distracted just now. A
+youngster belonging to our camp is missing. I&rsquo;ve been scouring the forest
+for hours, and firing signals, hoping he might hear them. But&rdquo;&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here Cyrus caught sight of Dol, who with a cry which in its changing
+inflections was longing, penitent, joyful, was making towards him. The Harvard
+student strode forward, and gripped the boy by his elbows. In the dusk their
+eyes were near together; Garst&rsquo;s were stern, Dol&rsquo;s blinking and
+unsteady.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Adolphus Farrar,&rdquo; began Cyrus in a voice as if he was making an
+arrest, &ldquo;have you been here in this camp, or where have you been, while
+your brother and I were searching the woods like maniacs? What unheard-of folly
+possessed you to go off by yourself?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol made a gurgling attempt to answer, but his voice rattled and died away in
+his throat. His eyes grew decidedly leaky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say, Cyrus!&rdquo; interrupted the man who had befriended him and now
+proved his champion, &ldquo;let the youngster get breath and tell his story
+from start to finish before you blow him up. I guess he wasn&rsquo;t much to
+blame; and if he was, he has suffered for it. He found his way here not quite
+half an hour ago, so played out from wandering through the forest that he was
+ready to drop in his tracks. And I tell you he showed his grit too; for he
+managed to brace up and keep on his feet, though he was as exhausted a kid as
+ever I saw.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The &ldquo;kid,&rdquo; forgiving this objectionable term because of the
+soothing allusion to a trying time when he had behaved like a man, winked and
+gulped to get rid of his emotion, and twisted his elbows out of Cyrus&rsquo;s
+hold. The latter lost his angry look, and released them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I must fire three shots to let Neal and Uncle Eb know I&rsquo;ve found
+you,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We parted company a while ago, and they&rsquo;re
+beating about the woods in another direction. Whoever first came upon any trace
+of you was to fire his rifle three times.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The signal was instantly given.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+More far-reaching &ldquo;Coo-hoos!&rdquo; were exchanged. Ere long Neal was
+beside his brother, looking at him with eyes which showed the same tendency to
+leak that Dol&rsquo;s had done a while ago, and battling with a desire to
+squeeze the wanderer in a breathless hug. He relieved his feelings instead by
+&ldquo;blowing up&rdquo; Dol with withering fire and a rough choke in his
+voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But when, in response to an invitation from the genial camper whom Cyrus and
+Joe called &ldquo;Doc,&rdquo; the whole party, guides included, had gathered
+around the camp-fire in the big log hut, and Dol told his story from start to
+finish, he became the hero of the evening.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His only fault had been a rash venturing into the unknown; and well it was that
+he had not followed the unknown to his death.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, boy!&rdquo; exclaimed Cyrus, with a strong shudder, when Dol had
+described the false trail which led him to the foot of the crag, &ldquo;that
+wasn&rsquo;t a human trail at all. It was a deer-road. The deer spend their day
+up in the mountains, and come down to the ponds at evening to feed and drink.
+Now, a buck or doe in its regular journeys to and fro will follow one line, to
+which it becomes accustomed. Perhaps fifty others, seeing the ground trodden,
+will run in the same track. And there you have your well-used path, which looks
+as if it was made by men&rsquo;s feet!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You may thank your lucky star, Dol, every hour of this night, that the
+false trail didn&rsquo;t lead you
+away&mdash;away&mdash;higher&mdash;higher&mdash;up the mountain, until you
+dropped in your tracks, and died there alone, as others have done
+before.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A shocked hush fell upon the group around the camp-fire. Even the guides were
+silent. But the fragrant birchen logs sputtered and glowed, darting out playful
+tongues of flame. They seemed to call upon everybody to dismiss gloomy thoughts
+of what might have been; to crack jokes, sing songs, tell yarns, and be as
+merry as befitted men who had a log hut for a shelter, fresh whiffs of forest
+air stealing to them through an open doorway, and such a camp-fire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Joe began to prepare supper for the three who had searched so long and
+distractedly for Dol that they confessed to not having eaten for hours. While
+more venison was being cooked, the juveniles, American and English, who had
+been secretly taking stock of each other, cast aside restraint, and became as
+&ldquo;chummy&rdquo; as if they had been acquainted for years instead of hours.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such a carnival of fun and noise was started through their combined efforts in
+the old log camp, that its owner declared he &ldquo;couldn&rsquo;t hear himself
+think.&rdquo; Seizing his horn, he blew a blast which called for order.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say, my boy, let me have a look at your feet,&rdquo; he said, cornering
+Dol. &ldquo;A deer-road isn&rsquo;t a king&rsquo;s highway, as I dare say
+you&rsquo;ve found out to your cost. Pull off your moccasins and socks, and let
+me doctor your poor trotters.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Young Farrar very gladly did as he was bidden.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Humph!&rdquo; said his friend. &ldquo;I thought so. They&rsquo;re a mass
+of bruises and blisters. You&rsquo;ve been pretty well branded, son. Moccasins
+aren&rsquo;t much use to protect the feet from roots and sharp stones, if you
+happen to strike a bad place in forest travelling, unless you have taken the
+precaution to put double soles in them; didn&rsquo;t you know that? Now, Cyrus
+Garst,&rdquo; turning to the student, &ldquo;you&rsquo;re all going to camp
+with us to-night. This lad can&rsquo;t tramp any more. As a doctor I forbid
+it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you a doctor, sir?&rdquo; questioned Dol, with a thrill of surprise,
+which he managed to conceal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Something of the kind, boy,&rdquo; answered his host, smiling. &ldquo;I
+don&rsquo;t look much like a city physician, do I? I graduated from a medical
+college in Philadelphia, and took my degree. But I had an enthusiasm for the
+woods. One hour of forest life in dear old Maine was to me worth a year spent
+amid streets, alleys, and sky-scraping buildings; so I fixed my headquarters at
+Greenville, and have spent most of my time in the wilderness.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where every trapper, guide, and lumberman knows Dr. Phil Buck, whom they
+disrespectfully and affectionately call &lsquo;Doc,&rsquo;&rdquo; put in Cyrus.
+&ldquo;And many a poor fellow owes his life or limbs to Doc&rsquo;s knowledge
+and nursing in some hard time of sickness, or after one of the dreadful
+accidents common in the forests.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol could well understand this; for he now was benefiting by Dr. Phil&rsquo;s
+lively desire to relieve suffering, and was silently breathing blessings on his
+head. The doctor had bathed his puffy feet in warm water taken from Joe&rsquo;s
+camp-kettle, and was anointing them with a healing salve, after which he tucked
+them into a loose pair of slippers of his own. Meanwhile, he chatted
+pleasantly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This isn&rsquo;t the first time that your friend Cyrus and I have run
+against each other in the wilds,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;nor the first time that
+we&rsquo;ve camped together, either. Bless you! we could make you jump with
+some of our stories. Do you remember that night in &rsquo;89, Cy, when you,
+with your guide, came upon me lying under a rough shelter of bark and spruce
+boughs, which I had rigged up for myself near Roaring Brook, on the side of
+Mount Katahdin?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I guess I do remember it,&rdquo; answered Cyrus, laughing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A mighty hungry man I was, too, that evening,&rdquo; went on Doc;
+&ldquo;for I had no food left but one little package of soup-powder and a few
+beans. I had been trying all day to get a successful shot at a moose or deer,
+and muffed it every time. It wasn&rsquo;t the lucky side of the moon for me.
+Well, you behaved like the Good Samaritan to me, then, Cy; shared your meat and
+all your stuff, and we slept like twin brothers under my shelter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; and a bear visited our temporary camp in the night!&rdquo;
+exclaimed Cyrus, bursting into uproarious mirth over some over-poweringly funny
+recollection; &ldquo;he made off with my knapsack, which I had left lying by
+the camp-fire. I suppose old Bruin thought he&rsquo;d find something good in it
+to eat; but he didn&rsquo;t. So he tore my one extra shirt and every article in
+the pack to shreds, and chewed up the handle of my razor, so that I
+couldn&rsquo;t shave again until I got back to civilization, when I was as
+bristly as a porcupine.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps Bruin tried to shave himself,&rdquo; suggested Dol.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At all events, he had wisdom enough not to cut his throat,&rdquo;
+answered the story-teller. &ldquo;We three&mdash;Doc, my guide, and
+myself&mdash;were stupidly tired, and slept so soundly that we did not discover
+the theft nor who the marauder was until the following morning. Then we found
+my knapsack gone, and the tracks of a huge bear in some soft earth near our
+shelter. We traced his footprints through a bog until we found the spot, not
+far off, where, overcome by greed or curiosity, he ripped up that strong
+leather knapsack as if it was <i>papier maché</i> and made hay of its
+contents.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boys had all crowded near to listen. It was now the social hour for
+campers. By the camp-fire more reminiscences followed; and the two guides
+chimed in it with moose stories, bear stories, panther stories, wild tales of
+every imaginable and unimaginable kind of adventure, until the lads thought no
+mythology which they had ever learned could rival in marvels the forest lore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this opportune time, Neal suddenly thought of describing, or attempting to
+describe, that strangest of strange calls which he had heard, after the
+capsizing of the canoe, on the preceding night, when Cyrus and he were jacking
+for deer on Squaw Pond.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Joe grunted expressively. &ldquo;So help me! it was the moose call!&rdquo; he
+ejaculated. &ldquo;What say, Doc?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I guess it was,&rdquo; answered Dr. Phil. &ldquo;It was either the
+cow-moose herself calling, or some hunter imitating her with his birch-bark
+trumpet. It&rsquo;s a weird sort of experience, to hear that call for the first
+time; I shouldn&rsquo;t wonder if your heart went whack-whack, lad?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I only hope he&rsquo;ll get a chance to hear it again before he goes
+back to England,&rdquo; said Cyrus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Forthwith, the Harvard man proceeded to explain that he was bent on pressing
+forward for a distance of sixty miles or so, to the heart of the wilderness, to
+search for moose, but that he intended to do the journey in a leisurely, zigzag
+fashion, camping for a couple of nights at various points, in order to do the
+honors of the forest to his English comrades.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So you&rsquo;re English, are you! Ha! Ha! Ho! Ho!&rdquo; exclaimed the
+doctor, looking at the young Farrars. &ldquo;Well, I suppose we&rsquo;ll have
+to put our best foot foremost to give you a good time in American woods.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think that&rsquo;s what we&rsquo;re having, sir&mdash;such a jolly
+good time that we&rsquo;ll never forget it,&rdquo; answered Neal courteously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, it&rsquo;s jolly enough now; but I tell you I didn&rsquo;t find it
+so to-day,&rdquo; grumbled Dol, while his eyes gleamed like polished steel with
+the light of present fun. &ldquo;But as long as I live I&rsquo;ll remember the
+sound of your horn, Doctor, when I was dead-beat.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is that so? Well, I guess I&rsquo;ll have to make you a present of that
+horn, boy, when we part company, and you go back to civilization, and of the
+piece of birch-bark, too, which led you to our camp. &rsquo;Twas Joe who fixed
+that to the pine near the swamp; for my lads had a habit of following the trail
+to the alders, looking for moose or deer signs. He scrawled his sentence on it
+with the end of a cartridge. I guess it would be a sort of curiosity in
+England.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol whooped his delight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll put it under a glass shade! I&rsquo;ll&rdquo;&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While he was casting about in his mind for some way of immortalizing that bit
+of white bark, Doc&rsquo;s genial bluster was heard again,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come! come! you fellows! No more skylarking in this camp to-night!
+It&rsquo;s high time for all campers to be snoring. Turn in! Turn in!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But nobody was in a hurry to obey the summons to bed. While hands and feet were
+being stretched out to the sizzling birch logs for a final toast, Royal
+Sinclair, who had a trick of speaking very quickly, with a slight click in his
+utterance, as if his tongue struck his teeth, began to pour some communications
+into Neal&rsquo;s ear in rapid dashes of talk,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is just about the jolliest night we ever had in the forest, and
+we&rsquo;ve had a staving time all through. We live in Philadelphia, and Uncle
+Phil&mdash;we call him &lsquo;Doc&rsquo; like everybody else&mdash;brought us
+out here for our summer vacation. This old log camp was built several years ago
+by a hunting-party, of whom he was one. The walls were getting mouldy; but he
+cleaned up the largest of the huts, with Joe&rsquo;s help, and made it our
+headquarters. He never needs a guide himself; not a bit of it! He can find his
+way anywhere through the woods with his compass. But he is a good deal away, so
+he engaged Joe to go out with us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He often starts off at a moment&rsquo;s notice, and travels dozens of
+miles on foot, or in a birch canoe, if he hears of a bad accident far away in
+the forest. Sometimes a lumberman or trapper cuts his foot in two, or nearly
+chops off his leg with his axe; and these poor fellows would probably die while
+their comrades were lugging them through the woods on a litter, trying to reach
+a settlement, if it weren&rsquo;t for our Doc.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Once in a while, when he comes to visit us in Philadelphia, a few people
+call him a crank, because he lives out here and dresses like a settler; but I
+call him a regular brick.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So do I,&rdquo; said Neal with spirit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re awfully lucky to be able to camp out during October,&rdquo;
+rattled on Roy. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the month for moose-hunting, jacking, and
+all the most exciting sort of fun. We have
+
+to go home in a day or two, for our school has reopened, unless&rdquo;&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;When Royal Sinclair gets a streak of talking, you might as well try to
+bottle up the Mississippi as to stop him,&rdquo; said Dr. Phil, laughing.
+&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t hear what he&rsquo;s saying, but I know that his tongue is
+clicking like a telegraph instrument. But I hope it has given its last message
+for to-night. You really must turn in, boys. I let you have an extra social
+hour, because to-morrow will be Sunday, a day of rest after the travels and
+excitements of the week. Think of it, lads! A Sunday in the
+woods&mdash;God&rsquo;s first cathedral! May it do us all good!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The guide, Joe, built up the fire. Fresh birch logs blistered and sputtered as
+creeping curls of bluish flame enwrapped them. Kindling rapidly, they threw out
+fantastic lights, which danced like a regiment of red elves around the old log
+walls of the cabin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If a fellow could only drop off to sleep every night in the year seeing
+and smelling such a fire as that!&rdquo; breathed Neal, as, accepting a share
+of Royal&rsquo;s blankets, he stretched his tired limbs on the evergreen
+mattress.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then life would be too jolly for anything,&rdquo; answered Roy.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig09.jpg" width="400" height="165" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap09"></a>Chapter IX.<br/>A Sunday Among the Pines</h2>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Men and boys learn a good many wholesome lessons in the forest, one of
+which is that it pays better to take a day of rest in seven if they want to
+make the most of themselves and their opportunities. Therefore, lads,
+we&rsquo;ll do no tramping to-day. And we&rsquo;ll have a bit of a service by
+and by over there under the pines.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So spoke Doctor Phil on the following morning, when the two sets of campers,
+now one joyous, brotherly crowd, were sitting or lounging about the pine-wood
+table, leisurely emptying tin mugs of tea or coffee, and eating porridge and
+rolls of Joe&rsquo;s baking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You haven&rsquo;t told us yet, Cyrus,&rdquo; he went on, &ldquo;what
+point you&rsquo;re bound for. I know you&rsquo;re level-headed, and plan every
+forest trip beforehand, to economize time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, a fellow likes to do that; it adds to the pleasures of
+anticipation,&rdquo; Garst answered. &ldquo;But it&rsquo;s precious little use,
+after all, when you&rsquo;re visiting a region which is as full of surprises as
+an egg is full of meat. However, I have arranged to meet Herb Heal, the guide
+whom I generally employ, at a hunting-camp near Millinokett Lake.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A good moose country,&rdquo; put in Doc.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know it. At all events, it is a good place for a home-camp; one can
+make excursions into the dense forests at the foot of Katahdin, which are
+unrivalled for big game&mdash;so Herb says, and he&rsquo;s an authority. These
+English fellows may expect to have an attack of buck-fever, or
+<i>moose-fever</i> rather, which will set their blood on fire. Not that
+we&rsquo;re out chiefly for killing; we&rsquo;re willing to let his mooseship
+keep a whole skin, and go in peace to replenish the forests, unless he grows
+cantankerous and charges us.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If he happens to be an old bull, and gits his mad up, he may do that;
+it&rsquo;s as likely as not,&rdquo; chimed in Joe Flint, who was listening.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, it there&rsquo;s a man in Maine who can be warranted to start a
+moose, and to follow up his trail until he gets a sight of him, living or dead,
+that man is Herb Heal,&rdquo; said the doctor. &ldquo;And his adventures go
+ahead of those of any woodsman up to date. You must get him to tell you how he
+swam across a pond at the tail of a bull-moose, holding with his fingers and
+teeth to the creature&rsquo;s long hair, then got astraddle of its back, and
+severed its jugular vein with his hunting-knife. How&rsquo;s that! It was the
+liveliest swim I ever heard of. But I mustn&rsquo;t spoil his yarns. He must
+tell them himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A fine son of the woods is Herb Heal!&rdquo; went on the speaker, with
+enthusiasm. &ldquo;I ran across him first five years ago, when he was trapping
+for fur-bearing animals in the dense forests you mentioned near the foot of
+Mount Katahdin. He had a partner with him then, a half-breed Indian, whom
+woodsmen called &lsquo;Cross-eyed Chris,&rsquo; a willing, plucky, honest
+fellow when he was sober. But he loved fire-water. Let him once taste spirits,
+or smell them, and he went clean crazy. He did a dog&rsquo;s trick to
+Herb,&mdash;stole all his furs and savings, with a splendid pair of moose
+antlers, while he was away from camp one day, and skipped out of the State.
+Herb swore he&rsquo;d shoot him. But I don&rsquo;t think he has ever come
+across him since. And if he should, he wouldn&rsquo;t stick to his threat.
+He&rsquo;s not built that way.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a general hum of interest over this story, which even Cyrus had not
+heard before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, how are you going to reach your camp on Millinokett Lake?&rdquo;
+asked Dr. Phil, when the buzz had subsided. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the next
+question.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We intend to tramp the entire distance by easy stages, and get there
+about the middle of October,&rdquo; answered young Garst for himself and his
+comrades. &ldquo;Uncle Eb will go along with us as guide; and he&rsquo;ll
+supply a tent, so that we can rest for two or three nights at a time if we
+choose.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hum!&rdquo; said the doctor doubtfully, laying his hand on Dol&rsquo;s
+shoulder. &ldquo;This youngster oughtn&rsquo;t to do much tramping for a few
+days, Cyrus. That deer-road did up his feet pretty badly. I&rsquo;ll be
+travelling in your direction myself the day after to-morrow. I want to visit a
+farm-settlement within a dozen miles of the lake, where the farmer has a sickly
+child, the only treasure in his log shanty. The mite frets if Doc doesn&rsquo;t
+come to see her once in a while.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Therefore, I propose that we join forces, and press forward together. I
+guess I&rsquo;ll keep my nephews out here for a week longer, and take the
+responsibility of their missing that time at school. Now that they have fallen
+in with your friends, it would be a shame to separate Young England and Young
+America without giving them a chance to get friendly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here Dr. Phil beamed upon the five boys, who, after one night in the forest,
+sleeping in a light-hearted row on the evergreen boughs, with their feet to the
+fire, had reached a brotherly intimacy which years of city life might not have
+bred.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I further propose,&rdquo; he went on, &ldquo;that we hire a roomy wagon
+and a pair of strong horses from a settler who has a clearing about two miles
+from here. There is an old logging-road which runs through the woods towards
+the point for which we&rsquo;re heading. We could follow that for the first
+half of our journey. It isn&rsquo;t a turnpike, you know. In fact, it&rsquo;s
+only a broad track where the underbrush has been cleared away, and the trees
+cut down, with strips of corduroy road sandwiched in. But the lumbermen still
+haul supplies over it to their camps, and I propose that we follow their
+example. We can pile our tent, camp duffle [stores], and all our packs into the
+wagon, together with the hero of the deer-road,&rdquo;&mdash;winking at
+Dol,&mdash;&ldquo;and the rest of us can take turns in riding. It will be a big
+lark for these youngsters to travel over a corduroy road. A very bracing ride
+they&rsquo;ll have in more senses than one; but they can spin plenty of yarns
+about it when they get home.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The &ldquo;youngsters,&rdquo; one and all, signified their approval of the
+suggestion. Cyrus, who, as a college man, was above this category, was pleased
+to acquiesce too.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;When can we get the wagon, Doctor?&rdquo; asked Neal, burning to press
+onward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh! the day after to-morrow, I guess. And now, lads!&rdquo; Dr.
+Phil&rsquo;s voice was serious, but exultant, &ldquo;we&rsquo;re a thoroughly
+happy set of fellows, in accord with each other and our surroundings. We feel
+our brains clear, our gladness springing up, and our lungs swelling to double
+their size with the whiffs which reach us from those sky-piercing pines yonder.
+So we will remember that &lsquo;the wide earth is our Father&rsquo;s
+temple.&rsquo; Over there in the woods we will worship him, while millions of
+forest creatures about us, flying, bounding, or building, in obedience to his
+laws, simply worship too.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A music soft, deep, sighing, like the murmur of an organ under the fingers of a
+master musician, rolled through the pine-tops as the band of campers, guides
+included, followed Doc into the forest. They passed the clumps of slender trees
+near the camp, and reached a dimly-lit green aisle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Towering pines, so tall and erect that they seemed shooting upward to kiss the
+clouds, were the pillars of their cathedral. Its roof of tasselled boughs was
+stabbed by flashing needles of sunlight, which let in a flickering, mellow
+radiance, and traced a pattern on the woodland carpet. Every whiff of forest
+air was natural incense.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dr. Phil stood as if in the audience-chamber of the King, and removed his
+wide-brimmed hat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be
+honor and glory, for ever and ever. Amen!&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Cyrus&rsquo;s voice led the worship.
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;Praise God, from whom all blessings flow!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+he sang, in a strong, glad outburst.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Boys and guides, in a great chorus, swelled the familiar words. Each sweetly
+chirping woodland bird, after its own manner, echoed them. The music among the
+pine-tops mingled with them. The forest fairly rang with a magnificent, adoring
+Doxology.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We ought to be decent kind of fellows after this,&rdquo; said Cyrus,
+when the little service was over.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And the doctor answered,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I tell you, boy, the church was never built where a man feels so ready
+to worship the God-Father in spirit and in truth as he does in the wild
+woods.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And looking on the six fresh, manly faces before him, Dr. Phil saw that this
+happy woodland trip would have grander results than adding to the
+campers&rsquo; inches and to the breadth of their shoulders. For each one of
+them had realized this morning that behind all strength and beauties of forest
+growth, behind their own souls&rsquo; gladness, was a Presence which they could
+&ldquo;almost palpably feel.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig10.jpg" width="400" height="164" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap10"></a>Chapter X.<br/>Forward All!</h2>
+
+<p>
+Speculations about the journey, and in especial about the corduroy road, were
+rife in the boys&rsquo; minds during the forty and odd hours which elapsed
+between the Sunday service and the time of their start.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The travellers met at the settler&rsquo;s cabin early on Tuesday morning,
+having broken camp shortly after daybreak. On Monday evening Cyrus and Neal,
+with Uncle Eb, had returned to the bark hut to pack their knapsacks, and make
+ready for a forward march. On the way thither, it being just the hour for the
+deer to be running,&mdash;that is, descending from the hills for an evening
+meal,&mdash;Neal got a successful shot at a small two-year-old buck. This was a
+stroke of luck for the campers, and a necessary deed of death. It supplied them
+with venison for their journey; and, as Cyrus said, &ldquo;they had already put
+a shamefully big hole in Dr. Phil&rsquo;s stores, and must procure a
+respectable supply of meat to make up for it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It also provided Tiger with plenty of bones to crunch during his master&rsquo;s
+absence; for the dog was left behind in charge of the hut, as indeed he often
+was for a week or more while Uncle Eb was away guiding. The sportsmen who
+engaged the latter&rsquo;s services were generally averse to the
+creature&rsquo;s presence with the party, lest he should scare their game.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cyrus and Neal bade him a pathetic farewell, remembering the exciting fun he
+had given them with the raccoon. Dol sent him lots of approving messages, which
+were duly delivered, with rough pats and shakes, by Uncle Eb, who fully
+believed that the brute understood every word of them. Indeed, the sign
+language of Tiger&rsquo;s expressive tail confirmed this opinion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol had remained at the log camp with his new friends, Dr. Phil thinking it
+well that he should rest his feet until the morning of the start. His brother
+promised to bring his knapsack and rifle to the settler&rsquo;s cabin. Uncle Eb
+repossessed himself of his shot-gun, pouch, and powder-horn, which he carried
+back to his hut, and left under Tiger&rsquo;s protection, telling Dol that
+&ldquo;if he wanted to bag any more black ducks he&rsquo;d have to give
+&rsquo;em a dose wid de rifle, for he warn&rsquo;t a-goin&rsquo; to lug dat ole
+fuzzee t&rsquo;rough de woods.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was the perfection of an October morning, sunshiny and pleasant, with a
+mellow freshness in the air which matched the mellow tints of the forest, when
+the travellers joined forces at the farm-settlement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Engaged in the thrilling work of felling a pine-tree to extend his
+father&rsquo;s clearing, they found the settler&rsquo;s son, a brawny fellow
+about Cyrus&rsquo;s age, in buckskin leggings and coon-skin cap, who wielded
+his axe with arms which were tough and knotted as pine limbs. He bawled to them
+in the forceful language of the backwoods, which to unaccustomed ears sounded a
+trifle barbaric, to keep out of the way until his tree had fallen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the pine at last tumbled earthward with a thud which reverberated for
+miles through the forest, he gave a mighty yell, waved his skin cap, and came
+towards the visitors.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hulloa, Lin!&rdquo; boomed the doctor, greeting this native as an old
+acquaintance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hello, Doc!&rdquo; answered Lin. &ldquo;By the great horn spoon! I
+didn&rsquo;t expect to see you here. Who are these fellers?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The doctor introduced his comrades. Lin greeted them with bluff simplicity, and
+called them one and all by their Christian names as soon as these could be
+found out. Doc alone came in for his short title&mdash;if such it could be
+called. Luckily the campers of both nationalities, from Cyrus downward, were
+without any element of snobbery in their dispositions. It seemed to them only a
+jolly part of the untrammelled forest life that man should go back to his
+primitive relations with his brother man; that in the woods, as Doc said,
+&ldquo;manhood should be the only passport,&rdquo; and that titles and
+distinctions should never be thought of by guides or anybody else. They were
+well-pleased to be taken simply for what they were,&mdash;jolly, companionable
+fellows,&mdash;and to be valued according to the amount of grit and good-temper
+they showed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And they learned this morning to appreciate the pioneer courage and resolute
+spirit of the rugged settlers who had cleared a home for themselves amid the
+surrounding wilderness of forest and stream. Their roughness of speech was as
+nothing in comparison with their brave endurance of hardships, their deeds of
+heroism, and their free-handed hospitality.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lin led his visitors straight to a log cabin, before which his father, a
+veteran woodsman, who bore the scars of bears&rsquo; teeth upon his body, was
+digging and planting. This old farmer, too, greeted Doc as a friend, and when
+the wagon was talked about, was quite willing to do anything to serve him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But ye must have a square meal afore ye travel,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;Jerusha! I couldn&rsquo;t let ye go without eatin&rsquo;. Mother!&rdquo;
+shouting to his wife, who was inside the cabin. &ldquo;Say, Mother!
+Ha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t ye got somethin&rsquo; fer these fellers to munch?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Forthwith a big, rosy woman, who had herself fought a bear in her time, and had
+shot him, too, before he attacked her farmyard, hustled round, and got up such
+a meal as the travellers had not tasted since they entered the woods. They had
+a splendid &ldquo;tuck-in,&rdquo; consisting of fried ham, boiled eggs,
+potatoes, hot bread, yellow butter, and coffee. And the meal was accompanied
+with thrilling stories from the lips of the old settler about the hardships and
+desperate scenes of earlier pioneering days. Doc coaxed him to relate these for
+the boys&rsquo; benefit. And many eyes dilated as he told of blood-curdling
+adventures with the &ldquo;lunk soos,&rdquo; or &ldquo;Indian devil,&rdquo; the
+dreadful catamount or panther, which was once the terror of Maine woodsmen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So help me! I&rsquo;d a heap sooner meet a ragin&rsquo; lion than a
+panther,&rdquo; said the old man. &ldquo;My own father came near to bein&rsquo;
+eaten alive by one when I was a kid. He was workin&rsquo; with a gang o&rsquo;
+lumbermen in these forests at timber-makin&rsquo;, and was returnin&rsquo; to
+their camp, when the beast bounced out of a thicket all of a suddint. Poor dad
+was skeered stiff. The thing screeched,&mdash;a screech so turrible that it was
+enough to turn a man&rsquo;s sweat to ice-water, an&rsquo; a&rsquo;most set him
+crazy. Dad hadn&rsquo;t no gun with him; so he shinned up the nighest tree like
+mad, an&rsquo; hollered fit to bust his windpipe, hopin&rsquo; t&rsquo;other
+fellers at the camp &rsquo;ud hear him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But the panther made up another tree hard by, an&rsquo; sprang
+&rsquo;pon him. Fust it grabbed dad by the heel. Then it tore a big piece out
+o&rsquo; the calf of his leg, an&rsquo; devoured it. Think of it, boys!
+Them&rsquo;s the sort o&rsquo; dangers that the fust settlers an&rsquo;
+lumbermen in these woods had to face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wal, dad reckoned he was a goner, sure. But he managed to cut a limb
+from the tree with his huntin&rsquo;-knife, an&rsquo; tied the knife to the end
+of it. With that he fought the beast while his comrades, who had heard his mad
+yells, were gittin&rsquo; to him. With the fust shot that one of &rsquo;em
+fired the catamount made off.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dad was the sickest man ye ever saw fer a spell. His wound healed after
+a bit, under the care of an Injun doctor; but his hair, which had been
+soot-black on that evenin&rsquo; when he was returnin&rsquo; to camp, was as
+white as milk afore he got about again; an&rsquo; he was notional and
+narvous-like as long as he lived.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He said the animal was like a tremenjous big cat, about four feet high
+an&rsquo; five or six feet in length. It was a sort o&rsquo; bluish-gray color.
+An&rsquo; it had a very long tail curled up at the end, which it moved like a
+cat&rsquo;s.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Boys, that catamount is the only animal that an Indian is skeered of.
+Ask a red man to hunt a moose, a bear, or a wolf, an&rsquo; he&rsquo;s ready to
+follow it through forest an&rsquo; swamp till he downs it or drops. But ask him
+to chase a panther, an&rsquo; he&rsquo;ll shake his head an&rsquo; say,
+&lsquo;He all one big debil!&rsquo; He calls the beast, in his own lingo,
+&lsquo;lunk soos,&rsquo; which means &rsquo;Injun devil;&rsquo; an&rsquo; so we
+woodsmen call it too.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was at this moment that Lin put his head in at the cabin-door, and announced
+that &ldquo;the wagon an&rsquo; hosses war a&rsquo; ready.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wal, boys, I swan! it&rsquo;s many a long year since a panther was seen
+in these forests, so ye needn&rsquo;t feel skeery about meetin&rsquo;
+one,&rdquo; said the old settler, as he stood outside his log home, and watched
+his guests start. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll &rsquo;low ye won&rsquo;t find
+travellin&rsquo; too easy &rsquo;long the ole corduroy road. Come again!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was much waving of hats as the wagon, a roomy, four-wheeled vehicle,
+moved off, with a creaking in its joints as if it were squealing a protest
+against its load, which consisted of the five lads, together with knapsacks,
+guns, tents, and the camp duffle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Forward, all!&rdquo; shouted Dr. Phil, who had been chosen to act as
+captain of the two companies during the few days while they journeyed together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lin, who was charioteer, cracked a long whip above his horses. The boys
+cheered, while Doc, Cyrus, and the two guides fell behind, choosing to follow
+the wagon on foot for the first few miles of the journey.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where did you buy that, Lin?&rdquo; asked Neal, climbing over to a perch
+beside the driver, and pointing to a heavy Colt&rsquo;s revolver which the
+young settler was buckling round his waist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t buy it. I traded a calf for it at Greenville more&rsquo;n a
+year ago,&rdquo; was the reply. &ldquo;Fust-rate gun it is, too, I vum!
+I&rsquo;ve stood at our cabin-door, and killed many a buck with it. On&rsquo;y
+&rsquo;tain&rsquo;t much good for tackling a bear. Wish&rsquo;t the bears ud
+get as scarce as the panthers! Then we&rsquo;d be rid o&rsquo; two master
+pests. Hello! Don&rsquo;t y&rsquo;u git to tumbling out jist yet! That&rsquo;s
+on&rsquo;y a circumstance to the jolts there&rsquo;ll be when we strike a bit
+o&rsquo; corduroy road.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lin Hathaway grabbed young Farrar by the elbow while he spoke, and held him
+steady with the horny hand which had swung the axe against the doomed
+pine-tree. For Neal had shown a sudden inclination to pitch headlong out of the
+wagon, as its right wheels were hoisted a foot or more above the left ones by
+rolling over a mossy bump in the ground.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the first five miles the forest road had been simply constructed thus:
+First, the bushy undergrowth had been cut away and thrown to one side, the
+space cleared being about eight feet wide; then all trees growing in the range
+of this track had been sawn off close to the ground, and windfalls which barred
+the way were removed. It was a rude highway, with plenty of deformities, such
+as ends of rotting stumps, twisted roots, ridges and bumps which had never been
+levelled; yet it was beautiful beyond any smooth, well-graded road which the
+travellers had ever seen. As it wound along in graceful curves through the
+woods, it was shaded now by an emerald arch of evergreens, now by a royal
+crimson canopy of maple branches, while patches of buff, orange, and dull red
+commingled where other trees interlaced with these to whisper woodland secrets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the boys soon understood what Doc meant when he spoke of their having
+&ldquo;a bracing ride in more senses than one;&rdquo; for the motion of the
+wagon was a giddy series of jolts and bounces, with just sufficient interval
+between each shock for them to brace themselves, with stiffened backbones, for
+the next upheaval. They had already begun, as Royal said, &ldquo;to have kinks
+in all their limbs,&rdquo; when Lin suddenly announced,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yon&rsquo;s a bit o&rsquo; corduroy road, I declar&rsquo;!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He pointed with his whip ahead, and the travellers shot out their necks to see
+this novel highway. It extended for about a quarter of a mile over a swamp, and
+spoke volumes for the energy and ingenuity of the hardy lumbermen who
+constructed it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These brawny heroes, who are fine types of American grit and manhood, when
+clearing a broad track over which their great timber logs could be hauled from
+the depths of the forest to the landing on some big river, had found the swampy
+tracts an impassable obstacle for animals trammelled with harness and a heavy
+load.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They bridged them by laying down logs cut to even lengths in a slightly
+slanting position across the way for the entire extent of miry ground. Each
+piece of timber was tightly wedged in by its fellow; nevertheless, there was a
+space of several inches between their rounded tops. Hence the track presented a
+striped appearance, which suggested to some spirited genius among woodsmen its
+name of &ldquo;corduroy road.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, Neal, do you think you can tell your folks a thing or two about
+forest travelling when you get back to England?&rdquo; asked Doc, when the
+order of march was changed, young Farrar and the Sinclairs turning out to do
+their share of tramping, while the doctor, Cyrus, and the guides benefited by
+&ldquo;a lift.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I rather think I can,&rdquo; answered Neal; &ldquo;but goodness! I feel
+as if there were aches and bruises all over me. Once or twice my head seemed
+jumping straight off my shoulders. No more going in a wagon over corduroy roads
+for me! I&rsquo;d rather be leg-weary any day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The travellers halted that evening about five o&rsquo;clock on the banks of a
+lonely stream. The guides pitched the two tents&mdash;Joe had provided one for
+his party&mdash;facing each other on a patch of clearing, with a space of about
+fifteen feet between them, in the centre of which blazed a roaring camp-fire.
+Now all the axes and knifes among the band were in demand for cutting and
+sharpening stakes and ridge-poles on which to stretch their canvas.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Moreover, no evergreen boughs could be procured for beds; and the boys had to
+work with a will, helping Uncle Eb and Joe to cut bundles of the long, rank
+grass that grew by the water to form a bed for their tired bodies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Every one was camp-hungry, as they had not halted for a meal since leaving the
+settlement. After a splendid supper of venison, broiled over sizzling logs,
+bread, and fried potatoes,&mdash;for they had added to their stores at the
+farm,&mdash;they had a glorious social hour by the camp-fire. Joe got off any
+amount of &ldquo;ripping&rdquo; stories; and the sound of many a jolly chorus,
+led by Cyrus, and swelled by the musical efforts of the entire crew, mingled
+with the lonely rustle of the night wind among faded and drifting leaves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Doc&rsquo;s summons came to turn in, they stretched themselves upon the
+grassy beds, not undressing, as the night was chilly and the temporary quarters
+were not so snug as their previous ones. Still in their warm jerseys, trousers,
+woollen stockings, and knitted caps, with the heat from the piled-up camp-fire
+streaming under the raised flaps of the tents, they slept as cosily as if they
+lay on spring mattresses, surrounded by pictured walls.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig11.jpg" width="400" height="166" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap11"></a>Chapter XI.<br/>Beaver Works</h2>
+
+<p>
+About noon on the following day they were obliged to bid farewell to Lin
+Hathaway, his wagon and horses, as the logging-road went no farther. The young
+settler turned homeward rather regretfully. It might be many months again
+before he got a chance of talking to anybody beyond his father and mother, and
+the boys had brought a dash of outside life into his woodland solitude.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The travellers proceeded on foot through a dense forest, which, luckily for
+Dol, had little undergrowth and mostly a soft carpet of moss or dry pine
+needles. Still they had plenty of climbing over windfalls, with many rough
+pokes and jibes from forward boughs and rotten limbs, to rob the way of
+sameness. Through this labyrinth they were safely piloted by Uncle Eb and Joe,
+the latter with his compass in his hand, and the former simply studying the
+&ldquo;Indian&rsquo;s compass,&rdquo; which is observing how the moss grows
+upon the tree-trunks, there being always a greater quantity on the side which
+faces north.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before nightfall they reached another log cabin, tenanted by a man who had just
+settled down for the purpose of clearing up a farm. Here they were lodged for
+the night, without trouble of making camp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The third day of their journey was marked by two sensations. They halted for a
+short rest at a point where there was an extensive break in the forest.
+Scarcely had they emerged from the gloom of a dense growth of cedars, when Dol
+exclaimed.&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good gracious! That looks as if people had been building a jolly high
+railroad out here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the right rose a bare, steep ridge of sand and gravel, nearly ninety feet in
+height, and closely resembling a railway embankment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, boy,&rdquo; laughed Dr. Phil, &ldquo;if that&rsquo;s a railroad,
+Nature built it, and by a mighty curious process too. The sand, rocks, and
+
+gravel of which it is mostly formed must have been swept here by a great rush
+of waters that once prevailed over this land. We call the ridge a
+&lsquo;Horseback.&rsquo; If you like, we&rsquo;ll climb to the top of it, after
+we&rsquo;ve had our snack [lunch], and you can get a peep at the surrounding
+country.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So they did. The top was level, and wide enough for two carriages to drive
+abreast; and the view from it was one which could never be forgotten. Around
+them were millions of acres of forest land, beautiful with the contrasts of
+October; here dipping into a cedar valley, in the midst of which they saw the
+silver smile of a woodland lake, there rising into a hill crowned with towering
+pines, some of them over a hundred feet in height.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But, most thrilling sight of all, they beheld, only half a dozen miles away,
+rising in sublime grandeur against the sky, the mountain of mountains in
+Maine,&mdash;great Katahdin. They had caught glimpses of its curved line of
+peaks before. Now they saw its forests, and the rugged slides where avalanches
+of bowlders and earth from the top had ploughed heavily downward, sweeping away
+all growth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cyrus lifted his hat, and waved it at the distant mass.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hurrah!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s the home of storms!
+There&rsquo;s old Katahdin! The Indians named it Ktaadn &lsquo;the biggest
+mountain.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Want to hear the Indian legend about it, lads?&rdquo; asked Dr. Phil.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A general chirp of assent was his reply, and the doctor began:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, when the redskins owned these forests, they believed that the
+summit of Katahdin was the home of their evil spirit, or, as they call him,
+&lsquo;The Big Devil.&rsquo; He was named Pamolah. And he was a mighty
+unpleasant sort of neighbor. Once, so tradition says, he ran away with a
+beautiful Indian maiden, and carried her up to his lonely lair among those
+peaks. When her tribe tried to rescue her, he let loose great storms upon them,
+his artillery being thunder, lightning, hail, and rain, before which they were
+forced to flee helter-skelter. An old red chief long ago told me the story, and
+added gravely that &lsquo;it was sartin true, for han&rsquo;some squaw always
+catch &rsquo;em debil.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The foundation of the legend lies in the fact that there really is a
+very curious granite basin among Katahdin&rsquo;s peaks, and it is the
+birthplace of most storms which sweep over our State. I myself have seen clouds
+forming in it, when I made an ascent of the mountain in my younger days, and
+whirling out in all directions. The roar of its winds may sometimes be heard
+miles away. There are several ponds in the basin; one of them, a tiny, clear
+lake, without any visible outlet, is Pamolah&rsquo;s fishing-ground.
+That&rsquo;s the yarn about the mountain as I heard it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus04"></a>
+<img src="images/illus04.jpg" width="600" height="441" alt="Illustration: " />
+<p class="caption"><b>In The Shadow Of The Katahdin.</b><br/></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ain&rsquo;t it a&rsquo;most time for us to be gittin&rsquo; down from
+this Horseback, Doc?&rdquo; asked Joe, who had been listening with the others.
+&ldquo;I thought we&rsquo;d reach the farm you&rsquo;re heading for to-night,
+but we&rsquo;re half a dozen miles off it yet; and we can&rsquo;t do
+more&rsquo;n another mile or two afore it&rsquo;ll be time to halt and make
+camp. There&rsquo;s some pretty bad travelling and a plaguy bit of swamp
+ahead.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I guess you&rsquo;re about right, Joe,&rdquo; said Doc, rising with
+alacrity from the stone where he had seated himself while telling his yarn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Joe&rsquo;s bad travelling meant a great deal of tripping and floundering
+through soft mud and mire, with slippery moss-stones sandwiched in, and dwarfed
+bushes which ran along the ground, and twisted themselves in an almost
+impassable tangle. These had a knack of catching a fellow&rsquo;s feet, and
+causing him to sprawl forward on his face and hands, whereupon his knapsack
+would hit him an astounding thwack on the back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After three-quarters of an hour of this fun, very muddy, clammy with
+perspiration, and thoroughly winded, the party reached firmer ground, and the
+guides called a halt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Guess we&rsquo;d better rest a bit,&rdquo; said Joe, &ldquo;afore we go
+farther. There&rsquo;s nothing in forest travelling that&rsquo;ll take the
+breath out of a man like crossing a swamp,&rdquo; eying compassionately the
+city folk; for he himself was as &ldquo;fit&rdquo; as when he started.
+&ldquo;Then we&rsquo;d better follow that stream till we strike a good place
+for a camping-ground. What say, Doc?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dr. Phil, as captain, signified his assent. After a short breathing-spell he
+again gave the command, &ldquo;Forward!&rdquo; And his company pushed on into
+the woods, following the course of a dark stream which had gurgled through the
+swamp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There used to be an old beaver-dam somewheres about here,&rdquo; broke
+forth Joe presently, when they had made about a quarter of a mile, the younger
+guide taking the lead, for he was evidently more at home in this part of the
+forest land than his senior, Uncle Eb. &ldquo;Hullo, now! there it is. Look,
+gentlemen!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He pointed to a curved bank of brushwood, mostly alder branches, piled together
+in curious topsyturvy fashion, which formed a dam across the stream. It
+bristled with sticks, poking out and up in every direction; for the bushy ends
+of the boughs had been heavily plastered with mud and stones, to keep them
+down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That a beaver-dam!&rdquo; gasped Neal in amazement. &ldquo;Why, I always
+had an idea that beavers were half human in intelligence, and wove their
+branches in and out in a sort of neat basketwork when making dams. That&rsquo;s
+a funny rough-and-tumble looking old pile.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a good water-tight dam, for all that,&rdquo; answered Cyrus.
+&ldquo;And don&rsquo;t you begin to underrate Mr. Beaver&rsquo;s intelligence
+until you see more of his works. I&rsquo;ve torn the bottom out of a dam like
+this on a cold, rainy night,&mdash;beavers like rainy nights for
+work,&mdash;and then hidden myself in some bushes to watch the result. It was a
+trial of strength and patience, I assure you, to remain there for six mortal
+hours,&mdash;though I had rubber overalls on,&mdash;with wet twigs and leaves
+slapping my face. But the sight I saw was more wonderful than anything I could
+have imagined. There was a cloudy, watery moon; and shortly after it rose, five
+beavers appeared upon the dam, scrambling up and down, and examining the great
+hole through which the water was fast leaking out of their pond. Then,
+following a big fellow, who was evidently the boss beaver, they swam to the
+bank. He stationed himself near a tree about twenty inches in circumference,
+and his four boys at once started to fell it. I tell you they worked like
+hustlers, each one sawing on it in turn with his sharp teeth, and sometimes two
+of them together on different parts of the trunk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At last the tree&mdash;it was an ash&mdash;fell, toppling into the water
+just where the beavers wanted it. They pushed and tugged it down-stream for
+about ten yards, to the dam, and propped it against the opening which I had
+made. I couldn&rsquo;t see the rest of the operations clearly; but I caught
+glimpses of them, marching about on their hind-legs, carrying mud snug up to
+their chins like this,&rdquo; here Cyrus folded his arms across his chest.
+&ldquo;And before daybreak that dam was perfectly repaired, with never a leak
+in it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You know they build the dams in very shallow water, only a few inches
+deep; and they generally roll in a couple of long logs for a solid foundation.
+It was one of these which I had torn out. Now, Neal, what do you say about the
+beaver&rsquo;s intelligence?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I didn&rsquo;t know you, Cyrus, I&rsquo;d say you were making up as
+you went along,&rdquo; answered Neal. &ldquo;It seems one of those things which
+a fellow can scarcely believe in. Hulloa! What&rsquo;s that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A loud report, like the bang of a gun, made all the boys, who had been standing
+very quietly, gazing at the dam, suddenly jump.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s only a beaver striking the water with his tail,&rdquo;
+laughed Cyrus. &ldquo;He has been swimming about somewhere up-stream, and has
+scented us, and dived. I have heard one do that a dozen times in the night, if
+he detected the presence of man; but it&rsquo;s very unusual in the daytime,
+for they rarely venture out in broad light. In diving, if suddenly alarmed,
+they strike the surface of the water a tremendous whack with their tails, as a
+signal of alarm, making this report, which in still weather resounds for a
+great distance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m very glad you heard it, boys; for your chances of seeing the
+master beaver or any of his colony are mighty slim. But we&rsquo;ll probably
+come on their lodge a little higher up.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Above the shallow water where the dam was built, the stream widened into a
+broad, deep pool. About fifty yards ahead, in the centre of this, was a tiny
+island. On its extreme edge Joe pointed out the beaver lodge. It was shaped
+something like a huge beehive, being about a dozen feet in diameter and five
+feet high. The outside seemed to be entirely covered with mud and fibrous
+roots, through which the sticks which formed its framework poked out here and
+there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The doors are all underwater,&rdquo; said Cyrus, &ldquo;and so far down
+that they&rsquo;ll be beneath the ice when the stream freezes in winter.
+Otherwise the beavers could not reach their pile of food-wood, which they keep
+at the bottom, and would starve to death. They are clerks of the weather, if
+you like. They seem to know when the first hard frost is coming, and sink their
+stores a day or two before. Man has not yet discovered their mysterious knack
+of sinking wood, and keeping it stationary through many months.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They feed on the inner bark of poplar, white birch, and willow trees. In
+autumn they fell these along the banks, generally so that they will fall into
+the water, tug and push them down-stream, and float them near to their lodges.
+If the trees are too big to be easily handled, they saw them into convenient
+lengths.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I call it tough luck, not being able to get a sight of the animals,
+after seeing so much of their works,&rdquo; grumbled Royal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ye might wait here till midnight, and not have any better,&rdquo; said
+Joe. &ldquo;That fellow&rsquo;s tail was like a fire-alarm to them. They
+ain&rsquo;t to home now, you bet! They&rsquo;ve dusted out of their house as if
+it was on fire; and they&rsquo;ve either dived to the bottom, or hidden
+themselves in holes along the bank. Guess we&rsquo;d better be moving on.
+It&rsquo;s a&rsquo;most time to think about making camp.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The beavers have been working here!&rdquo; exclaimed the guide a few
+minutes later, as he strode ahead. &ldquo;These white birches were felled by
+&rsquo;em; and a dandy job they did too.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He pointed to two slim birches which lay prone with their tops in the water,
+and to a third, the trunk of which was partly sawn through in more than one
+place. The ground was strewn with little clippings of timber, bearing the
+saw-marks of the beavers&rsquo; teeth. The boys gathered them up as
+curiosities.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, the skilful little animals can beat this work by long odds!&rdquo;
+exclaimed Doc. &ldquo;These trunks only measure from eight to twelve inches in
+circumference. I&rsquo;ve seen a tree fully two feet round which was felled by
+them. Say, Joe! don&rsquo;t you think we&rsquo;d better camp to-night somewhere
+on the <i>brûlée?</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just what I&rsquo;m planning, Doc,&rdquo; answered Joe. &ldquo;We must
+be pretty near it now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A few minutes afterwards the party filed out of the dense woods, passed through
+a grove of young spruces, forded a brook which emptied itself into the stream
+they were following, and came upon a scene blasted, barren, and unutterably
+dreary.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The band of boys, who, in spite of swamps and jungles, had learned to love the
+forest dearly, for its many beauties, and for the wild offspring with which it
+teemed, sorrowfully gasped, as if they saw the skeleton of a friend.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig12.jpg" width="400" height="165" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap12"></a>Chapter XII.<br/>&ldquo;Go It, Old Bruin!&rdquo;</h2>
+
+<p>
+Before them lay a ruined tract of country, extending northward farther than eye
+could reach. It is called by Maine woodsmen a <i>brûlée</i>, name borrowed from
+their French-Canadian neighbors, who dwell across the boundary line which
+separates the Dominion from the United States.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The word signifies &ldquo;burnt tract;&rdquo; but it gives a feeble idea of the
+fire-smitten, blackened region on which the lads looked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The forest until now had been a wilderness truly, but a wilderness where every
+kind and size of growth, from the giant pine to the creeping wintergreen and
+shaded mosses, mingled in beautiful confusion. Here it became a desert. For the
+terrible forest fires, the woodsman&rsquo;s tragic enemy, had swept over it not
+long before, devastating an area of many square miles. Millions of dollars
+worth of valuable timber had been reduced to rotting embers. Storm-defying
+pines had crashed to the earth, and were overridden by the flames in their wild
+rush onward. Sometimes only a smutty stump showed where they had stood;
+sometimes, robbed of life and every limb, portions of the fire-eaten trunks
+still remained erect,&mdash;bare, blackened poles. All smaller growth, and even
+the surface of the ground, parched by summer heats, had burned like tinder.
+Rocks and stones were baked and crumbling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Boys, that&rsquo;s the most mournful sight a woodsman can see,&rdquo;
+said Doc, looking away over the wrecked region, touched with golden lights from
+an October sunset. &ldquo;It makes one who loves the woods feel as if he had
+lost a living friend.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, &rsquo;tain&rsquo;t no manner o&rsquo; use to fret over it,&rdquo;
+declared Joe energetically. &ldquo;Nature don&rsquo;t waste time in fretting,
+you bet! She starts in and tries to cover the stripped ground, as if she was
+sort of ashamed to have it seen.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The guide pointed earthward. At his feet a dwarfed growth of blueberry bushes
+and tiny trees was already springing up to screen the unsightly, ash-strewn
+land.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;True enough, Joe! Nature is a grand one for remedies,&rdquo; answered
+the doctor. &ldquo;Still, it will be half a century or more before she can
+raise a timber growth here again. Hulloa! Dol, what are you fellows up
+to?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While his elders were studying the <i>brûlée</i>, Dol, who objected to dreary
+sights, had marched down to the brink of the stream, accompanied by
+Royal&rsquo;s young brothers, Will and Martin Sinclair. The little river
+gurgled and frisked along beside the burnt tract, like a line of life bordering
+death. It seemed to the boys to prattle about its victory over the flames when
+it stopped their sweeping course, so that the woods on its opposite bank were
+uninjured, as were those beyond the brook in the rear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;re studying the ways of the great sea-serpent!&rdquo; shouted
+back Dol, who was splashing about in a sedgy pool.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By and by when the guides had finished their work of making camp, when they had
+pitched the tents, cut boughs for beds and fuel in the spruce grove behind, and
+were cooking an odorous supper, the three juveniles came slowly towards the
+camp-fire from the water.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What on earth have you got there, young one?&rdquo; asked Dr. Phil; for
+Adolphus Farrar was bareheaded, and carried his hat very gingerly, with its
+corners clutched together to form a bag.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The big sea-serpent himself,&rdquo; answered Dol mysteriously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of a sudden he opened his dripping hat, and spilled out a small water-snake,
+about ten inches long, upon the doctor&rsquo;s lap.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a great roar of laughter, in which Dol&rsquo;s abettors, Will and
+Martin, joined with cheerful shouts. The little joke had the effect of winning
+everybody&rsquo;s thoughts from roaring flames, wrecked forests, and the dreary
+<i>brûlée</i>. Uncle Eb killed the snake, maintaining that water-snakes were
+&ldquo;plaguy p&rsquo;isonous,&rdquo; while Cyrus scouted the idea. The supper
+that evening was a merry enough meal. The camp, lit by the ruddy glow from its
+great fire, looked an oasis of light, warmth, and jollity in the black and
+burnt desert.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The darky, hearing Cyrus declare that he was fearfully hungry, mixed some
+flapjacks to form a second course, after the venison steaks and potatoes. He
+had exhausted his stock of maple sugar, but he produced a small wooden keg of
+the apparently inexhaustible molasses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He! he! he! Dat jest touches de spot, don&rsquo;t it?&rdquo; he
+chuckled, when, having carefully served each member of the party, he seated
+himself about three feet from the camp-fire, with a round dozen of the thin
+cakes for his own eating.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He coated them with the thick molasses, and set the keg down side by side with
+a bag of potatoes which had been brought from the settlement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There these provisions remained when, earlier than usual, the party turned in,
+and stretched their tired limbs to rest, lying down, as they had done before
+when sleeping under canvas, with all their garments on save coats and
+moccasins. Whether Uncle Eb forgot his &ldquo;m&rsquo;lasses,&rdquo; or whether
+he purposely left it without, there not being a spare inch of room in the small
+tents, no one then or afterwards inquired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As a result of the jolly intimacy that had sprung up between the two companies
+during the few days when they had all things in common, the boys disposed of
+themselves for the night as they pleased. Neal turned in with the doctor,
+Royal, and Joe, the four stretching themselves on the evergreen boughs, with
+their feet to the opening of the tent, and their rifles and ammunition within
+reach. Of course the Winchesters were empty, it being a strict rule that
+firearms should not be brought into camp loaded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The younger Sinclairs, with Cyrus, Dol, and Uncle Eb, occupied the other tent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It seemed to Neal that he had hardly slept one hour,&mdash;probably it was
+nearer to three,&mdash;during which time he had been dreaming with vague
+foreshadowings of the final and crowning sport of the trip, the grand
+moose-stalking, and of Herb Heal, the mighty hunter, when he was awakened by a
+shrill scream just outside the canvas. He started, with his heart going
+whackety-whack. The cry was sudden and intensely startling, appearing twice as
+loud as it really was when it broke the pathetic stillness of the
+<i>brûlée</i>, where not a tree rustled or twig snapped, and the night wind
+only sighed faintly and fitfully through the newly springing growth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again sounded that startling screech; and yet again, making a dreary, piercing
+din.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By all that&rsquo;s funny! it&rsquo;s another coon,&rdquo; gasped Neal;
+and he gently pinched the shoulder of Joe, who lay on his left.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Joe!&rdquo; he whispered. &ldquo;Wake up! There&rsquo;s a raccoon just
+outside the tent. I heard his cry.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The guide was awake and alert in an instant. So, too, was Dr. Phil.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s up, boys?&rdquo; asked the latter, hearing a murmur.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a coon close by,&rdquo; said Neal again. &ldquo;Listen to
+him!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Even while he spoke, young Farrar caught sight of two feathered things hopping
+along the avenue of light which lay between him and the camp-fire, the red
+flare of the flames mingling with the white radiance of a cloudless moon. At
+the same time the screech sounded and resounded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Coon!&rdquo; exclaimed Joe derisively. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s no coon.
+It&rsquo;s only a little owl. Bless ye! I&rsquo;ve had five or six of &rsquo;em
+come right into this tent of a night, and ding away at me till I had to talk to
+&rsquo;em with the rifle to scare &rsquo;em off. I&rsquo;ll give &rsquo;em a
+dose o&rsquo; lead now if they don&rsquo;t scoot mighty quick; that&rsquo;ll
+stop their song an&rsquo; dance.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Their cry is pretty much like a raccoon&rsquo;s, Neal,&rdquo; said Doc.
+&ldquo;Only it&rsquo;s a great deal weaker. Lie down, boy. Go to sleep, and
+don&rsquo;t mind them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The owls perhaps apprehended danger. At all events, they were silent for a
+while; and in three minutes each occupant of the tent was fast asleep again,
+with the exception of Neal. The sharp awakening had upset his nerves a bit. He
+obeyed the doctor, and hugged his blankets round him, hoping sleep would
+return; but he lay with eyes narrowed into two slits, peeping at the ruddy
+camp-fire, involuntarily listening for the screeching of the birds, and wishing
+that he had not been such a greenhorn as to disturb his comrades for nothing.
+Royal, who lay on his right, was of a less excitable temperament. Although he
+had been awakened, he was now snoring lustily, insomnia being a rare affliction
+in camps.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+About half an hour had passed when Neal Farrar suddenly and sharply rapped out
+these words close to Joe&rsquo;s ear. He felt certain that he would not now
+bring upon him the woodsman&rsquo;s good-natured scorn for making a disturbance
+about nothing. A heavy, stealthy tread, as of some big animal, was crushing the
+pygmy bushes near the tent. Immediately afterwards he saw an uncouth black
+shape in the lane of light between himself and the fire. It disappeared while
+his heart was giving one jump, and he heard a dull, mumbling noise, such as a
+pig might make when rooting amid rubbish, varied with an occasional low growl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Joe was already awake. His hunter&rsquo;s instinct told him that something
+truly exciting was on now.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My cracky! I b&rsquo;lieve it&rsquo;s a bear!&rdquo; he muttered,
+forming his words away down in his throat, so that Neal only caught the last
+one. &ldquo;Keep still as death!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The guide reached out a long arm, and clutched his rifle. Hurriedly he jammed
+half a dozen cartridges into its magazine. Then lightly and silently, as if he
+was made of cork, he got upon his feet, and bounded out of the tent, Neal
+copying his actions nimbly and noiselessly as he could; though, in his
+excitement, he only succeeded in getting two cartridges into his Winchester.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Royal&rsquo;s snoring ceased. Doc&rsquo;s eager question, &ldquo;What&rsquo;s
+up now, boys?&rdquo; reached the two just as they quitted shelter, and passed
+into the broad moonlight, crossed with red gleams from their fire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A bear!&rdquo; yelled Joe in answer, his rifle and he breaking silence
+together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Three times the Winchester sharply cracked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then with a mad &ldquo;Halloo!&rdquo; the guide seized a flaming stick from the
+fire, and, swinging it above his head, started after the big black animal of
+which Neal had caught a glimpse before. He now saw it plainly as, already fifty
+yards ahead, it made off at a plunging gallop across the moonlit <i>brûlée</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Young Farrar had been the champion runner of his school, and he blessed his
+trained legs for giving him a prominent part in the wild chase that followed.
+Still imitating the woodsman, he pulled another half-lighted stick from the
+camp-fire, and waved it in a frenzy of excitement, while he ran like a buck at
+Joe&rsquo;s side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tumble out! Tumble out, boys! A bear! A bear!&rdquo; now rang from one
+tent to another.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In two minutes every camper, in his stocking feet, just as he had risen from
+his bed, was tearing across the <i>brûlée</i> in the wake of Bruin, yelling,
+leaping, and swinging smouldering firebrands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a scene and a chase such as the boys, in their most far-fetched dreams,
+had never pictured,&mdash;the white moonlight glimmering on the black stumps
+and tottering trunks of the ruined tract, the hunted bear plunging off among
+them, frightened by the shouting and the lights, the heavy, lumbering gallop
+enabling it at first to distance its pursuers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Owing to their fleetness and the odds they had at the start, the guide and Neal
+kept far ahead of their comrades. The noise which Bruin made as he lumbered
+over the pygmy growth, and the charred, rotting timber that littered the ground
+beneath it, were quiet enough to guide Joe unerringly in the bear&rsquo;s wake,
+even when that bulky shape was not distinguishable.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s this?&rdquo; screeched the woodsman suddenly, as he
+stumbled upon something at his feet. &ldquo;By gracious! it&rsquo;s our keg of
+m&rsquo;lasses. He made off with that, and has dropped it out o&rsquo; sheer
+fright, or because he&rsquo;s weakening. I know I hit him twice when I fired;
+but he&rsquo;s not hurt too badly to run, or to fight like a fiend if we come
+to close quarters. Like as not &rsquo;twill be a narrow squeak with us if we
+tackle him. If you&rsquo;re scared a little bit, Neal, let up, an&rsquo;
+I&rsquo;ll finish him alone.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Scared!&rdquo; Neal flung the word back with scorn, as if he was
+returning a blow. For the life of him he could not bring out another syllable,
+going at a faster rate than ever he had done in the most stubbornly contested
+handicap. The strong-winded guide rapped out his sentences as he ran,
+apparently without waste of breath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The feverish enthusiasm of the hunter, which he had never felt before, was now
+alive in Neal. His blood raced through his veins like liquid fire. He had been
+long enough in Maine to know that in wreaking vengeance on Bruin for many
+misdeeds he would be acting in the interests of justice. For the black bear is
+still such a master pest to the settlers who are trying to establish their
+farms amid the forests where it roams, that the State has outlawed the beast,
+and pays a bounty for its skin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Joe thought little about this; for a gentleman whom he had guided early in the
+summer had lately written to him, offering a price of fifteen dollars for a
+good bearskin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here was the woodsman&rsquo;s golden opportunity&mdash;an opportunity for which
+he had been thirsting since the receipt of that letter.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus05"></a>
+<img src="images/illus05.jpg" width="372" height="600" alt="Illustration: " />
+<p class="caption"><b>&ldquo;Go It, Old Bruin! Go It While You Can!&rdquo;</b><br/></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+He already regarded his triumph over the bear as secure, and its hide as
+forfeited. He nearly caused Neal Farrar to burst a blood-vessel from the
+combined effects of struggling laughter and running, when he began to
+apostrophize the flying foe with grim humor, thus:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go it, old Bruin! Go it while ye can! There ain&rsquo;t a hair on yer
+back that b&rsquo;longs to ye!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But it soon became evident that the bear couldn&rsquo;t go on much longer at
+this breakneck pace. Its pursuers heard its steps with increasing distinctness,
+and then its labored breathing. They were gaining on it fast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The brute came into full view about forty yards ahead, as it ascended a slight
+elevation, crowned with blasted tree trunks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll draw bead on him from here,&rdquo; said Joe, stopping short.
+&ldquo;Get ready to fire, lad, if he turns. It&rsquo;ll take lots o&rsquo; lead
+to finish that fellow.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Twice Joe&rsquo;s rifle spoke again. One shot took effect. There was a fearful
+growl from the beast, but it was not yet mortally wounded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Maddened and desperate, it wheeled about, and came straight for its pursuers.
+Again the guide fired. Still the bear advanced, gnashing its teeth and mumbling
+horribly; Neal saw its black shape not thirty yards from him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shoot! shoot, boy!&rdquo; screamed Joe. &ldquo;Or give me your rifle. I
+haven&rsquo;t got a charge left!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For half a minute Farrar shook all over as with ague. His nostrils felt choked.
+His mouth was wide open in his efforts to breathe. His heart pounded like a
+sledge-hammer. With that mumbling brute advancing upon him, he felt as if he
+couldn&rsquo;t fire so as to hit a haystack or a flock of hens at a barn-door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then, suddenly, he was cool again, seeing and hearing with extraordinary
+clearness. The ignominious alternative of giving his rifle to Joe produced a
+revulsion. His fingers were on the trigger, his left hand firmly gripped the
+barrel of his Winchester; he brought it to his shoulder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Aim low! Try to hit him in the front of the neck where it joins the
+body,&rdquo; said Joe, in tones sharp as a razor, which cut his meaning into
+Neal&rsquo;s brain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bruin was only fifteen yards away when Farrar&rsquo;s rifle cracked
+once&mdash;twice&mdash;sending out its messengers of death.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a last terrible growl, a plunge, and a thud which seemed to shake the
+ground under Neal&rsquo;s feet. As the smoke of his shots cleared away, Joe
+beheld him leaning on his
+
+rifle, with a face which in the moonlight looked white as chalk, and the bear
+lying where it had fallen headlong towards him. It made a desperate struggle to
+regain its feet, then rolled on its side, dead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One bullet had pierced the spot which Joe mentioned, and had passed through the
+region of the heart.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig13.jpg" width="400" height="167" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap13"></a>Chapter XIII.<br/>&ldquo;The Skin Is Yours.&rdquo;</h2>
+
+<p>
+A regular war-dance was performed about the slain marauder by the young
+Sinclairs and Dol Farrar, when these laggards in the chase reached the spot
+where he fell. The firebrands had all died out before the enemy turned; but in
+the white moon-radiance the bear was seen to be a big one, with an uncommonly
+fine skin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Neal took no part in the triumphal capers. He still leaned upon his rifle, his
+breath coming in gusty puffs through his nostrils and mouth. Not alone the
+desperate sensations of those moments when he had faced the gnashing, mumbling
+brute, but the unexpected success of his first shot at big game, had unhinged
+him. By his endurance in the chase, by the pluck with which he stood up to the
+bear, above all, by his being able, as Joe phrased it, to &ldquo;take a sure
+pull on the beast at a paralyzing moment,&rdquo; he had eternally justified his
+right to the title of sportsman in the eyes of the natives. The guides, Joe and
+Eb, were not slow in telling him that he had behaved from start to finish like
+no &ldquo;greenhorn,&rdquo; but a regular &ldquo;old sport.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My cracky! &rsquo;twas lucky for me that you had game blood in you,
+which showed up,&rdquo; exclaimed Joe, catching the boy&rsquo;s arm in a
+friendly grip, with an odd respect in his touch, which marked the admission of
+young Farrar into the brotherhood of hunters. &ldquo;I hadn&rsquo;t a charge
+left, an&rsquo; not even my hunting-knife. Lots o&rsquo; city swells
+&rsquo;u&rsquo;d have been plumb scared before a growler like
+that,&rdquo;&mdash;touching Bruin&rsquo;s carcass with his
+foot,&mdash;&ldquo;even if they had a small arsenal to back &rsquo;em up.
+They&rsquo;d have dropped rifle and cartridges, and hugged the nearest trunk.
+I&rsquo;ve seen fellers do it scores o&rsquo; times, bless ye! after they came
+out here rigged up in sporting-book style, talking fire about hunting bears and
+moose. But that was all the fire there was to &rsquo;em.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet Neal&rsquo;s triumph over the poor brute, which had raced well for its
+life, was not without a faint twinge of pain; and he was too manly to look on
+this as a weakness. A sportsman he might be, of the sort who can shoot straight
+when necessity demands it, but never of that class who prowl through the
+forests with fingers tingling to pull the trigger, dreading to lose a chance of
+&ldquo;letting blood&rdquo; from any slim-legged moose or velvet-nosed buck
+which may run their way. It needed Doc&rsquo;s praise to make him feel fully
+satisfied with his deed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was a crack shot, boy,&rdquo; said the doctor proudly. &ldquo;And I
+guess the farmer at the next settlement will feel like giving you a medal for
+it. Old Bruin has only got what he gave to every creature he could
+master.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There being no tree conveniently near to which they could string up the dead
+bear, the guides decided to leave the ugly matter of skinning and dissecting
+him for morning light. The excited party returned to camp, but not to sleep.
+They built up their scattered fire, squatted round it, and discoursed of the
+night&rsquo;s adventure until a clear dawn-gleam brightened the eastern sky.
+Then Uncle Eb and Joe started out again across the <i>brûlée</i>. They
+reappeared before breakfast-time, bringing Bruin&rsquo;s skin and a goodly
+portion of his meat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Joe laid the hide at Neal&rsquo;s feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There, boy,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;the skin is yours. It belongs rightly
+to the man who killed the bear; and I guess the brute wasn&rsquo;t mortally
+hurt at all till your bullet nipped him in the neck.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But what about the fifteen dollars from that New York man, Joe?
+You&rsquo;ll lose it,&rdquo; faltered young Farrar, with a triumphant
+heart-leap at the thought of taking this trophy back to England, but loath to
+profit by the woodsman&rsquo;s generosity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you bother about that; let it go,&rdquo; answered Joe, whose
+business of guiding was profitable enough for him. &ldquo;&rsquo;Tain&rsquo;t
+enough for the skin, anyhow. Nary a finer one has been taken out o&rsquo; Maine
+in the last five years; and mighty lucky you Britishers were to git a chance of
+a bear-hunt at all. Old Bruin must have been powerful hungry to come around our
+camp.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a grand breakfast before the travellers broke camp that morning. The
+guides and Doc&mdash;who had got accustomed to the luxury during visits to
+settlers and lumber-camps&mdash;feasted off bear-steaks. Cyrus and the boys,
+American and English, declined to touch it. The whole appearance of Bruin as he
+lay stretched on the ground the night before made their &ldquo;department of
+the interior&rdquo; revolt against it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When a start was made for the settlement, Joe bundled up the skin, and, as a
+tribute of respect to Neal&rsquo;s &ldquo;game blood,&rdquo; carried it, in
+addition to his heavy pack, for a distance of four miles over the desolate
+<i>brûlée</i> and across a soft, miry bog. On reaching the farm clearing, he
+cut the stem of a tall cedar bush, which he bent into the shape of a hoop,
+binding the ends together with cedar bark. He then pricked holes all around the
+edges of the hide with the sharp point of his hunting-knife, stretched it to
+its full extent, and fastened it to the hoop, which he hung up to a tree near
+the settler&rsquo;s cabin, telling Neal that in a few days it would be dry
+enough to pack away in a bag.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But as it was a cumbersome article to carry while tramping a dozen miles
+farther to the camp on Millinokett Lake, the farmer offered to take charge of
+it for its owner until he passed that way again on his return journey; an offer
+which Neal thankfully accepted. The old backwoodsman was, truth to tell,
+delighted to see hanging up near his cabin door the skin of an enemy who had
+ofttimes plundered him so unmercifully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He made the travellers royally welcome, let them have the roomy kitchen of his
+log shanty to sleep in, with a soft bed of hay. Here he lay with them, while
+his wife and sickly little girl occupied an adjoining space about twelve feet
+square, which had been boarded off. This was all the accommodation the log home
+afforded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The forest child was a puzzle to the lads. To them she looked as if the soul of
+a grandmother had taken possession of a thin, long-limbed body which ought to
+belong to a girl of ten. Her pinched features and over-wise eyes told a tale of
+suffering, and so did her high-pitched, quivering voice, as it made elfishly
+sharp remarks about the boys until they blenched before her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was the little one of whom the doctor had said &ldquo;that she fretted if
+he did not come to see her once in a while.&rdquo; And with Doc she was a
+different being. Her voice softened, her eyes became childlike, and thin
+tinkles of laughter broke from her as she clung to him, and received certain
+presents of medicines and picture-books which he had brought for her in a
+corner of his knapsack.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For two nights the travellers slept in a row on their hay bed; for two
+long-remembered days the five boys roamed the country round the clearing,
+starting deer, catching glimpses of a wildcat, a marten or two, and of another
+coon. Then came, to use Dol&rsquo;s expression, &ldquo;the beastly nuisance of
+saying good-by.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dr. Phil was obliged to return to Greenville; and he declared that now he must
+surely start his nephews homeward, for Royal expected to graduate from the High
+School during the following year, and to let him waste more time from study
+would be questionable kindness. Joe Flint of course would go back with his
+party. And here Cyrus paid Uncle Eb&rsquo;s fees for guiding, and dismissed him
+too.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Only a dozen miles of tolerably easy travelling now separated Garst and his
+English comrades from the camp on Millinokett Lake, where they were to meet the
+redoubtable Herb Heal. The settler, knowing this tract of country as thoroughly
+as he knew his own few fields, offered to lead our trio for the first half of
+their onward march; and as they could follow a plain trail for the remainder of
+the
+
+way, they had no further need of their guide&rsquo;s services. They promised to
+visit Eb at his bark hut on their return journey, to bid him a final farewell,
+and hear one more stave of:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;Ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good-by, you lucky fellows!&rdquo; said Royal Sinclair huskily, as he
+gripped Neal&rsquo;s hand, then Dol&rsquo;s, in a brotherly squeeze when the
+hour of parting came. &ldquo;I wish I was going on with you. We&rsquo;ve had a
+stunning good time together, haven&rsquo;t we? And we&rsquo;ll run across each
+other in these woods some time or other again, I know! You&rsquo;ll never feel
+satisfied to stay in England, where there&rsquo;s nothing to hunt but hares and
+foxes, after chasing bears and moose.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh! we&rsquo;ll come out here again, depend upon it,&rdquo; answered
+Neal. &ldquo;Drop me a line occasionally, won&rsquo;t you, Roy? Here&rsquo;s
+our Manchester address.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will, if you&rsquo;ll do the same.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Agreed. Good-by again, old fellow!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got the slip of birch-bark and the horn safe in my knapsack,
+Doc,&rdquo; Dol was saying meanwhile, feeling his eyes getting leaky as he bade
+farewell to the doctor. &ldquo;I&mdash;I&rsquo;ll keep them as long as I
+live.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Doctor Phil had been as good as his word. He had made Joe rip the slip of white
+bark, with the rude writing on it, off the pine-tree near the swamp, and had
+presented it to Dol ere the boy quitted his camp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, confusion to partings anyhow!&rdquo; broke in Joe.
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t like &rsquo;em a bit. Hope you&rsquo;ll get that bear-skin
+safe to England, Neal. When you show it to your folks at home, tell &rsquo;em
+Joe Flint said he knew one Britisher who would make a woodsman if he got a
+chance. Don&rsquo;t you forgit it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good-by,&rdquo; said the doctor, as he clasped in turn the hands of the
+departing three. &ldquo;Good luck to you, boys! Keep your souls as straight as
+your bodies, and you&rsquo;ll be a trio worth knowing. We&rsquo;ll meet again
+some day; I&rsquo;m sure of it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Martin and Will were chirping farewells, and lamenting that they would have no
+more chances of studying water-snakes in sedgy pools with Dol. Amid cheers and
+waving of hats the campers separated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Forward, Company Three!&rdquo; cried Cyrus encouragingly, stepping
+briskly ahead, his comrades following. &ldquo;Now for a sight of the
+&lsquo;Jabberwock&rsquo; of the forest, the mighty moose. Hurrah for the wild
+woods and all woodsmen!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig14.jpg" width="400" height="164" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap14"></a>Chapter XIV.<br/>A Lucky Hunter</h2>
+
+<p>
+Amid cracking of jokes, and noise which would have disgraced a squad of
+Indians, &ldquo;Company Three,&rdquo; as Cyrus dubbed his reduced band, reached
+the crowning-point of their journey, the log camp on the shore of Millinokett
+Lake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During the first half-dozen miles of the way, though each one manfully did his
+best to be lively, a sense of loss made their fun flat and pointless.
+Royal&rsquo;s tear-away tongue, his brothers&rsquo; racket, Joe&rsquo;s racy
+talk, Uncle Eb&rsquo;s kind, dark face, and more than all, Doc&rsquo;s
+companionship, which was as tonic to the hearts of those who travelled with
+him, were missed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But spirits must be elastic in forest air. When they halted at noon to eat
+their &ldquo;snack&rdquo; on the side of a breezy knoll, with a tiny brook
+purling through a pine grove beneath them, with Katahdin&rsquo;s rugged sides
+and cloud-veiled peaks looming in majesty to the north, the thought of what lay
+behind was inevitably lost in what lay before. Enthusiasm replaced depression.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s no use grizzling because we can&rsquo;t have those fellows
+with us all the time,&rdquo; remarked Neal philosophically. &ldquo;&rsquo;Twas
+a big piece of luck our running against them at all. And I&rsquo;ve a sort of
+feeling that this won&rsquo;t be the end of it; we&rsquo;ll come across them
+again some day or other.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And at all events we&rsquo;ll probably get a sight of Doc at Greenville
+as we go back,&rdquo; said Dol, to whom this was no small comfort.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, needless to say, I&rsquo;d have been glad of their company for the
+rest of the trip. But still, if they had taken a notion to come on with us, it
+would have reduced to nothing our chances of seeing a moose. We&rsquo;re a big
+party already for moose-calling or stalking&mdash;three of us, with
+Herb;&rdquo; this from Cyrus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, fellows, don&rsquo;t you think we&rsquo;d better get a move on
+us?&rdquo; added the leader. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve half a dozen miles to do yet;
+but the trail begins right here, and is clearly blazed all the way to our camp.
+Let&rsquo;s keep a stiff upper lip, and the journey will soon be over.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was very delightful to sit there in the crisp October air, with the brook
+seemingly humming tender legends of the woods, which witless men could not
+translate, with an uncertain breeze playing through the newly fallen
+maple-leaves, now turning them one by one in lazy curiosity, then of a sudden
+making them caper and swirl in a scarlet merry-go-round. Still, the young
+Farrars were not loath to move on. Now that they were nearing the climax of
+their journey, their minds were full of Herb Heal. Their longing to meet this
+lucky hunter grew with each mile which drew them nearer to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They pressed hard after their leader, looking neither right nor left, while he
+carefully followed the trail; and one hour&rsquo;s tramping brought them to the
+shores of Millinokett Lake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here, despite their eagerness to reach their new camp, they were forced to stop
+and admire the great sheet of forest-bound water, smiling back the sky in tints
+of turquoise and pearl, dotted with apparently countless islets, like specks
+upon the face of a mirror.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The irregular shores of the lake were broken by &ldquo;logons,&rdquo; narrow
+little bays curving into the land, shining arms of water, sometimes bordered by
+evergreens, sometimes by graceful poplars and birches. From the opposite bank
+the woods stretched away in undulating waves of ridge and valley to the foot of
+Mount Katahdin, which still showed grandly to the northward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Millinokett Lake,&rdquo; said Cyrus, prolonging the syllables with a
+soft, liquid sound. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s an Indian name, boys; it signifies
+&lsquo;Lake of Islands.&rsquo; Whatever else the red men can boast of, the
+music of their names is unequalled. I don&rsquo;t know exactly how many of
+those islets there are, but I believe Millinokett has over two hundred of them
+anyhow. Our camp is on the western shore. Shall we be moving?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After skirting the water for another mile or two, the travellers reached a
+broad, open tract, bare of timber. At the farther end of this clearing were two
+log cabins, low, but very roomy, situated at a distance of a few hundred yards
+from the lake, with a background of splendid firs and spruces, the lively green
+of the latter making the former look black in contrast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is that our camp? How perfectly glorious!&rdquo; boomed Neal and Dol
+together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s our camp, sure enough,&rdquo; answered Garst, with no less
+enthusiasm. &ldquo;At least the first cabin will be ours. I don&rsquo;t know
+whether there are any hunters in the other one just now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The log shanties had been put up by an enterprising settler to accommodate
+sportsmen who might penetrate to this far part of the wilds in search of moose
+or caribou. Cyrus had arranged for the use of one during the months of October
+and November. Here it was that Herb Heal had engaged to await him. And as he
+had commissioned this famous guide to stock the camp with all such provisions
+as could be procured from neighboring settlements, such as flour, potatoes,
+pork, etc., he expected to slide into the lap of luxury.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In one sense he did. When the trio, their hearts thumping with anticipation,
+reached the low door of the first cabin, they found it securely fastened on the
+outside, so that no burglar-beast could force an entrance, but easily opened by
+man. Cyrus hurriedly undid the bolts, and stepped under the log roof, followed
+by his comrades. The camp was in beautiful order, clean, well-stocked, and
+provided with primitive comforts. An enticing-looking bed of fresh fir-boughs
+was arranged in a sort of rude bunk which extended along one side of the cabin,
+having a head-board and foot-board. The latter was fitted to form a bench as
+well. A man might perch on it, and stretch his toes to the fire in the great
+stone fireplace only two feet distant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boys could well imagine that this would make an ideal seat for a hunter at
+night, where he might lazily fill his pipe and tell big yarns, while the winter
+storm howled outside, and snow-flurries drifted against his log walls. But they
+looked at it wistfully now, for it was empty. There was no figure of a
+moccasined forest hero on bench or in bunk. There was no Herb Heal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bless the fellow! Where on earth is he?&rdquo; Garst exclaimed.
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s been here, you see, and has the camp provisioned and ready.
+Perhaps he&rsquo;s only prowling about in the woods near. I&rsquo;ll give him a
+&lsquo;Coo-hoo!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus06"></a>
+<img src="images/illus06.jpg" width="479" height="600" alt="Illustration: " />
+<p class="caption"><b>&ldquo;Herb Heal.&rdquo;</b><br/></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+He stepped forth from the cabin to the middle of the clearing, and sent his
+voice ringing out in a distance-piercing hail. He loaded his rifle and blazed
+away with it, firing a volley of signal-shots.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Neither shout nor shots brought him any answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The second cabin was likewise empty, and, judging from the withered remains of
+a bed, had evidently been long unused.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, fellows!&rdquo; said the leader, with manifest chagrin,
+&ldquo;we&rsquo;ll only have to fix up something to eat, make ourselves
+comfortable, and wait patiently until our guide puts in an appearance. Herb
+Heal never broke an engagement yet. He&rsquo;s as faithful a fellow as ever
+made camp or spotted a trail in these forests. And he promised to wait for me
+here from the first of October, as it was uncertain when I might arrive.
+I&rsquo;m mighty hungry. Who&rsquo;ll go and fetch some water from the lake
+while I turn cook?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol volunteered for this business, and brought a kettle from the cabin. He
+found it near the hearth, on which a fire still flickered, side by side with a
+frying-pan and various articles of tinware. Cyrus rolled up his sleeves, took
+the canisters of tea and coffee with other small stores from his knapsack,
+proceeded to mix a batter for flapjacks, and showed himself to be a genius with
+the pan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The meal was soon ready. The food might be a little salt and greasy; but
+camp-hunger, after a tramp of a dozen miles, is not dulled by such trifles. The
+trio ate joyously, washing the fare down with big draughts of tea, rather
+fussily prepared by Neal, which might have &ldquo;done credit to many a Boston
+woman&rsquo;s afternoon tea-table&rdquo;&mdash;so young Garst said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet from time to time longing looks were cast at the low camp-door. And when
+daylight waned, when stars began to glint in a sky which was a mixture of soft
+grays and downy whites like a dove&rsquo;s plumage, when the islets on
+Millinokett&rsquo;s bosom became black dots on a slate-gray sheet, and no laden
+hunter with rifle and game put in an appearance, even Cyrus became fidgety and
+anxious.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hope the fellow hasn&rsquo;t come to grief somewhere in the
+woods,&rdquo; he said, while a shiver of apprehension shot down his back.
+&ldquo;But Herb has had so many hairbreadth escapes that I believe the animal
+has yet to be born which could get the better of him. And he can find his way
+anywhere without a compass. Every handful of moss on a trunk or stone, every
+turn of a woodland stream, every sun-ray which strikes him through the trees,
+every glimpse of the stars at night, has a meaning for him. He reads the forest
+like a book. No fear of his getting lost anyhow. Come, boys, I guess we&rsquo;d
+better build up our fire, make things snug for the night, and turn in.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rather dejectedly the trio set about these preparations. In twenty
+minutes&rsquo; time they were stretched side by side in the wide bunk, with
+their blankets cuddled round them, already venting random snores.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hello! So you&rsquo;ve got here at last, have you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The exclamations were loud and snappy, and awoke the sleeping campers like the
+banging of rifle-shots. With jumping pulses they sprang up, feeling a wave of
+cold air sweep their faces; for the cabin-door, which they had closed ere lying
+down, was now ajar.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The camp was almost in darkness. Only one dull, red ray stole out from the
+fire, on which fresh logs had been piled. But while the young Farrars rubbed
+their sleep-dimmed eyes, and slowly realized that the woodsman whom they had
+been expecting had at last arrived, a strangely brilliant illumination lit up
+the log walls.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This sudden and bewildering light showed them the figure of a hunter in
+mud-spattered gray trousers, with coarse woollen stockings of lighter hue drawn
+over them above his buckskin moccasins. His battered felt hat was pushed back
+from his forehead, a guide&rsquo;s leathern wallet was slung round him, and the
+rough, clinging jersey he wore, being stretched so tightly over his swelling
+muscles that its yarn could not hold together, had a rent on one shoulder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His slate-gray eyes with jetty pupils, which were miniatures of Millinokett
+Lake at this hour, gazed at the awakened trio in the bunk, with a gleam of
+light shooting athwart them, like a moonbeam crossing the face of the lake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The hunter held in his hand a big roll of the inflammable paper-like bark of
+the white birch-tree, which he had brought in with him to kindle his fire,
+expecting that it had gone out during his absence. Seeing a glow still on the
+hearth, and feeling instantly that the cabin was tenanted, he had applied a
+match to his bark, causing the vivid flare which revealed him to the eyes of
+those who had longed for his presence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Herb Heal, man, is it you?&rdquo; shouted Cyrus, his voice like a
+midnight joy-chime, as he sprang from the fir-boughs and gripped the
+woodsman&rsquo;s arm. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m delighted to see you, though I was ready
+to swear you wouldn&rsquo;t disappoint us! I didn&rsquo;t fasten the
+cabin-door, for I thought you might possibly get back to camp during the
+night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Cyrus, old fellow, how goes it?&rdquo; was Herb&rsquo;s greeting.
+&ldquo;I had a&rsquo;most given up looking for you. But I&rsquo;m powerful glad
+you&rsquo;ve got here at last.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The hunter&rsquo;s voice had still the quick snap and force which made it
+startling as a rifleshot when he entered the cabin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;These are my friends, Neal and Adolphus Farrar,&rdquo; said Cyrus,
+introducing the blanketed youths, who had now risen to their feet. &ldquo;Boys,
+this is Herb Heal, our new guide, christened Herbert Healy&mdash;isn&rsquo;t
+that so, Herb?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I reckon it is;&rdquo; answered the young hunter, laughing. &ldquo;But
+no woodsman could spring a sugary, city-sounding name like that on me.
+I&rsquo;ve been Herb Heal from the day I could handle a rifle.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He nodded pleasantly as he spoke to the strange lads, and began to chat with
+them in prompt familiarity, looking straight and strong as a young pine-tree in
+the halo of his birch torch. Garst, whose inches his juniors had hitherto
+coveted, was but a stripling beside Herb Heal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is this your first trip into Maine woods, younkers?&rdquo; he asked.
+&ldquo;Well, I guess you&rsquo;ve come to the right place for sport. I&rsquo;m
+sorry I wasn&rsquo;t on hand to welcome you when you arrived. A pretty forest
+guide you must have thought me. But I guess I&rsquo;ll show you a sight
+to-morrow that&rsquo;ll wipe out all scores.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was such triumph in the hunter&rsquo;s eye that the voices of the trio
+blended into one as they breathlessly asked,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What sight is it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A dead king o&rsquo; the woods, boys,&rdquo; answered Herb Heal, his
+voice vibrating. &ldquo;A fine young bull-moose, as sure as this is a land of
+liberty. I dropped him by a logon on the east bank of Fir Pond, about four
+miles from here. I started out early, hoping to nab a deer; for I had no fresh
+meat left, and I didn&rsquo;t want to have a bare larder when you fellows came
+along. But the woods were awful still. There didn&rsquo;t seem to be anything
+bigger than a field-mouse travelling. Then all of a sudden I heard a tormented
+grunting, and the moose came tearing right onto me. I was to leeward of him, so
+he couldn&rsquo;t get my scent. A man&rsquo;s gun doesn&rsquo;t take long to
+fly into position at such times, and I dropped him with two shots. There he
+lies now by the water, for I couldn&rsquo;t get him back to camp till morning.
+He&rsquo;s not full-grown; but he&rsquo;s a fine fellow for all that, and has a
+dandy pair of antlers. By George! I&rsquo;d give the biggest guide&rsquo;s fees
+I ever got if you fellows had been there to hear him striking the trees with
+&rsquo;em as he tore along. He was a buster.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you&rsquo;ll see him to-morrow anyhow, and have a taste of
+moose-meat for the first time in your lives, I guess.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here Herb waved the fag-end of his bark roll, threw it down as it scorched his
+horny fingers, and stamped upon it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The interior of the log cabin, ere it was extinguished, was a scene for a
+painter,&mdash;the lithe, muscular figure, tanned face, and gleaming eyes of
+the lucky hunter shown by the flare of his birch torch, and the three staring
+listeners, with blankets draped about them, who feared to miss one point of his
+story.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cyrus was grinding his teeth in vexation that he had narrowly missed seeing the
+moose alive. The two Farrars were burning with excitement at the thought of
+beholding the monarch of the forest at all, even in death. For they had heard
+enough wood-lore to know that the bull-moose, with his extreme caution, is like
+a tantalizing phantom to hunters. Continually he lures them to disappointment
+by his uncouth noises, or by a sight of his freshly made tracks, while his
+sensitive ears and super-sensitive nose, which can discriminate between the
+smell of man and every other smell on earth, will generally lead him off like a
+wind-gust before man gets a sight of him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry to keep you awake, boys,&rdquo; said Herb Heal, making
+for the fire, after he had finished his story; &ldquo;but I haven&rsquo;t had a
+bite since morning, and I&rsquo;m that hungry I could chaw my moccasins.
+I&rsquo;ll get something to eat, and then we&rsquo;ll turn in. We&rsquo;ll have
+mighty hard work to-morrow, getting the moose to camp.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Herb was not long in making ready the stereotyped camp-fare of flapjacks and
+pork. To light his preparations, he took a candle out of a precious bundle
+which he had brought from a town a hundred miles distant, and set it in a
+primitive candlestick. This was simply a long stick of white spruce wood, one
+end of which was pointed, and stuck into the ground; the other was split, and
+into it the candle was inserted, the elasticity of the fresh wood keeping the
+light in place.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The tired hunter did not dawdle over his supper. In a quarter of an hour he had
+finished it, and was building up the fire again. Then he stretched himself
+beside the trio in the rude bunk, drawing one thin blanket over him. Neal, who
+lay on his right, was conscious of some prickings of excitement at having such
+a bedfellow on the fir-boughs,&mdash;the camper&rsquo;s couch which levels all.
+There flashed upon the fair-haired English boy a remembrance of how Cyrus had
+once said that &ldquo;in the woods manhood is the only passport.&rdquo; He
+thought that, measured by this standard, Herb Heal had truly a royal charter,
+and might be a president of the forest land; for he looked as free, strong, and
+unconquerable as the forest wind.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig15.jpg" width="400" height="168" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap15"></a>Chapter XV.<br/>A Fallen King</h2>
+
+<p>
+The hunter was the only one who slept soundly that night on the fragrant
+boughs. Nevertheless, the moose was on his mind. Again in his dreams he
+imagined himself back by the quiet, shining logon, listening to the ring of the
+antlers as they struck the trees, and to the heaving snorts and deep grunts of
+the noble game as it tore through the forest to its death.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The moose was on the minds of his companions too. Again and again they awoke,
+and pictured him lying by the pond, where he had fallen,&mdash;a dead monarch.
+They tossed and grumbled, longing for day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Neal and Dol surprised themselves and their elders by being up and dressed
+shortly after five, before a streak of light had entered the cabin. But their
+guide was not much behind them. Herb had the camp-fire going well, and was
+preparing breakfast before six o&rsquo;clock. The campers tucked away a
+substantial meal of fried pork, potatoes, and coffee. The first glories of the
+young sun fell on their way as they started across the clearing and away
+through the woods beyond, towards the distant pond where the hunter had got his
+moose.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lying amid the small growth and grasses, by a lonely, glinting logon, they
+found the conquered king, sleeping that sleep from which never sun again would
+wake him. A bullet-hole, crusted with dark blood, showed in his side. The slim
+legs were bent and stiff, and the mighty forefeet could no more strike a
+ripping blow which would end a man&rsquo;s hunting forever. The antlers which
+had made the forest ring were powerless horn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you know, boys,&rdquo; said Herb, as he stooped and touched them,
+fingering each prong, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve hunted moose in fall and winter since I
+was first introduced to a rifle. I&rsquo;ve still-hunted &rsquo;em, called
+&rsquo;em, and followed &rsquo;em on snowshoes; but I never felt so thundering
+mean about killing an animal as I did about dropping this fellow. After his
+antics in the woods, when he tramped out onto the open patch where I was
+waiting under cover of those shrubs, I popped up and covered him with my
+Winchester. He just raised the hair on his back and looked at me, with a way
+wild animals sometimes have, as if I was a bad riddle. Like as not he&rsquo;d
+never seen a human being before, and a moose&rsquo;s eyes ain&rsquo;t good for
+much as danger-signals. It&rsquo;s only when he hears or smells mischief that
+he gets mad scared.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus07"></a>
+<img src="images/illus07.jpg" width="600" height="445" alt="Illustration: " />
+<p class="caption"><b>A Fallen King.</b><br/></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I was out for meat, and bound to have it; so I pulled the trigger,
+and killed him with two shots. When the first bullet stung him he reared up,
+making a sharp noise like a wounded horse. Then he swung round as if to bolt;
+but the second went straight through his heart, and he fell where you see him
+now. I made sure that he was past kicking, and crept close to his head,
+thinking he was dead. He wasn&rsquo;t quite gone, though; for he saw me, and
+laid back his ears, the last pitiful sign a moose makes when a hunter gets the
+better of him. I tell you it made me feel bad&mdash;just for a minute.
+I&rsquo;ve got my moose for this season, and I&rsquo;m sort o&rsquo; glad that
+the law won&rsquo;t let me kill another unless it&rsquo;s a life-saving
+matter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How tall should you say this fellow was when alive?&rdquo; asked Cyrus,
+stroking the creature&rsquo;s shaggy hair, which was a rusty black in color.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh! I guess he stood about as high as a good-sized pony. But I&rsquo;ve
+shot moose which were taller than any horse. The biggest one I ever killed
+measured between seven and eight feet from the points of his hoofs to his
+shoulders, and the antlers were four feet and nine inches from tip to tip. He
+was a monster&mdash;a regular jing-swizzler! A mighty queer way I got him too!
+I&rsquo;ll tell you all about it some other time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh! you must,&rdquo; answered Garst. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll have to give us
+no end of moose-talk by the camp-fire of evenings. These English fellows want
+to learn all they can about the finest game on our continent before they go
+home.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, for evermore!&rdquo; gasped Herb, in broad amazement. &ldquo;Are
+you Britishers? And have you crossed the ocean to chase moose in Maine woods?
+My word! You&rsquo;re a gamy pair of kids. We&rsquo;ll have to try to
+accommodate you with a sight of a moose at any rate&mdash;a live one.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Though they would gladly have appropriated the compliment, the &ldquo;gamy
+kids&rdquo; were obliged to acknowledge that hunting had not been in their
+thoughts when they traversed the Atlantic. But they avowed that they were the
+luckiest fellows alive, and that the American forest-land, with its camps and
+trails and wild offspring, was such a glorious old playground that they would
+never stop singing its praises until a swarm of boys from English soil had
+tasted the novel pleasures which they enjoyed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, then, gentlemen!&rdquo; said the guide, &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t much
+idea that we&rsquo;ll be able to haul this moose along to camp whole. If I skin
+and dress him here, are you all ready to help in carrying home the meat?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The trio briskly expressed their willingness, and Herb began the dissecting
+business; while from a tree near by that strange bird which hunters call the
+&ldquo;moose-bird&rdquo; screamed its shrill &ldquo;What cheer? What
+cheer?&rdquo; with ceaseless persistence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, hold your noise, you squalling thing!&rdquo; said the guide,
+answering it back. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s good cheer this time. We&rsquo;ll have a
+feast of moose-meat to-night, and there&rsquo;ll be pickings for you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He then explained, for the benefit of the English lads, that this bird, whose
+cry is startlingly like the hunters&rsquo; translation of it, haunts the spot
+where a moose has been killed, waiting greedily for its meal off the creature
+after men have taken their share of the meat. Herb declared that it had often
+followed him for hours while he was stealthily tracking a moose, to be in at
+the death. And now it kept up the din of its unceasing question until he had
+finished his disagreeable work.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As the party started back to camp, each one weighted with forty pounds or more
+of meat, Herb carrying a double portion, with the antlers hooked upon his
+shoulders, they heard the moose-bird still insatiably shrieking &ldquo;What
+cheer?&rdquo; over its meal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say, boys,&rdquo; said the guide, as he stalked along with his heavy
+load, never blenching, &ldquo;if you want to get a pair o&rsquo; moose-antlers,
+now&rsquo;s your time. I ain&rsquo;t a-going to sell these, but I&rsquo;ll give
+&rsquo;em outright to the first fellow who can learn to call a moose
+successfully while he&rsquo;s hunting with me. I know what sort of sportsman
+Cyrus Garst is. He&rsquo;ll go
+
+prowling through the woods, starting moose and coolly letting &rsquo;em get off
+without spilling a drop of blood, while he&rsquo;s watching the length of their
+steps. I b&rsquo;lieve he&rsquo;d be a sight prouder of seeing one crunch a
+root than if he got the finest head in Maine. So here&rsquo;s your chance for a
+trophy, boys. I guess &rsquo;twill be your only one.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hurrah! I&rsquo;m in for this game!&rdquo; cried Neal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I too,&rdquo; said Cyrus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m in for it with a vengeance!&rdquo; whooped Dol. &ldquo;Though
+I&rsquo;m blessed if I&rsquo;ve a notion what &lsquo;calling a moose&rsquo;
+means.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How much have you larned, anyhow, Kid, in the bit o&rsquo; time
+you&rsquo;ve been alive?&rdquo; asked the woodsman, with good-humored sarcasm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Enough to make my fists talk to anybody who thinks I&rsquo;m a
+duffer,&rdquo; answered Dol, squaring his shoulders as if to make the most of
+himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good for you, young England!&rdquo; laughed Cyrus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Herb turned his eyes, and regarded the juvenile Adolphus with amused criticism.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Britisher or no Britisher, I&rsquo;ll allow you&rsquo;re a little
+man,&rdquo; he muttered. &ldquo;Keep a stiff upper lip, boys; we&rsquo;re not
+far from camp now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A word of cheer was needed. Not one of the trio had growled at their load, but
+the flannel shirts of the two Farrars clung wetly to their bodies. Their breath
+was coming in hard puffs through spread nostrils. A four-mile tramp through the
+woods, heavily laden with raw meat, was a novel but not an altogether
+delightful experience.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+However, the smell of moose-steak frying over their camp-fire later on fully
+compensated them for acting as butcher&rsquo;s boys. When the taste as well as
+the smell had been enjoyed, the rest which followed by the blazing birch-logs
+that evening was so full of bliss that each camper felt as if existence had at
+last drifted to a point of superb content.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Their camp-door stood open for ventilation; and a keen touch of frost, mingling
+with the night air which entered, made the fragrant warmth delightful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When supper was ended, and the tin vessels from which it had been eaten,
+together with all camp utensils, were duly cleaned, Herb seated himself on the
+middle of the bench, which he called &ldquo;the deacon&rsquo;s seat,&rdquo; and
+luxuriously lit his oldest pipe. His brawny hands had performed every duty
+connected with the meal as deftly and neatly as those of a delicate-fingered
+woman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, for downright solid comfort, boys, give me a cosey camp-fire in
+the wilderness, when a fellow is tired out after a good day&rsquo;s outing.
+City life can offer nothing to touch it,&rdquo; said Cyrus, as he spread his
+blankets near the cheerful blaze, and sprawled himself upon them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Neal and Dol followed his example. The three looked up at their guide, on whose
+weather-tanned face the fire shed wavering lights, in lazy expectation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, Herb,&rdquo; said Garst, &ldquo;we want to think of nothing but
+moose for the remainder of this trip; so go ahead, and give us some moose-talk
+to-night. Begin at the beginning, as the children say, and tell us everything
+you know about the animal.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Herb Heal swung himself to and fro upon his plank seat, drawing his pipe
+reflectively, and letting its smoke filter through his nostrils, while he
+prepared to answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said at last, slowly, &ldquo;it seems to me that a moose
+is a troublesome brute to tackle, however you take him. It&rsquo;s plaguy hard
+for a hunter to get the better of him, and if it&rsquo;s only knowledge
+you&rsquo;re after, he&rsquo;ll dodge you like a will-o&rsquo;-the-wisp till
+you get pretty mixed in your notions about his habits. I guess these English
+fellows know already that he&rsquo;s the largest animal of the deer tribe, or
+any other tribe, to be seen on this continent, and as grand game as can be
+found on any spot of this here earth. I hain&rsquo;t had a chance to chase
+lions an&rsquo; tigers; but I&rsquo;ve shot grizzlies over in Canada,&mdash;and
+that&rsquo;s scarey work, you better b&rsquo;lieve!&mdash;and I tell you
+there&rsquo;s no sport that&rsquo;ll bring out the grit and ingenuity
+that&rsquo;s in a man like moose-hunting. Now, boys, ask me any questions you
+like, an&rsquo; I&rsquo;ll try to answer &rsquo;em.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You said something to-day about moose &lsquo;crunching
+twigs,&rsquo;&rdquo; began Neal eagerly. &ldquo;Why, I always had a hazy idea
+that they fed on moss altogether, which they dug up in the winter with their
+broad antlers.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Land o&rsquo; liberty!&rdquo; ejaculated the woodsman. &ldquo;Where on
+earth do you city men pick up your notions about forest
+creatures&mdash;that&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;d like to know? A moose can&rsquo;t
+get its horns to the ground without dropping on its knees; and it can&rsquo;t
+nibble grass from the ground neither without sprawling out its long
+legs,&mdash;which for an animal of its size are as thin as
+pipe-stems,&mdash;and tumbling in a heap. So I don&rsquo;t credit that yarn
+about their digging up the moss, even when there&rsquo;s no other food to be
+had; though I can&rsquo;t say for sure it&rsquo;s not true. In summer moose
+feed about the ponds and streams, on the long grasses and lily-pads.
+They&rsquo;re at home in the water, and mighty fine swimmers; so the red men
+say that they came first from the sea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In the fall, and through the winter too, so far as I can make out, they
+eat the twigs and bark of different trees, such as white birches and poplars.
+They&rsquo;re powerful fond of moose-wood&mdash;that&rsquo;s what you call
+mountain ash. I guess it tastes to them like pie does to us.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, Dol, I feel that you&rsquo;re twitching all over with some
+question,&rdquo; said Cyrus, detecting uneasy movements on the part of the
+younger boy who lay next to him. &ldquo;What is it, Chick? Out with it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want to hear about moose-calling,&rdquo; so spoke Dol in heart-eager
+tones.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The guide swung his body to the music of a jingling laugh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh; that&rsquo;s it; is it?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re stuck on
+winning those antlers; ain&rsquo;t you, Dol? Well, calling is the
+&lsquo;moose-hunter&rsquo;s secret,&rsquo; and it&rsquo;s a secret that he
+don&rsquo;t want to give away to every one. When a man is a good caller
+he&rsquo;s kind o&rsquo; jealous about keeping the trick to himself. But
+I&rsquo;ll tell you how it&rsquo;s done, anyhow, and give you a lesson
+sometime. Sakes alive! if you Britishers could only take over a birch-bark
+trumpet, and give that call in England, you&rsquo;d make nearly as much fuss as
+Buffalo Bill did with his cowboys and Injuns. Only &rsquo;twould be a onesided
+game, for there&rsquo;d be no moose to answer.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The young Farrars were silent, breathlessly waiting for more. The
+camp-firelight showed their absorbed faces; it played upon bronzed cheeks,
+where the ruddy tints of English boyhood had been replaced by a duller, hardier
+hue. On Neal&rsquo;s upper lip a fine, fair growth had sprouted, which looked
+white against his sun-tinged skin. As for Cyrus, he had never brought a razor
+into the woods since that memorable trip when the bear had overhauled his
+knapsack; so the Bostonian&rsquo;s chin was covered with a thick black stubble.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Neither of the youths, however, was at present giving a thought to his hirsute
+adornment, about which questionable compliments were frequently bandied. Their
+minds were full of moose, and their ears alert for the guide&rsquo;s next
+words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;P&rsquo;raps you folks don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; went on the woodsman,
+&ldquo;that there are four ways o&rsquo; hunting moose. The first and fairest
+is still-hunting &rsquo;em in the woods, which means following their signs, and
+getting a shot in any way you can, <i>if</i> you can. But that&rsquo;s a stiff
+&lsquo;if&rsquo; to a hunter. Nine times out o&rsquo; ten a moose will baffle
+him and get off unhurt, even when a man has tracked him for days, camping on
+his trail o&rsquo; nights. The snapping of a twig not the size of my little
+finger, or one tramping step, and the moose&rsquo;ll take warning. He&rsquo;ll
+light out o&rsquo; the way as silently as a red man in moccasins, and the
+hunter won&rsquo;t even know he&rsquo;s gone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The second way is night-hunting, going after &rsquo;em in a canoe with a
+jack-light; same thing as jacking for deer. I guess you&rsquo;ve tried that, so
+you&rsquo;ll know what it&rsquo;s like&mdash;skeery kind o&rsquo; work.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Neal nodded an eloquent assent, and Herb went on:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The third method is a dog&rsquo;s trick. It&rsquo;s following &rsquo;em
+on snowshoes over deep snow. I&rsquo;ve tried that once, and I&rsquo;m blamed
+if I&rsquo;ll ever try it again. It&rsquo;s butchery, not sport. The crust of
+snow will be strong enough for a man to run on, but it can&rsquo;t support the
+heavy moose. The creature&rsquo;ll go smashing through it and struggling out,
+until its slim legs are a sight to see for cuts and blood. Soon it gets blowed,
+and can stumble no farther. Then the hunter finishes it with an axe.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Disgust thickened the voices of the listening three, as with one accord they
+raised an outcry against this cruel way of butchering a game animal, without
+giving it a single chance for its life. When their indignation had subsided,
+the hunter went on to describe the fourth and last method of entrapping
+moose&mdash;the calling in which Dol was so interested.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;P&rsquo;raps you won&rsquo;t think this is fair hunting either,&rdquo;
+he said; &ldquo;for it&rsquo;s a trick, and I&rsquo;ll allow that there&rsquo;s
+times when it seems a pretty mean game. Anyhow, I&rsquo;d rather kill one moose
+by still-hunting than six by calling. But if you want to try work that&rsquo;ll
+make your blood race through your body like a torrent one minute, and turn you
+as cold as if your sweat was ice-water the next, you go in for moose-calling. I
+guess you know all about the matter, Cyrus; but as these Britishers do not,
+I&rsquo;ll try and explain it to&rsquo; em.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Early in September the moose come up from the low, swampy lands where
+they have spent the summer alone, and begin to pair. Then the bull-moose, as we
+call the male, which is generally the most wide-awake of forest creatures,
+loses some of his big caution, an&rsquo; goes roaming through the woods,
+looking for a mate. This is the time for fooling him. The hunter makes a horn
+out o&rsquo; birch-bark, somewheres about eighteen inches long, through which
+he mimics the call of the cow-moose, to coax the bull within reach of his
+rifle-shots.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is the call like?&rdquo; asked Neal, his heart thumping while he
+remembered that strange noise which had marked a new era in his experience of
+sounds, as he listened to it at midnight by Squaw Pond.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sho! a man might keep jawing till crack o&rsquo; doom, and not give you
+any idea of it without you heard it,&rdquo; answered Herb Heal, the dare-all
+moose-hunter. &ldquo;The noise begins sort o&rsquo; gently, like the lowing of
+a tame cow. It seems, if you&rsquo;re listening to it, to come
+rolling&mdash;rolling&mdash;along the ground. Then it rises in pitch, and gets
+impatient and lonely and wild-like, till you think it fills the air above you,
+when it sinks again and dies away in a queer, quavery sound that ain&rsquo;t a
+sigh, nor a groan, nor a grunt, but all three together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The call is mostly repeated three times; and the third time it ends with
+a mad roar as if the lady-moose was saying to her mate, &lsquo;<i>Come</i> now,
+or stay away altogether!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Joe Flint was right, then!&rdquo; exclaimed Neal, in high excitement.
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the very noise I heard in the woods near Squaw Pond, on the
+night when we were jacking for deer, and our canoe capsized.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;P&rsquo;raps it was,&rdquo; answered Herb, &ldquo;though the woods near
+Squaw Pond ain&rsquo;t much good for moose now. They&rsquo;re too full of
+hunters. Still, you might have heard the cow-moose herself calling, or some man
+who had come across the tracks of a bull imitating her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But if the bull has such sharp ears, can&rsquo;t he tell the real call
+from the sham one?&rdquo; asked Dol.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Lots of times he can. But if the hunter is an old woodsman and a clever
+caller, he&rsquo;ll generally fool the animal, unless he makes some awkward
+noise that isn&rsquo;t in the game, or else the moose gets his scent on the
+breeze. One whiff of a man will send the creature off like a wind-gust, and
+earthquakes wouldn&rsquo;t stop him. And though he sneaks away so silently when
+he <i>hears</i> anything suspicious, yet when he <i>smells</i> danger
+he&rsquo;ll go through the forest at a thundering rush, making as much noise as
+a demented fire-brigade.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good gracious!&rdquo; ejaculated Neal and Dol together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is the moose ever dangerous, Herb?&rdquo; asked the former.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I guess he is pretty often. Sometimes a bull-moose will turn on a
+hunter, and make at him full tilt, if he&rsquo;s in danger or finds himself
+tricked. And he&rsquo;ll always fight like fury to protect his mate from any
+enemy. The bulls have awful big duels between themselves occasionally. When
+they&rsquo;re real mad, they don&rsquo;t stop for a few wounds. They prod each
+other with their terrible brow antlers till one or the other of &rsquo;em is
+stretched dead. If a moose ever charges you, boys, take my advice, and
+don&rsquo;t try to face him with your rifles. Half a dozen shots mightn&rsquo;t
+stop him. Make for the nearest tree, and climb for your lives. Fire down on him
+then, if you can. But once let him get a kick at you with his forefeet, and one
+thing is sure&mdash;<i>you&rsquo;ll</i> never kick again. Are you tired of
+moose-talk yet?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not by a jugful!&rdquo; answered Cyrus, laughing. &ldquo;But tell us,
+Herb, how are we to proceed to get a sight of this &lsquo;Jabberwock&rsquo;
+alive?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If to-morrow night happens to be dead calm, I might try to call one
+up,&rdquo; answered the guide. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a pretty good calling-place
+near the south end of the lake. As this is the height of the season, we might
+get an answer there. We&rsquo;ll try it, anyhow, if you&rsquo;re
+willing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Willing! I should say we are!&rdquo; answered Garst. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re
+our captain now, Herb, and it&rsquo;s a case of &lsquo;Follow my leader!&rsquo;
+Take us anywhere you like, through jungles or mud-swamps. We won&rsquo;t kick
+at hardships if we can only get a good look at his mooseship. Up to the
+present, except for that one moonlight peep, he has always dodged me like a
+phantom.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you going to be satisfied with a look?&rdquo; The guide&rsquo;s eyes
+narrowed into two long slits, on which the firelight quivered, as he gazed
+quizzically down upon Cyrus. &ldquo;If the moose comes within reach of our
+shots, ain&rsquo;t anybody going to pump lead into him? Or is he to get off
+again scot-free? I&rsquo;ve got my moose for this season, and I darsn&rsquo;t
+send my bullets through the law by dropping another, so I can&rsquo;t do the
+shooting.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My friends can please themselves,&rdquo; said the Bostonian, glancing at
+the English lads. &ldquo;For my own part I&rsquo;ll be better pleased if Mr.
+Moose manages to keep a whole skin. Our grand game is getting scarce enough; I
+don&rsquo;t want to lessen it. I once saw the last persecuted deer in a county,
+after it had been badgered and wounded by men and dogs, limp off to die alone
+in its native haunts. The sight cured me of bloodthirst.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I guess &rsquo;twould be enough to cure any man,&rdquo; responded Herb.
+&ldquo;And we don&rsquo;t want meat, so this time we won&rsquo;t shoot our
+moose after we&rsquo;ve tricked him. Good land! I wouldn&rsquo;t like any
+fellow to imitate the call of my best girl, that he might put a bullet through
+me. Come, boys, it&rsquo;s pretty late; let&rsquo;s fix our fire, and turn
+in.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig16.jpg" width="400" height="168" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap16"></a>Chapter XVI.<br/>Moose-Calling</h2>
+
+<p>
+Nothing was talked about among the campers on the following day but the
+forthcoming sport of the evening&mdash;moose-calling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Herb Heal had decided that his call should be given from the water, his
+&ldquo;good calling-place&rdquo; being an alder-fringed logon at the loneliest
+extremity of the lake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During the afternoon he took Neal and Dol with him into a grove of poplars and
+birches which bordered one end of the clearing, leaving Cyrus lounging by the
+camp-fire. Here the woodsman began the exciting work of preparing his
+birch-bark horn, that primitive but potent trumpet through which he would sigh,
+groan, grunt, and roar, imitating each varying mood of the cow-moose. To her
+call he had often listened as he lay for hours on a mossy bed in the far depths
+of the forest, learning to interpret the language of every woodland creature.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Unsheathing his hunting-knife, and selecting a sound white-birch tree, Herb
+carefully removed from it a piece of bark about eighteen inches in length and
+six in width. This he carefully trimmed, and rolled into a horn as a child
+would twist paper into a cornucopia package for sweets, tying it with the
+twine-like roots of the ground juniper. The tapering end of the trumpet, which
+would be applied to the caller&rsquo;s lips, measured about one inch across;
+its mouth measured five.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Returning to camp, Herb dipped the horn in warm water and then let it dry,
+saying that this would produce a mellow ring. He stoutly refused all appeals
+from the boys to give them a few illustrations of moose-calling there and then,
+with a lesson in the art, declaring that it would spoil the night&rsquo;s
+sport, and that they must first hear the call amid proper surroundings. From
+time to time he impressed upon them that they were going to engage in an
+expedition which required absolute silence and clever stratagem to make it
+successful. He vowed to wreak a woodsman&rsquo;s vengeance on any fellow who
+balked it by shaking the boat, or by moving body or rifle so as to make a
+noise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A light, humming breeze had been blowing all day; but as the afternoon waned,
+it died down. The evening proved clear, chilly, and still.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is this a likely night for calling, Herb?&rdquo; asked Cyrus anxiously,
+taking a survey of sky and lake from the camp-door about an hour before the
+start.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Fine,&rdquo; answered Herb with satisfaction. &ldquo;Guess we&rsquo;ll
+get an answer sure, if there&rsquo;s a moose within hearing. There ain&rsquo;t
+a puff of wind to carry our scent, and give the trick away. But rig yourselves
+up in all the clothing you&rsquo;ve got, boys; the cold, while we&rsquo;re
+waiting, may be more than you bargain for.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The guide had a light boat on the lake, moored below the camp. At six
+o&rsquo;clock he seated himself therein, taking the oars in his brawny hands.
+Cyrus and Neal took their places in the stern; while Dol disposed of himself
+snugly in the bow, right under a jack-lamp which Herb had carefully trimmed and
+lit. But he had closed its sliding door, which, being padded with buckskin,
+could be opened and shut without a sound, so that not a ray of light at present
+escaped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Moose won&rsquo;t stand to watch a jack as deer do,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;Twill only scare &rsquo;em off. They&rsquo;re a heap too cute to be
+taken in by an onnatural big star floating over the water. But &rsquo;taint the
+lucky side of the moon for us. She&rsquo;ll rise late, and her light&rsquo;ll
+be so feeble that it wouldn&rsquo;t show us an elephant clearly if he was under
+our noses. So if I succeed in coaxing a bull to the brink of the water,
+I&rsquo;ll open the jack, and flash our light on him. He&rsquo;ll bolt the next
+minute as quick as greased lightning on skates; but if you only get a short
+sight of him, I promise that &rsquo;twill be one you&rsquo;ll remember.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And if he should take a notion to come for us?&rdquo; said Cyrus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He won&rsquo;t, if we don&rsquo;t fire. The boat will be lying among the
+black shadows, snug in by the bank, and he&rsquo;ll see nothing but the
+dazzling light. But you fellows must keep still as death. Off we go now, boys,
+and mum&rsquo;s the word!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was almost the last sentence spoken. Not a syllable moved the lips of any
+one of the four, as the boat glided away from camp towards the south end of the
+lake, the oars making scarcely a sound as Herb handled them. By and by he
+ceased rowing for an instant, took his pipe from his mouth, knocked out its
+ashes, and put it in his pocket with a wise look at his companions, murmuring,
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t want no tobacco incense floating around!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the same time, from a distant ridge upon the eastern shore, covered with
+evergreens which stood out like dark steeples against the evening sky, came a
+faint, dull noise, as if some belated woodsman was driving a blunt axe against
+a tree. The sound itself would scarcely have awakened a hope of anything
+unusual in the minds of the inexperienced; but, combined with the guide&rsquo;s
+aspect as he pocketed his pipe, it made Cyrus and his comrades sit suddenly
+erect, listening as if ears were the only organs they possessed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The queer, dull noise was once repeated. Then again there was silence almost
+absolute, Herb&rsquo;s oars moving with the softest swish imaginable, as the
+boat skimmed along the lonely, curved bay which he had chosen for a
+calling-place. It came to a stop amid shadows so dense and black that they
+seemed almost tangible, close to a bank fringed with overhanging bushes, having
+a background of evergreens. These last, in the fast-gathering darkness, looked
+like a sable array of mourners in whose ranks a pale ghost or two mingled, the
+spectres being slim white-birch trees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The opposite bank presented a similar scene.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was amid such surroundings that Neal Farrar heard for the second time in his
+life the weird sound of the moose-hunter&rsquo;s call. He was a strong,
+well-balanced young fellow; yet here again he knew the sensation as if needles
+were pricking him all over, which he had felt once before in these wilds, while
+his heart seemed to be performing athletic sports in his body.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cyrus and Dol confessed afterwards that they were &ldquo;all shivers and
+goose-flesh&rdquo; as the call rose upon the night air.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After he had shipped his oars, and laid them down, Herb Heal noiselessly turned
+his body to face the bow, and took up the birch-bark horn which lay beside him.
+He breathed into it anxiously once or twice, then paused, drew in all the air
+which his big lungs could contain, put the trumpet again to his lips with its
+mouth pointing downward, and began his summons.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first part of the call lasted half a minute, or so, without a break. During
+its execution the hunter moved his neck and shoulders first to the left, then
+to the right, and slowly raised the horn above his head, the rolling, plaintive
+sounds with which he commenced gathering power and pitch with the ascending
+motion. As the birch trumpet pointed straight upward, they seemed to sweep
+aloft in a surging crescendo, and boom among the tree-tops.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Carrying his head again to the left and right, Herb gradually lowered the horn
+until it was once more pointed towards the bottom of the boat, having in its
+movements described in the air a big figure of eight. The call sank with it,
+and died away in a lonely, sighing, quavering grunt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two seconds&rsquo; pause, two slow, great throbs of the boys&rsquo; hearts, so
+loud that they threatened to burst the stillness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the call began again, low and grumbling. Again it rose, swelled, quavered,
+and sank, full of lonely longing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A third time it surged up, and ended abruptly in a wild, ear-splitting roar,
+which struck the tops of distant hills, and rolled off in thunder-like echoes
+among them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Silence followed. Not a gasp came from Herb after his efforts. Cyrus and the
+Farrars tried to still their heaving chests, while each quick breath was an
+expectation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An answer! Surely it was an answer! The boys never doubted it; though the
+responding sound they caught was only a repetition of that far-away chopping
+noise, which resembled the heavy thud of an axe against wood. This came
+nearer&mdash;nearer. It was followed once by a sort of short, sharp bark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the motionless occupants of the boat heard random, guttural grunts, a
+smashing of dead branches, crashing of undergrowth, and the proud ring of
+mighty antlers against the trees. The lord of the forest, a big bull-moose, was
+tearing recklessly through the woods towards the lake, in answer to the call of
+his imaginary mate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To say that the hearts of our trio were performing gymnastic feats during these
+awfully silent minutes of waiting, is to say little. All the repressed motion
+of their bodies seemed concentrated in these organs, which raced, leaped,
+stopped short, and pounded, vibrating to such questions as:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will he come? Where shall we first see him? How near is he now? Does he
+suspect the trick? Will he give us the slip after all?&mdash;<i>Has he
+gone</i>?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For of a sudden dead stillness reigned in the forest. No more trampling,
+grunting, and knocking of antlers. The spirits of the three sank to zero. Their
+breathing became thick. The blood, which a moment before had played like
+wildfire in their veins, now stirred sluggishly as if it was freezing.
+Disappointment, blank and bitter, shivered through them from neck to foot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So passed quarter of an hour. A filmy mist rose from the surface of the water,
+and drifted by their faces like the brushing of cold wings. For lack of motion
+hand and feet felt numb. Mid the pitch-black shadows, snug in by the bank, no
+man could see the face of his fellow, though the trio would have given a
+fortune to read their guide&rsquo;s. Not a word was spoken. Once, when a deep
+breath of impatience escaped him, Neal heard the folds of his coat rub each
+other, and clenched his teeth to stop an exclamation at the sound, which he had
+never noticed before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nearly twenty minutes had elapsed since the last noise had been heard in the
+woods, when Herb took up the horn which he had laid down, and put it to his
+mouth. Again the call rolled up. It was neither loud nor long this time, ending
+with a quick, short roar.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As it ceased the guide plunged his arm into the water and slowly withdrew it,
+letting drops dribble from his fingers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The novices could only suspect that this manoeuvre was another lure for the
+bull-moose, if he chanced to be still within hearing. Its success took their
+breath away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The wary bull which had answered, having doubtless harbored a suspicion that
+all was not exactly right with the first call, had halted in his on-coming
+rush, with head upreared, and nostrils spread, trying to catch any taint in the
+air which might warn him of danger. But in the dead calm the heavy evergreens
+stirred not; no whiff reached him. The second call upset his prudence. Then he
+heard that splash and dribble in the water, and imagined that his impatient
+mate was dipping her nose into the lake for a cool drink.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A snort! A bellowing challenge quite indescribable! On he came again with a
+thundering rush!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bushes were thrashed and spurned by his sharp hoofs. Branches snapped. Trees
+echoed as his antlers struck them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A musk-rat leaped from the bank ahead, and dived to reach his hole in the bank.
+Under cover of the noisy splash which the little creature made, one whisper was
+hissed by Herb&rsquo;s tongue into the ears of his comrades. It was:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Gee whittaker! he&rsquo;s a big one! Listen to them shovels against the
+trees!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A minute later, with a deep gulp of intense excitement, and a general racket as
+if an engine had broken loose from brakes and checks, and was carrying all
+before it, the monarch of the woods crashed through the alders and halted, with
+his hoofs in the water, scarcely thirty yards from where the boat lay in
+shadow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was a supreme moment for our travellers. Leaning forward, fearful lest
+their heart-beats should betray them, they could barely distinguish the
+outlines of the moose, as he stood with his enormous nose high in air, giving
+vent to deep gulps and grunts, and looking to right and left in bewilderment
+for that cow which he had heard calling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For fully five minutes he stood thus, badly puzzled, now and again stamping a
+hoof, and scattering spray in rising wrath. Then Herb bent forward, shot out a
+long arm, and silently opened the jack.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meteor-like its silver light flashed forth, to reveal a sight which could never
+be wiped from the memories of the beholders, though it affected each of them
+differently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Herb Heal involuntarily gripped the loaded rifle which lay beside him,&mdash;he
+was too wary a woodsman to be unprepared for emergencies; but he did not cock
+it, for he remembered the law, and the bargain which he had made about
+to-night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cyrus&rsquo;s eyes gleamed like fires in a face pale from eagerness, as he
+strove in a minute of time to take in every feature of the monster before him,
+from hoof to horn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Neal sat as if paralyzed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol&mdash;well, Dol lost his head a bit. A deep, throaty gulp, which was a weak
+reproduction of the sound made by the moose, as if the boy and the animal were
+sharing the same throes of excitement, burst from him. There was a rattle and
+struggle of his vocal organs, which in another second would have become a
+shout, had not Herb&rsquo;s masterful left hand gripped him. Its touch held in
+check the speech which Dol could no longer control.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The moose was a big one, &ldquo;about as big as they grow,&rdquo; as the guide
+afterwards declared. Under the jack-light he looked a regular behemoth. He must
+have been over seven feet high at the shoulders, for he was taller than the
+tallest horse the boys had ever seen. His black mane bristled. His antlers were
+thrown back. His great nose, with its dilated nostrils, looked as if it were
+drinking in every scent of the night world. His eyes had a green glare in them,
+as for ten seconds he gazed at the strange light which had suddenly burst into
+view, its silver radiance so dazzling him that he saw not the screened boat
+beneath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the rash noise which Dol made his ears twitched. He splashed a step forward
+as if to investigate matters, seeing which, Herb held his Winchester in
+readiness to fly to his shoulder at a moment&rsquo;s notice. But the moose
+evidently regarded the jack-lamp as a supernatural, terrible phenomenon. He
+shrank from it as man might shrink beneath a flaming heaven.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With one more despairing look right and left for that phantom cow which had
+deluded him, he wheeled around, and crashed back into the forest, tearing away
+more rapidly than he came.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s off now, and Heaven knows when he&rsquo;ll stop!&rdquo; said
+Herb, breaking the weird spell of silence. &ldquo;Not till he reaches some lair
+where nary a creature could follow him. Well, boys, you&rsquo;ve seen the
+grandest game on this continent, the king o&rsquo; the woods. What do you think
+of him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All tongues were loosened together. There was a general shifting of cramped
+bodies, accompanied by a gust of exclamations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He was a monster!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He was a behemoth!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh! but you&rsquo;re a conjurer, Herb. How on earth did you give such a
+fetching call?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I could never have believed that those sounds came from a human throat
+and a birch-bark horn, if I hadn&rsquo;t been sitting in the boat with
+you!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When there was a break in the excited chorus, Herb, without answering the
+compliments to his calling powers, asked quietly,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t you think we&rsquo;d lost him, boys, when he stopped short
+in the middle of his rush, and you heard nothing?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We just did,&rdquo; answered Cyrus. &ldquo;That was the longes half-hour
+I ever put in. What made him do it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I guess he was kind o&rsquo; criticising my music,&rdquo; said the
+guide, laughing. &ldquo;Mebbe I got in a grunt or two that wasn&rsquo;t
+natural, and the old boy wasn&rsquo;t satisfied with his sweetheart&rsquo;s
+voice. He was sniffing the air, and waiting to hear more. But
+&rsquo;twasn&rsquo;t more &rsquo;n twenty minutes before I gave the second
+call, though no doubt it seemed longer to you. A man must be in good training
+to get the better of a moose&rsquo;s ears and nose.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to get the better of them before I leave these
+woods!&rdquo; cried Dol, who was still puffing and gasping with intense
+excitement. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll learn to call up a moose, if I crack my windpipe
+in doing it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hurrah for the Boy Moose-Caller!&rdquo; jeered Cyrus, with a teasing
+laugh, which Neal echoed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Herb Heal, who had from the beginning regarded &ldquo;the kid of the
+camp&rdquo; with favor, suddenly became his champion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t let &rsquo;em down you, Dol,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I hate
+to hear a youngster, or a man, &lsquo;talk fire,&rsquo; as the Injuns say,
+which means <i>brag</i>, if he&rsquo;s a coward or a chump; but I guess you
+ain&rsquo;t either. Here we are at camp, boys! I
+
+tell you the home-camp is a pleasant sort of place, after you&rsquo;ve been out
+moose-calling!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thereupon ensued loud cheers for the home-camp, the boys feeling that they were
+letting off steam, and atoning for that long spell of silence, which had been a
+positive hardship. In the midst of an echoing hubbub the boat was hauled up and
+moored, and the party reached their log shelter.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig17.jpg" width="400" height="165" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap17"></a>Chapter XVII.<br/>Herb&rsquo;s Yarns</h2>
+
+<p>
+The following day was spent by our trio in exploring the woods near Millinokett
+Lake, in listening to more moose-talk, and in attempting the trick of calling.
+Herb gave them many persistent lessons, making the sounds which he had made on
+the preceding night, with and without the horn, and patiently explaining the
+varied language of grunts, groans, sighs, and roars in which the cow-moose
+indulges.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Perhaps the woodsman expended extra pains on the teaching of his youngest
+pupil, whom he had championed. And certainly Dol&rsquo;s own talent for mimicry
+came to his aid. No matter to what cause the success was
+
+due, each one allowed that Dol made a brilliant attempt to get hold of
+&ldquo;the moose-hunter&rsquo;s secret,&rdquo; and give a natural call.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy had been a genius at imitating the voices of English birds and animals;
+many a trick had he played on his schoolfellows with his carols and howls. And
+his proficiency in this line was a good foundation on which to work.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll get there, boy,&rdquo; said Herb, surveying him with
+approval, as he stood outside the camp-door with the moose-horn to his lips.
+&ldquo;Make believe that there&rsquo;s a moose on the opposite shore of the
+lake now, and give the whole call, from start to finish.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Whereupon Dol slowly carried his head to left and right, as he had seen the
+guide do on the previous night, raising and lowering the horn until it had
+described an enormous figure of eight in the air, while he groaned, sighed,
+rasped, and bellowed with a plaintive intensity of expression, which caused his
+brother and his friend to shriek with laughter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll get there, Kid,&rdquo; repeated the woodsman, with a great
+triumphant guffaw. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll be able to give a fetching call sooner
+than either of the others. But be careful how you use the trick, or
+you&rsquo;ll be having the breath kicked out of you some day by a moose&rsquo;s
+forefeet.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For days afterwards, the birch-bark horn was rarely out of Dol Farrar&rsquo;s
+hands. The boy was so entranced with the new musical art he was mastering,
+which would be a means of communication between him and the behemoth of the
+woods, that he haunted the edges of the forest about the clearing, keeping
+aloof from his brother and friend, practising unceasingly, sometimes under
+Herb&rsquo;s supervision, sometimes alone. He learned to imitate every sound
+which the guide made, working in touching quavers and inflections that must tug
+at the heart-strings of any listening moose. He learned to give the call,
+squatting Indian fashion, in a very uncomfortable position, behind a screen of
+bushes. He learned to copy, not the cow&rsquo;s summons alone, but the
+bull&rsquo;s short challenge too; and to rasp his horn against a tree, in
+imitation of a moose polishing its antlers for battle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And now, for the first time, Dol Farrar of Manchester regarded his education as
+complete. He was prouder of this forest accomplishment, picked up in the wilds,
+than of all triumphs over problems and &rsquo;ologies at his English school. He
+had not been a laggard in study, either.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the finishing of Dol&rsquo;s education had one bad result. If there
+happened to be another moose travelling through the adjacent forests, he
+evidently thought that all this random calling was too much of a good thing,
+had his suspicions aroused, and took himself oft to wilder solitudes. Though
+the guide tried his powers in persuasive summons every night at various
+calling-places, he could not again succeed in getting an answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last, on a certain evening, after supper, a solemn camp-council was held
+around an inspiring fire, and Herb Heal suggested that if his party were really
+bent on seeing a moose again, before they turned their faces homeward, they had
+better rise early the following morning, shoulder their knapsacks, and set out
+to do a few days&rsquo; hunting amid the dense woods near the base of Katahdin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I killed the biggest bull-moose I ever saw, on Togue Ponds, in that
+region,&rdquo; said the guide meditatively; &ldquo;and I got him in a queer
+way. I b&rsquo;lieve I promised to tell you that yarn.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course you did!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s have it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go ahead, Herb! Don&rsquo;t shorten it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus encouraged by the eager three, the woodsman began:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is five years now, boys, since I spent a fall and winter trapping in
+them woods we were speaking of&mdash;I and another fellow. We had two
+home-camps, which were our headquarters, snug log shelters, one on Togue Ponds,
+the other on the side of Katahdin. As sure as ever the sun went down on a
+Saturday night, we two trappers met at one or other of these home-camps; though
+during the week we were mostly apart. For we had several lines of traps, which
+covered big distances in various directions; and on Monday morning I used to
+start one way, and my chum another, to visit these. Generally it took us five
+or six days to make the rounds of them. While we were on our travels we&rsquo;d
+sleep with a blanket round us, under any shelter we could rig up,&mdash;a few
+spruce-boughs or a bark hut. When the snow came, we were forced to shorten our
+trips, so as to reach one of the home-camps each night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, it was early in the season, one fine fall evening, that I was
+crossing Togue Ponds in a canoe. I had been away on the tramp for a&rsquo;most
+a week; and though I had a rifle and axe with me, I had nary an ounce of
+ammunition left. All of a sudden I caught sight of a moose, feeding on some
+lily-roots in deep water. Jest at first I was a bit doubtful whether it was a
+moose or not; for the creature&rsquo;s head was under, and I could only see his
+shoulders. I stopped paddling. I tried to stop breathing. Next, I felt like
+jumping out of my skin; for, with a big splash, up come a pair of antlers a
+good five feet across, dripping with water, and a&rsquo;most covered with green
+roots and stems, which dangled from &rsquo;em.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good land! &rsquo;twas a queer sight. &lsquo;Herb Heal,&rsquo; thinks I,
+&lsquo;now&rsquo;s your chance! If you can only manage to nab that moose-head,
+you&rsquo;ll get two hundred dollars for it at Greenville, sure!&rsquo; And
+mighty few cents I had jest then.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I could a&rsquo;most have cried over my tough luck in not having one
+dose of lead left. But the bull&rsquo;s back was towards me. The water filled
+his ears and nose, so that he couldn&rsquo;t hear or smell. And he was having a
+splendid tuck-in. It was big sport to hear him crunch those lily-roots.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should think it was!&rdquo; burst out Cyrus enviously. &ldquo;But did
+you have the heart to kill him in cold blood, in the middle of his meal?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did. I guess I wouldn&rsquo;t do it now; anyhow, not unless I was very
+badly off for food. But I had an old mother living at Greenville that
+time,&rdquo;&mdash;here there was the least possible tremble in the
+woodsman&rsquo;s voice,&mdash;&ldquo;and while I paddled alongside the moose,
+without making a sound, I was thinking that the price I&rsquo;d be sure to get
+from some city swell for the head would come in handy to make her comfortable.
+The creature never suspicioned danger till I was close to him, and had my axe
+lifted, ready to strike. Then up came his head. Out went his forefeet. Over
+spun the canoe. There was as big a commotion as if a whale was there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I managed to keep behind the brute so as to dodge his kicks; and
+gripping the axe in one hand, I dug the other into his long hair. He was mad
+scared. He started to swim for the opposite shore, which was about half a mile
+distant, with me in tow, snorting like a locomotive. As his feet touched ground
+near the bank, I jumped upon his back. With one blow of the axe I split his
+spine. Perhaps you&rsquo;ll think that was awful cruel, but it wasn&rsquo;t
+done for the glory of killing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what became of the head? Did you sell it?&rdquo; asked Dol, who was,
+as usual, the first to break a breathless silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was no reply. Herb feigned not to hear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did you get two hundred dollars for the head?&rdquo; questioned the
+impetuous youngster again, in a higher key, his curiosity swelling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t. It was stole.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The answer was a growl, like the growl of a hurt animal whose sore has been
+touched. The tone of it was so different from the woodsman&rsquo;s generally
+strong, happy-go-lucky manner of speech, that Dol blenched as if he had been
+struck.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who stole it?&rdquo; he gasped, after a minute, scarcely knowing that he
+spoke aloud.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Unnoticed in the firelight, Cyrus clapped a strong hand over the boy&rsquo;s
+mouth, to stifle further questions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Keep still!&rdquo; he whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Herb, who was, as usual, perched upon the &ldquo;deacon&rsquo;s
+seat,&rdquo; leaned forward, with a laugh which was more than half a snarl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who stole it?&rdquo; he echoed. &ldquo;Why, the other fellow&mdash;my
+chum; the man whom I carried for a mile on my back, through a snow-heaped
+forest, the first time I saw him,
+
+when I had lugged him out of a heavy drift. <i>He</i> stole it, Kid, and
+a&rsquo;most everything I owned with it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus08"></a>
+<img src="images/illus08.jpg" width="600" height="442" alt="Illustration: " />
+<p class="caption"><b>The Camp On Millinokett Lake.</b><br/></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+With a savage kick of his moccasined foot, the woodsman suddenly assaulted a
+blazing log. It sent a shower of sparks aloft, and caused a bright flame to
+shoot, rocket-like, from the heart of the fire, which showed the guide&rsquo;s
+face. His fine eyes reminded Cyrus of Millinokett Lake when a thunder-storm
+broke over it. Their gray was dark and troubled; the black pupils seemed to
+shrink, as if a tempest beat on them; fierce flashes of light played through
+them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Muttering a half-smothered oath, Herb flung himself off his bench, stamped
+across the cabin to the open camp-door, and passed into the darkness outside.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boys, who had been stretched out in comfortable positions, drew themselves
+bolt upright, and sat aghast. They stared towards the camp-door, murmuring
+disjointedly. Into the mind of each flashed a remembrance of some story which
+Doctor Phil had told about a thieving partner who once robbed Herb Heal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve stirred up more than you bargained for, Dol,&rdquo; said
+Cyrus. &ldquo;I wish to goodness you hadn&rsquo;t been so smart with your
+questions.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the words were scarcely spoken when the guide was again in their midst,
+with a smile on his lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s best to let sleeping dogs lie, young one,&rdquo; he said,
+looking down reassuringly on Dol, who was feeling dumfounded. &ldquo;I guess
+you all think I&rsquo;m an awful bearish fellow. But if you had lived the
+lonely life of a trapper, tramping each day through the dark woods till you
+were leg-weary, visiting your steel traps and deadfalls, all to get a few furs
+and make a few dollars; and turned up at camp one evening to find that your
+partner had skipped with every skin you had procured, I reckon &rsquo;twould
+take you a plaguy long time to get over it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m pretty sure it would, old man,&rdquo; said Cyrus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I minded the loss of the furs a sight less than I minded losing that
+moose-head,&rdquo; continued Herb, taking his perch again upon the
+&ldquo;deacon&rsquo;s seat.&rdquo; &ldquo;The hound took &rsquo;em all. Every
+woodsman in Maine was riled about it at the time, and turned out to ketch him;
+but he gave &rsquo;em the slip. Now, boys, I&rsquo;ve got to feeling pretty
+chummy with you. Cyrus is an old friend; and, to speak plain, I like you
+Britishers. I don&rsquo;t want you to think that I bust up your fun to-night
+for nothing. I&rsquo;ll tell you the whole yarn if you want to hear it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The looks of the trio were sufficient assent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right, boys. Here goes! Since I was a kid in Maine woods I&rsquo;ve
+worked at a&rsquo;most everything that a woodsman can do. Six year ago I was a
+&lsquo;barker&rsquo; in a lumber-camp on the Kennebec River. A
+&lsquo;barker&rsquo; is a man who jumps onto a big tree after a chopper has
+felled it, and strips the bark off with his axe, so that the trunk can be
+easily hauled over the snow. Well, it&rsquo;s pretty hard labor, is lumbering.
+But our camp always got Sunday for rest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I was prowling about in the woods by myself one Sunday afternoon,
+when an awful snow-storm come on, a big blizzard which staggered the stripped
+trees like as if &rsquo;twould tumble &rsquo;em all down, and end our work for
+us. I was bolting for camp as fast as I was able, when I tripped over something
+which was a&rsquo;most covered over in a heavy drift. &lsquo;Great
+Scott!&rsquo; says I, &lsquo;it&rsquo;s a man!&rsquo; And &rsquo;twas too. He
+was near dead. I hauled him out, and set him on his legs; but he couldn&rsquo;t
+walk. So I threw him across my shoulders, same way as I carry a deer. He
+didn&rsquo;t weigh near as much as a good buck, for he was little more&rsquo;n
+a kid and awful lean. But &rsquo;twas dreadful travelling, with the snow half
+blinding and burying you. I was plumb blowed when I struck the camp, and
+pitched in head foremost.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;For an hour we worked over that stranger to bring him round, and we
+succeeded. We saw at once that he was a half-breed. When he could use his
+tongue, he told us that his father was a settler, and his mother a Penobscot
+Indian. He was sick for a spell and wild-like, then he talked a lot of Indian
+jargon; but when he got back his senses, he spoke English fust-rate. Chris Kemp
+he said was his name. And from the start the lumbermen nicknamed him
+&lsquo;Cross-eyed Chris; for his eyes, which were black as blackberries, had a
+queer squint in &rsquo;em.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, in spite of the squint, I took to Chris, and he to me. And the
+following year, when I decided to give up lumbering, and take to trapping
+fur-bearing animals in the woods near Katahdin, he joined me. We swore to be
+chums, to stick to each other through thick and thin, to share all we got;
+
+and he made one of his outlandish Indian signs to strengthen the oath. A fine
+way he kept it too!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, if I&rsquo;m too long-winded, boys, say so; and I&rsquo;ll hurry
+up.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no! Tell us everything.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Spin it out as long as you can.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t mind listening half the night. Go ahead!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this gust of protest Herb smiled, though rather soberly, and went ahead as
+he was bidden.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We made camp together&mdash;him and me. We had two home-camps where I
+told you, and met at the end of each week, bringing the skins we had taken,
+which we stored in one of &rsquo;em. We got along together swimmingly for a
+bit. But Chris had a weakness which I had found out long before. I guess he
+took it from his mother&rsquo;s people. Give him one drink of whiskey, and it
+stirred up all the mud that was in him. There&rsquo;s mud in every man, I
+s&rsquo;pose; and there&rsquo;s nothing like liquor for bringing it to the
+surface. A gulp of fire-water changed Chris from an honest, right-hearted
+fellow to a crazy devil. This had set the lumbermen against him. But I hoped
+that in the lonely woods where we trapped he wouldn&rsquo;t get a chance to see
+the stuff. He did, though, and when I wasn&rsquo;t there to make a fight
+against his swallowing it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It happened that one week he got back to our camp on Togue
+Ponds,&mdash;where most of our stuff was stored, and where I kept that
+moose-head, waiting for a chance to take it down to Greenville,&mdash;a day or
+two sooner&rsquo;n me. And the worst luck that ever attended either of us
+brought a stranger to the camp at the same time, to shelter for a night. He was
+an explorer, a city swell; and I guess he didn&rsquo;t know much about Injuns
+or half-breeds, for he gave Chris a little bottle of fiery whiskey as a parting
+present. The man told me about it afterwards, and that he was kind o&rsquo;
+scared when the boy&mdash;for he wasn&rsquo;t much more&mdash;swallowed it with
+two gulps, and then followed him into the woods, howling, capering, and
+offering to sell him my grand moose-head, and all the furs we had, for another
+drink of the burning stuff. I guess that stranger felt pretty sick over the
+mischief he had done. He refused to buy &rsquo;em. But when I got back to camp
+next day, to find the skins gone, antlers gone, Chris gone; when I ran across
+the traveller and ferreted out his story,&mdash;I knew, as well as if I seen
+it, that my partner had skipped with all my belongings, to sell &rsquo;em or
+trade &rsquo;em at some settlement for more liquor. We had a couple of big
+birch canoes,&mdash;one of &rsquo;em was missing too,&mdash;and a river being
+near, the thing could be easy managed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll allow that I raged tremendous. The losses were bad; but to be
+robbed by your own chum, the man you had saved and stuck to, the only being you
+had said a word to for months, was sickening. I swore I&rsquo;d shoot the hound
+if I found him. I spread the news at every camp and farm-settlement through the
+forest country, and we had a rousing hunt after the fellow; but he gave us the
+slip, though I heard of him afterwards at a distant town, where he sold the
+furs.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose he left the State,&rdquo; said Cyrus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I guess he did. But for a big while I used to think he&rsquo;d come back
+to our camp some day, and let me have it out with him; for he wasn&rsquo;t a
+coward, and we had been fast chums.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And he didn&rsquo;t?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not as I know of. The next year I gave up trapping, which was an awful
+cruel as well as a lonely business, and took to moose-hunting
+
+and guiding. I haven&rsquo;t been anear the old camps for ages.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps you will come across him again some day,&rdquo; suggested Dol,
+with unusual timidity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;P&rsquo;raps so, Kid. And, faith, when I think of that, it seems as if
+there were two creatures inside o&rsquo; me fighting tooth and claw. One is all
+for hammering him to a jelly. The other is sort o&rsquo; pitiful, and says,
+&lsquo;Mebbe &rsquo;twasn&rsquo;t out-an&rsquo;-out his fault.&rsquo; Which of
+them two&rsquo;ll get the best of it, if ever I&rsquo;m face to face with
+Cross-eyed Chris, I dunno.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cyrus Garst rose suddenly. He kicked the camp-fire to make a blaze, then looked
+the woodsman fair in the eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know, Herb,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;the spirit of mercy will
+conquer.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Glad you think so!&rdquo; answered Herb. &ldquo;But I ain&rsquo;t so
+sure. Sho! boys, I&rsquo;ve kept you up till near midnight with my yarns. We
+must go to roost quick, or you&rsquo;ll never be fit to light out for Katahdin
+to-morrow.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig18.jpg" width="400" height="165" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap18"></a>Chapter XVIII.<br/>To Lonelier Wilds</h2>
+
+<p>
+Before daybreak next morning Herb Heal was astir. Apparently even a short
+night&rsquo;s sleep had driven from him all disturbing memories. He whistled
+and hummed softly, like the strong, hopeful fellow he was, controlling his
+notes so that they should not awaken his companions, while he hauled out and
+overlooked the canvas for a tent, to see if it was sound. Next he surveyed the
+camp-stores, and put up a supply of flour, pork, and coffee in a canvas bag,
+enough for four persons to subsist upon with economy during an excursion of six
+or seven days. For he knew that his employers would follow his suggestion, and
+be eager to start for the woods near Katahdin soon after they got their eyes
+open.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had been doing his work with a candle held in his brown fingers; but as
+dawn-light began to enter the cabin, he quenched its dingy, yellow flicker,
+opened the camp-door, and surveyed the morning sky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;ll be a good day to start out, I guess,&rdquo; he muttered.
+&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s see, what time is it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The stars had not yet paled, and Herb forthwith fell to studying them; for they
+were his jewelled time-piece, by which he could tell the hour so long as they
+shone. Watch he had none.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While he gazed aloft at the glinting specks, he unconsciously began to croon,
+in a powerful bass voice, with deep gutturals, some words which certainly
+weren&rsquo;t woodsman&rsquo;s English.
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;<i>N&rsquo;loan pes-saus, mok glint ont-aven,<br/>
+Glint ont-aven, nosh morgan</i>.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What on earth is that outlandish thing you&rsquo;re singing,
+Herb?&rdquo; roared Neal Farrar from the bunk, awakened by the sounds.
+&ldquo;Give us that stave again&mdash;do!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The guide started. He had scarcely been aware of what he was humming, and his
+laugh was a trifle disconcerted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So you&rsquo;re waking up, are ye?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Tain&rsquo;t
+time to be stirring yet; I ought to be kicked for making such a row.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But what&rsquo;s that you were singing?&rdquo; reiterated Neal.
+&ldquo;The words weren&rsquo;t English, and they had a fine sort of
+roll.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They&rsquo;re Injun,&rdquo; was the answer. &ldquo;I guess &rsquo;twas
+all the talking I done last night that brung &rsquo;em into my head. I picked
+&rsquo;em up from that fellow I was telling you about. He&rsquo;d start
+crooning &rsquo;em whenever he looked at the stars to find out the hour.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are they about the stars?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I guess so. A city man, who had studied the redskins&rsquo; language a
+lot, told me they meant:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&lsquo;We are the stars which sing,<br/>
+We sing with our light.&rsquo;&rdquo;<a href="#fn-2" name="fnref-2"
+id="fnref-2"><sup>[2]</sup></a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-2" id="fn-2"></a> <a href="#fnref-2">[2]</a>
+Mr. Leland&rsquo;s translation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Herb chanted the two lines again in the original tongue.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There was quite a lot more,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;but I can&rsquo;t
+remember it. I learned some queer jargon from Chris, and how to make most of
+the signs belonging to the Indian sign-talk. The fellow had more of his mother
+than his father in him. I guess I&rsquo;d better give over jabbering, and cook
+our breakfast.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was evident that Herb did not want to dwell upon his reminiscences. And Neal
+had tact enough to swallow his burning curiosity about all things Indian. He
+asked no more questions, but rolled off the fir-boughs, and dressed himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cyrus and Dol sprang up too. All three were soon busy helping forward
+preparations for the start. They packed their knapsacks with a few necessaries;
+and after a hearty breakfast had been eaten,&mdash;their last meal off
+moose-steaks for a while, as Herb informed them he &ldquo;could not carry any
+fresh meat along,&rdquo;&mdash;the guide&rsquo;s voice was heard
+shouting:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ready, are ye, boys? Got all yer traps? Here, Cyrus, jest strap this
+pack-basket on my shoulders. Now we&rsquo;re off!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The pack contained the tent, the camp-kettle, and frying-pan, together with the
+aforementioned provisions, a good axe, etc. It was an uncomfortable load, even
+for a woodsman&rsquo;s shoulders. But Herb strode ahead with it jauntily. And
+many times during that first day&rsquo;s tramp of a dozen miles, his
+comrades&mdash;as they trudged through rugged places after him, spots where it
+was hard to keep one&rsquo;s perpendicular, and feet sometimes showed a sudden
+inclination to start for the sky&mdash;threw envious glances at his tall
+figure, &ldquo;straight as an Indian arrow,&rdquo; his powerful limbs, and
+unerring step. Even the horny, capable hands came in for a share of the
+admiration.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I guess anything that got into your grip, Herb, would find it hard to
+get out again without your will,&rdquo; said Cyrus, studying the knotted fists
+which held the straps of the pack-basket.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mebbe so,&rdquo; answered the guide frankly. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve a sort of
+a trick of holding on to things once I&rsquo;ve got &rsquo;em. P&rsquo;raps
+that was why I didn&rsquo;t let go of Chris in that big blizzard till I landed
+him at camp. But I hope&rdquo;&mdash;here Herb&rsquo;s shoulders shook with
+heaving laughter, and the cooking utensils in his pack jingled an
+accompaniment&mdash;&ldquo;I hope I ain&rsquo;t like a miserly fellow we had in
+our lumber-camp. He was awful pious about some things, and awful mean about
+others. So the boys said, &lsquo;he kept the Sabbath and everything else he
+could lay his hands upon.&rsquo; He used to get riled at it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not that I&rsquo;ve a word to say against keeping Sunday,&rdquo; went on
+Herb, in a different key. &ldquo;Tell you what, out here a fellow thinks a heap
+of his day o&rsquo; rest, when his legs can stop tramping, and his mind get a
+chance to do some tall thinking. Now, boys, we&rsquo;ve covered twelve good
+miles since we left Millinokett Lake, and you needn&rsquo;t go any farther
+to-day unless you&rsquo;ve a mind to. We can make camp right here, near that
+stream. It will be nice, cold drinking-water, for it has meandered down from
+Katahdin.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He pointed to a brook a little way ahead, shimmering in the rays of the
+afternoon sun, of which they caught stray peeps through the gaps in an
+intervening wall of pines and hemlocks. A few minutes brought them to its
+brink. Tired and parched from their journey, each one stooped, and quenched his
+thirst with a delicious, ice-cold draught.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was there ever a soda-fountain made that could give a drink to equal
+that?&rdquo; said Cyrus, smacking his lips with content. &ldquo;But listen to
+the noise this stream makes, boys. I guess if I were to lie beside it for an
+hour, I&rsquo;d think, as the Greenlanders do, that I could hear the spirits of
+the world talking through it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a mighty queer notion,&rdquo; answered Herb; &ldquo;and I
+never knew as other folks had got hold of it. But, sure&rsquo;s you live!
+I&rsquo;ve
+
+thought the same thing myself lots o&rsquo; times, when I&rsquo;ve slept by a
+forest stream. Who&rsquo;ll lend a helping hand in cutting down boughs for our
+fire and bed? I want to be pretty quick about making camp. Then we&rsquo;ll be
+able to try some moose-calling after supper.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this moment a peculiar gulping noise in Neal&rsquo;s throat drew the eyes of
+his companions upon him. His were bright and strained, peering at the opposite
+bank.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look! What is it?&rdquo; he gasped, his low voice rattling with
+excitement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A cow-moose, by thunder!&rdquo; said Herb. &ldquo;A cow-moose and a calf
+with her! Here&rsquo;s luck for ye, boys!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One moment sooner, simultaneously with Neal&rsquo;s gulp of astonishment, there
+had emerged from the thick woods on the other bank a brown, wild-looking,
+hornless creature, in size and shape resembling a big mule, followed by a
+half-grown reproduction of herself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her shaggy mane flew erect, her nostrils quivered like those of a race-horse,
+her eyes were starting with mingled panic and defiance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A snort, sudden and loud as the report of a shot-gun, made the four jump. Neal,
+who was standing on a slippery stone by the brink, lost his balance and
+staggered forward into the water, kicking up jets of shining spray. The snort
+was followed by a grunt, plaintive, distracted, which sounded oddly familiar,
+seeing that it had been so well imitated on Herb&rsquo;s horn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And with that grunt, the moose wheeled about and fled, making the air swish as
+she cut through it, followed by her young, her mane waving like a pennon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, if that ain&rsquo;t bang-up luck, I&rsquo;d like to know what
+is,&rdquo; said the guide, as he watched the departure. &ldquo;I never
+s&rsquo;posed you&rsquo;d get a chance to see a cow-moose; she&rsquo;s
+shyer&rsquo;n shy. Say! don&rsquo;t you boys think that I&rsquo;ve done her
+grunt pretty well sometimes?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That you have,&rdquo; was the general response. &ldquo;<i>We</i>
+couldn&rsquo;t tell any difference between your noise and the real
+thing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But she wasn&rsquo;t a patch on the bull-moose in appearance,&rdquo;
+lamented Dol.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No more she was, boy. Most female forest creatures ain&rsquo;t so
+good-looking as the males! And that&rsquo;s queer when you think of it, for the
+girls have the pull over us where beauty is concerned. We ain&rsquo;t in it
+with &rsquo;em, so to speak.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a big gale of laughter over Herb Real&rsquo;s gallant admiration for
+the other sex, and the sigh which accompanied his expression of it. He joined
+in the mirth himself, though he walked off to make camp, muttering:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sho! You city fellows think that because I&rsquo;m a woodsman I never
+heard of love-making in my life.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps there is a little girl at some settlement waiting for a home to
+be fixed up out of guide&rsquo;s fees,&rdquo; retorted Cyrus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And the three shouted again for no earthly reason, save that the stimulus of
+forest air and good circulation was driving the blood with fine pressure
+through their veins, and life seemed such a glorious, unfolding
+possession&mdash;full of a wonderful possible&mdash;that they must hold a sort
+of jubilee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Herb, who perhaps in his lonely hours in the woods did cherish some vision such
+as Cyrus suggested, was so infected with their spirit, that, as he swung his
+axe with a giant&rsquo;s stroke against a hemlock branch, he joined in with an
+explosive:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hurrup! Hur-r-r-rup!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This startled the trio like the bursting of a bomb, and trebled their
+excitement; for their guide, when abroad, had usually the cautious,
+well-controlled manner of the still-hunter, who never knows what chances may be
+lurking round him which he would ruin by an outcry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quit laughing, boys,&rdquo; he said, recovering prudence directly he had
+let out his yell. &ldquo;Quit laughing, I say, or we may call moose here till
+crack o&rsquo; doom without getting an answer. I guess they&rsquo;re all off to
+the four winds a&rsquo;ready, scared by our fooling.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig19.jpg" width="400" height="164" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap19"></a>Chapter XIX.<br/>Treed By a Moose</h2>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I told you so, boys,&rdquo; breathed the guide two hours later, with an
+overwhelming sigh of regret, after he had given his most fetching calls in
+vain. &ldquo;I told you so. There ain&rsquo;t anything bigger&rsquo;n a
+buck-rabbit travelling. That tormented row we made scared every moose within
+hearing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Herb was standing on the ground, horn in hand, screened by the great shadows of
+a clump of hemlocks; the three were perched upon branches high above him, a
+safe post of observation if any moose had answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You may as well light down now,&rdquo; he continued, turning his face
+up, though the boys were invisible; &ldquo;I ain&rsquo;t a-going to try any
+more music to-night. I guess we&rsquo;ll stretch ourselves for sleep early, to
+get ready for a good day&rsquo;s work to-morrow. An eight-mile tramp will bring
+us to the first heavy growth about the foot of Katahdin, and I&rsquo;ll promise
+you a sight of a moose there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His companions dropped to earth; and the four sought the shelter of their tent,
+which had been pitched a few hundred yards from the calling-place. Some dull
+embers smouldered before it; for Herb, even while preparing supper, had kept
+the camp-fire very low, lest any wandering clouds of smoke should interfere
+with the success of his calling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now he heaped it high, throwing on without stint withered hemlock boughs and
+massive logs, which were soon wrapped in a sheet of flame, making an isle of
+light amid a surrounding sea of impenetrable darkness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Many times during the night the watchful fellow arose to replenish this fire,
+so that there might be no decrease in the flood of heat which entered the tent,
+and kept his charges comfortable. Once, while he was so engaged, the placid
+sleepers whom he had noiselessly quitted were aroused to terror&mdash;sudden,
+bewildering night-terror&mdash;by a gasping cry from his lips, followed by the
+leaping and rushing of some brute in flight, and by a screech which was one
+defiant note of unutterable savagery.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good heavens! What&rsquo;s that?&rdquo; said Cyrus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is it&mdash;can it&mdash;could it be a panther?&rdquo; stammered Dol.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Get out!&rdquo; answered Neal contemptuously. &ldquo;The panthers have
+got out long ago, so every one says.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A lynx! A Canada lynx, boys, as sure as death and taxes!&rdquo; panted
+Herb Heal, springing into the tent on the instant, with a burning brand in his
+hand. &ldquo;&rsquo;Tain&rsquo;t any use your tumbling out, for you won&rsquo;t
+see him. He&rsquo;s away in the thick of the woods now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cyrus gurgled inarticulate disappointment. At the first two words he had sprung
+to his legs, having never encountered a lynx.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The brute must have been prowling round our tent,&rdquo; went on Herb,
+his voice thick from excitement. &ldquo;He leaped past me just as I was
+stooping to fix the fire, and startled me so that I guess I hollered. He got
+about half a dozen yards off, then turned and crouched as if he was going to
+spring back. Luckily, the axe was lying by me, just where I had tossed it down
+after chopping the last heap of logs. I caught it up, and flung it at him. It
+struck him on the side, and curled him up. I thought he was badly hurt; but he
+jumped the next moment, screeched, and made off. A pleasant scream he has;
+sounds kind o&rsquo; cheerful at night, don&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No one answered this sarcasm; and Herb flung himself again upon his boughs,
+pulling his worn blanket round him, determined not to relinquish his
+night&rsquo;s sleep because a lynx had visited his camp. The city fellows
+sensibly tried to follow his example; but again and again one of them would
+shake himself, and rise stealthily, convinced that he heard the blood-curdling
+screech ringing through the silent night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was nearly morning before fatigue at last overmastered every sensation, and
+the three fell into an unbroken sleep, which lasted until the sun was high in
+the sky. When they awoke, their sense of smell was the first sense to be
+tickled. Fragrant odors of boiling coffee were floating into the tent. One
+after another they scrambled up, threw on their coats, and hurried out to find
+their guide kneeling by the camp-fire on the very spot from which he had hurled
+his axe at the lynx a few hours before. But now his right hand held a green
+stick, on which he was toasting some slices of pork into crisp, appetizing
+curls.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Morning, boys!&rdquo; he said, as the trio appeared. &ldquo;Hope
+your early rising won&rsquo;t opset ye! If you want to dip your faces in the
+stream, do it quick, for these dodgers are cooked.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The &ldquo;dodgers&rdquo; were the familiar flapjacks. Herb set down his stick
+as he spoke to turn a batch of them, which were steaming on the frying-pan,
+tossing them high in air as he did so, with a dexterous turn of his wrist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boys having performed hasty ablutions in the stream, devoted themselves to
+their breakfast with a hearty will. There was little leisure for discussing the
+midnight visit of the lynx, or for anything but the joys of satisfying hunger,
+and taking in nutrition for the day&rsquo;s tramp, as Herb was in a hurry to
+break camp, and start on for Katahdin. The morning was very calm; there seemed
+no chance of a wind springing up, so the evening would probably be a choice one
+for moose-calling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In half an hour the band was again on the march, the business of breaking camp
+being a swift one. The tent was on Herb&rsquo;s shoulders; and naught was left
+to mark the visit of man to the humming stream but a bed of withering boughs on
+which the lynx might sleep to-night, and a few dying embers which the guide had
+thrashed out with his feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No halt was made until four o&rsquo;clock in the afternoon. Then Herb Heal came
+to a standstill on the edge of a wide bog. It lay between him and what he
+called the &ldquo;first heavy growth;&rdquo; that is, the primeval forest,
+unthinned by axe of man, which at certain points clothes the foot of Katahdin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The great mountain, dwelling-place of Pamolah, cradle of the flying Thunder and
+flashing Lightning, which according to one Indian legend are the swooping sons
+of the Mountain Spirit, now towered before the travellers, its base only a mile
+distant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve a good mind to make camp right here,&rdquo; said Herb,
+surveying the bog and then the firm earth on which he stood. &ldquo;We may
+travel a longish ways farther, and not strike such a fair camping-ground,
+unless we go on up the side of the mountain to that old home-camp I was telling
+you about, which we built when we were trapping. I guess it&rsquo;s standing
+yet, and &rsquo;twould be a snug shelter; but we&rsquo;d have a hard pull to
+reach it this evening. What d&rsquo;ye say, boys?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I vote for pitching the tent right here,&rdquo; answered Cyrus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The English boys were of the same mind, and the guide forthwith unstrapped his
+heavy pack-basket. As he hauled forth its contents, and strewed them on the
+ground, the first article which made its appearance was the moose-horn; it had
+been carefully stowed in on top. Dol snatched it up as a dog might snatch a
+bone, and touched it with longing in every finger-tip.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s one bad thing about this place,&rdquo; grumbled Herb
+presently, surveying the landscape wherever his eye could travel, &ldquo;there
+isn&rsquo;t a pint of drinking-water to be seen. There may be pools here and
+there in that bog; but, unless we want to keel over before morning, we&rsquo;d
+better let &rsquo;em alone. Say! could a couple of you fellows take the
+camp-kettle, and cruise about a bit in search of a spring?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I volunteer for the job!&rdquo; cried Dol instantly, with the light of
+some sudden idea shining like a sunburst in his face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t budge a step, old man, unless I go with you,&rdquo; said
+Cyrus. &ldquo;Not much! I don&rsquo;t want to patrol the forests like a lunatic
+for five mortal hours in search of you, and then find you roasting your shins
+by some other fellow&rsquo;s camp-fire. One little hide-and-seek game of that
+kind was enough.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well! the fact that I did bring up by Doc&rsquo;s camp-fire shows that I
+am able to take care of myself. If I get into scrapes, I can wriggle out of
+them again,&rdquo; maintained the kid of the camp, with a brazen look, while
+his eyes showed flinty sparks, caused by the inspiring purpose hidden behind
+them, which had little to do with water-carrying.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why can&rsquo;t you both go without any more palaver?&rdquo; suggested
+Herb, as he started away towards a belt of young firs to cut stakes for the
+tent. &ldquo;Cruise straight across the bog, mark your track by the bushes as
+you go &rsquo;long, don&rsquo;t get into the woods at all, and &rsquo;twill be
+plain sailing. I guess you&rsquo;ll strike a spring before very long.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cyrus caught up the camp-kettle, and stepped out briskly over the springy,
+spongy ground. Dol Farrar followed him. The two were half-way across the bog
+before the elder noticed that the younger was carrying something. It was the
+moose-horn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If we run across any moose-signs, I&rsquo;m going to try a call,&rdquo;
+said Dol, his strike-a-light eyes fairly blazing while he disclosed
+
+his purpose. &ldquo;You may laugh, Cy, and call me a greenhorn; but I bet you
+I&rsquo;ll get an answer, at least if there&rsquo;s a bull-moose within two
+miles.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s pretty cheerful,&rdquo; retorted the Boston man;
+&ldquo;especially as neither of us has brought a rifle. Mr. Moose may be at
+home, and give you an answer; but there&rsquo;s no telling what sort of temper
+he&rsquo;ll be in.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I left my Winchester leaning against a tree on the
+camping-ground,&rdquo; said the would-be caller regretfully. &ldquo;But you
+know you wouldn&rsquo;t fire on him, Cy, unless he came near making mince-meat
+of us. If he should charge, we could make a dash for the nearest trees.
+Let&rsquo;s risk it if we run across any tracks!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And in the meantime, Herb will be wondering where we are, vowing
+vengeance on us, and waiting for the kettle while we&rsquo;re waiting for the
+moose,&rdquo; argued Garst. &ldquo;It won&rsquo;t do, Chick. Give it up until
+later on. We undertook the job of finding water, and we&rsquo;re bound to
+finish that business first.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I wait until later on, I may wait forever,&rdquo; was the boy&rsquo;s
+gloomy protest. &ldquo;Tonight, when Herb is there, Neal and you will just sit
+on me, and be afraid of my making a wrong sound, and spoiling the sport.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I <i>know</i> we&rsquo;ll see moose-tracks before we get back to
+camp!&rdquo; wound up the young pleader passionately. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been
+working up to it all day. I mean I&rsquo;ve felt as if
+something&mdash;something fine&mdash;was going to happen, which would make a
+ripping story for the Manchester fellows when we go home. Do let me have one
+chance, Cy,&mdash;one fair and honest chance!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was such a tremendous force of desire working through the English boy
+that it set his blood boiling, and every bit of him in motion. His eyes were
+afire, his eyelids shut and opened with their quick snap, his lips moved after
+he had finished speaking, his fingers twitched upon the moose-horn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was a picture of heart-eagerness which Cyrus could not resist, though he
+shook with laughter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll take mighty good care that the next time I go to find water
+for the camp-supper, I don&rsquo;t take a crank with me, who has gone mad on
+moose-calling,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;See here! If we do come across
+moose-signs, I&rsquo;ll get under cover, and give you quarter of an hour to
+call and listen for an answer&mdash;not a second longer. Now stop thinking
+about this fad, and keep your eyes open for a spring.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But, unfortunately, this seemed to be a thirsty and tantalizing land for
+travellers. The soft sod under their feet oozed moisture; slimy, stagnant
+bog-pools appeared, but not a drop of pure, gushing water, to which a parched
+man dare touch his lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They crossed the wide extent of bog, Cyrus breaking off stunted bushes here and
+there to mark his pilgrimage; they reached the dense timber-growth at the base
+of the mountain, longing for the sight of a spring as eagerly as ever pilgrims
+yearned to behold a healing well; but their search was unsuccessful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Decidedly nonplussed, Dol all the time keeping one eye on the lookout for water
+and the other for moose-signs, they took counsel together, and determined to
+&ldquo;cruise&rdquo; to the right, skirting the foot of Katahdin, hoping to
+find a gurgling, rumbling mountain-torrent splashing down. Having travelled
+about half a mile in this new direction, with the giant woods which they dared
+not enter rising like an emerald wall on the one hand, and the dreary bog-land
+on the other, they at last, when patience was failing, came to a change in the
+landscape.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The desired water was not in view yet; but the bog gave way to fairer, firmer
+ground, covered with waving grasses, studded with rising knolls, and having no
+timber growth, save stray clumps of birches and hemlocks, several hundred yards
+apart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, this is jolly!&rdquo; exclaimed Dol. &ldquo;This looks a little bit
+like an English lawn, only I&rsquo;m afraid it&rsquo;s not a likely place for
+moose-tracks. But I&rsquo;m glad to be out of that beastly bog.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Confusion to your moose-tracks,&rdquo; ejaculated Cyrus, half
+exasperated. &ldquo;I wish we could find a well. That would be more to the
+purpose. Listen, Dol, do you hear anything?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hear&mdash;I hear&mdash;&rsquo;pon my word! I <i>do</i> hear the
+bubbling and tinkling of water somewhere! Where on earth is it? Oh! I know. It
+comes from that knoll over there&mdash;the one with the bushes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol Farrar, as he finished his jerky sentences, pointed to an eminence which
+was two or three hundred yards from where they stood, and a like distance from
+the wall of forest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well! It&rsquo;s about time we struck something at last,&rdquo; grumbled
+Garst. &ldquo;Catch me ever coming on a water pilgrimage again!
+
+I&rsquo;ll let Herb fill his own kettle in future. Now, I believe that fellow
+could smell a spring.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just as I smelt this one!&rdquo; exclaimed Dol triumphantly. &ldquo;I
+told you &rsquo;twas on the side of the knoll. And here it is!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bravo, Chick! You&rsquo;ve got good ears, if you are crazy upon one
+subject.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And so speaking, Cyrus, with a chuckle of joy, unslung the tin drinking-cup
+which hung at his belt, filled and refilled it, drinking long, inspiriting
+draughts before he prepared to fill the camp-kettle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The best water I ever tasted, Dol!&rdquo; he exclaimed, smacking his
+lips. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s ice-cold. There&rsquo;s not much of it, but it has
+quality, if not quantity.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The long-sought well was, in truth, a tiny one. It came bubbling up, clear and
+pellucid, from the bowels of the earth, and showed its laughing face amid a
+cluster of bushes&mdash;which all bent close to look at it
+lovingly&mdash;half-way up the knoll. A wee stream trickled down from
+it,&mdash;dribble&mdash;dribble&mdash;a rivulet that had once been twice its
+present size, judging from the wide margin of spattered clay at each side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol had been following his companion&rsquo;s example, and drinking joyfully
+before thinking of aught else. When the moment came for him to straighten his
+back, and rise upon his legs, instead of this natural proceeding, he suddenly
+crouched close to the ground, his breath coming in quick puffs, his eyes
+dilating, a froth of excitement on his lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What on earth are you staring at?&rdquo; asked Cyrus. &ldquo;You look
+positively crazy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For answer, the English boy shot up from his lowly posture, seized his
+companion by the arm, making him drop the camp-kettle, which he was just
+filling, and forced him to scan the soft clay by the rivulet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look there&mdash;and there!&rdquo; gurgled Dol, his voice sounding as if
+he was being choked by suppressed hilarity. &ldquo;I told you we&rsquo;d find
+them, and you didn&rsquo;t believe me! Aren&rsquo;t those moose-tracks?
+They&rsquo;re not deer-tracks, anyhow; they&rsquo;re too big. I may be a
+greenhorn, but I know that much.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They <i>are</i> moose-tracks,&rdquo; Cyrus answered slowly, almost
+unbelievingly, though the evidence was before him. &ldquo;They certainly are
+moose-tracks,&rdquo; he repeated, &ldquo;and very recent ones too. A moose has
+been drinking here, perhaps not half an hour ago. He can&rsquo;t be far
+away.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Garst was now warming into excitement himself. His bass tones became guttural
+and almost inarticulate, while he lowered them to prevent their travelling. On
+the reddish clay at his feet were foot-marks very like the prints of a large
+mastiff. He studied them one by one, even tracing the outline with his
+forefinger.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I&rsquo;m going to call,&rdquo; whispered Dol, his words tremulous
+and stifled. &ldquo;Lie low, Cy! You promised you&rsquo;d give me a fair
+chance; you&rsquo;ll have to keep your word.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll do it too,&rdquo; was the answering whisper. &ldquo;But
+let&rsquo;s get higher up on the knoll, behind those big bushes at the top. And
+listen, Dol, if a moose makes a noise anywhere near, we must scoot for the
+trees before he comes out from cover. I&rsquo;ve got to answer to your father
+for you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was an intense moment in Dol Farrar&rsquo;s life; sensation reached its
+highest pitch, as he crouched low behind a prickly screen, put the birch-bark
+horn to his mouth, and slowly breathed through it with the full power of his
+young lungs, marvellously strengthened by the forest life of past weeks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a minute&rsquo;s interval while he removed it again, and drew in all
+the air he could contain. Then a call rose upon the evening air, so touching,
+so plaintive, with such a rising, quavering impatience as it surged out towards
+the woods,&mdash;whither the boy-caller&rsquo;s face was turned,&mdash;that
+Cyrus could scarcely suppress a &ldquo;Bravo!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The summons died away in a piteous grunt. A second time the call rose and fell.
+On the third repetition it broke off, as usual, in an abrupt roar, which seemed
+to strike the tops of the giant trees, and boom among them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A froth was on Dol Farrar&rsquo;s lips, his eyes were reddened, he puffed hard
+through spread nostrils, like a young horse which has been trying its mettle
+for the first time, as he lowered that moose-horn, lifted his head, and cocked
+his ears to listen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two soundless minutes passed. Dol, who, if he had mastered the hunter&rsquo;s
+call, had certainly not mastered his patience, put the bark-trumpet again to
+his lips, determined to try the effect of a surpassingly expressive grunt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But he never executed this false movement, which would have given away the
+trick at once.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A bellow&mdash;a short, snorting, challenging bellow&mdash;burst the silence,
+coming from the very edge of the woods. It brought Cyrus to his feet with a
+jump. It so startled the ambitious moose-caller, that, in rising hurriedly from
+his squatting position, he lost his balance, and rolled over and over to the
+bottom of the knoll, smashing the horn into a hundred pieces.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He picked himself up unhurt, but with a sensation as if all the bells in
+Christendom were doing a jumbled ringing in his head. And loud above this
+inward din he heard the sound, so well remembered, as of an axe striking
+repeatedly against a tree, the terrible chopping noises of a bull-moose, not
+two hundred yards away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No sooner had he scrambled to his legs, than Garst was at his side, gripping
+his arm, and forcing him forward at a headlong run.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve done it this time with a vengeance!&rdquo; bawled the
+Bostonian. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s coming for us straight! And we without our rifles!
+The trees! The trees! It&rsquo;s our only chance!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With the belling still in his head, and so bewildered by his terrible success
+that he felt as if his senses were shooting off hither and thither like
+rockets, leaving him mad, Dol nevertheless ran as he had never run before,
+shoulder to shoulder with his comrade, dashing
+
+wildly for a clump of hemlocks over a hundred yards distant. Yet, for the life
+of him, he could not help glancing back once over his shoulder, to see the
+creature which he had humbugged, luring it from its forest shelter, and which
+now pursued him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The moose was charging after them full tilt, gaining rapidly too, his long thin
+legs, enormous antlers, broad, upreared nose, and the green glare in his
+starting eyes, making him look like some strange animal of a former earth. Dol
+at last trembled with actual fear. He gave a shuddering leap, and forced his
+legs, which seemed threatened with paralysis, to wilder speed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Climb up that hemlock! Get as high as you can!&rdquo; shrieked Cyrus,
+stopping to give him an upward shove as they reached the first friendly trunk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol obeyed. Gasping and wild-eyed, he dug his nails into the bark, clambering
+up somehow until he reached a forked branch about eight feet from the ground.
+Here strength failed. He could only cling dizzily, feeling that he hung between
+life and death.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The moose was now snorting like a war-horse beneath. The brute stood off for a
+minute, then charged the hemlock furiously, and butted it with his antlers till
+it shook to its roots, the sharp prongs of those terrible horns coming within
+half an inch of Dol&rsquo;s feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With a gurgle of horror the boy tried to reach a higher limb, and succeeded;
+for at the same moment a timely shout encouraged him. Cyrus was bawling at the
+top of his voice from a tree ten feet distant:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you all right, Dol? Don&rsquo;t be scared. Hold on like grim death,
+and we can laugh at the old termagant now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m&mdash;I&rsquo;m all right,&rdquo; sang out Dol, though his
+voice shook, as did every twig of his hemlock, which the moose was assaulting
+again. &ldquo;But he&rsquo;s frantic to get at me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never mind. He can&rsquo;t do it, you know. Only don&rsquo;t you go
+turning dizzy or losing your balance. Ha! you old spindle-legged monster, stand
+off from that tree. Take a turn at mine now, for a change. You can&rsquo;t
+shake me down, if you butt till midnight.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Garst&rsquo;s last sentences were hurled at the moose. The Bostonian, having
+reached a safe height, thrust his face out from his screen of branches, waving
+first an arm, and then a leg, at the besieging foe, hoping that the force of
+those battering antlers would be directed against his hemlock, so that his
+friend&rsquo;s nerves might get a chance to recover.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The ruse succeeded. The moose, reminded that there was a second enemy, charged
+the other tree; stood off for a minute to get breath, then charged it again,
+snorting, bellowing, and knocking his jaws together with a crunching, chopping
+noise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ha! that&rsquo;s how he makes the row like a man with an axe&mdash;by
+hammering his jaws on each other. Well, well! but this is a regular picnic,
+Dol,&rdquo; sang out Cyrus jubilantly, caring nothing for the shocks, and
+forgetting camp, water, peril, everything, in his joy at getting a chance to
+leisurely study the creature he had come so far to visit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I owe you something for this, little man!&rdquo; he carolled on in
+triumph, as he watched every wild movement of the moose. &ldquo;This is a show
+we&rsquo;ll only see once in our lives. It&rsquo;s worth a hundred dollars a
+performance. Butt and snort till you&rsquo;re tired, you &lsquo;Awful
+Jabberwock!&rsquo;&rdquo;&mdash;this to the bull-moose. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve come
+hundreds of miles to see you, and the more you carry on the better we&rsquo;ll
+be pleased.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Indeed, the wrathful king of forests seemed in no hurry to cut short his
+pantomime. He ramped and raged, tearing from one tree to another, expending
+paroxysms of force in vain attempts to overturn one or the other of them. The
+ground seemed to shake under his thundering hoofs. His eyes were full of green
+fire; his nostrils twitched; the black tassel or &ldquo;bell&rdquo; hanging
+from his shaggy throat shook with every angry movement; his muffle, the big
+overhanging upper lip, was spotted with foam.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As he gulped, grunted, snorted, and roared, his uncouth, guttural noises made
+him seem more than ever like a curious creature of earth&rsquo;s earliest ages.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We came pretty near to being goners, Dol, I tell you!&rdquo; carolled
+Cyrus again from his high perch in the hemlock, carrying on a by-play with the
+enemy between each sentence. &ldquo;How in the name of wonder did you manage
+such a call? It would have moved the heart-strings of any moose. I was lying
+flat, you know, peeping through a little gap in the bushes, and you had
+scarcely taken the horn from your mouth when I saw the old fellow come stamping
+out of the woods. My! wasn&rsquo;t he a sight? He stood for a minute looking
+about for the fancied cow; then he bellowed, and started towards the knoll. I
+knew we had better run for our lives. As soon as he saw us he gave
+chase.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And &lsquo;the fancied cow&rsquo; should go tumbling down the knoll like
+a rolling jackass, and smash that grand horn to bits!&rdquo; lamented Dol, who
+now sat serenely on his bough, with a firm clasp of the hemlock trunk, and a
+reckless enjoyment of the situation which far surpassed his companion&rsquo;s.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cyrus began to have an occasional twinge of uneasiness about the possible
+length of the siege, after his first exuberance subsided; but the younger boy,
+his short terror overcome, had no misgivings. He coquetted with the moose
+through a thick screen of foliage, shook the branches at him, gibed and taunted
+him, enjoying the extra fury he aroused.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But suddenly the old bull, having kept up his wild movements for nearly an
+hour, resolved on a change of tactics. He stood stock-still and lowered his
+head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Goodness! He has made up his mind to &lsquo;stick us out!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+gasped Cyrus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s that?&rdquo; said Dol.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you see? He&rsquo;s going to lay siege in good
+earnest&mdash;wait till we&rsquo;re forced to come down. Here&rsquo;s a state
+of things! We can&rsquo;t roost in these trees all night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The hemlocks were throwing ever-lengthening shadows on the grass. A slow
+eclipse was stealing over everything. The motionless moose became an uncouth
+black shape. Garst muttered uneasily. His fingers tingled for his rifle&mdash;a
+very unusual thing with him. His eyes peered through the creeping darkness in
+puzzled search for some suggestion, some possibility of escape.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If it were only myself!&rdquo; he whispered, as if talking to his
+hemlock. &ldquo;If it were only myself, I wouldn&rsquo;t care a pin.
+&rsquo;Twould do me no great harm to perch here for hours. But an English
+youngster, on his first camping-trip! Why, the chill of a forest night might
+ruin him. He wouldn&rsquo;t howl or make a fuss, for both those Farrar boys
+have lots of grit, but he&rsquo;d never get over it. Dol!&rdquo; he wound up,
+raising his voice to a sharp pitch. &ldquo;Say, Dol, I&rsquo;m going to try a
+shout for help. Herb must be getting anxious about us by this time. If we could
+once make him hear, he could try some trick to lure this old curmudgeon away,
+or creep up and shoot him. Something must be done.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fetching a deep breath, Cyrus sent a distance-piercing &ldquo;Coo-hoo!&rdquo;
+ringing through the night-air. He followed it with another.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But, so far as he could hear, the hails fetched no answer, save from the
+moose-jailer. The brute was stirred into a fresh tantrum by the noise. He
+charged the hemlocks once more, butted and shook them like a veritable demon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When his paroxysm had subsided, and he stood off to get breath, Garst hailed
+again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Glad sound! An answer this time! First, a shrill, long &ldquo;Coo-hoo!&rdquo;
+Next, Herb&rsquo;s voice was heard pealing from far away in the bog:
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s up, boys? Where in the world are you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here in the trees&mdash;treed by a bull-moose!&rdquo; yelled Cyrus.
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s the maddest old monster you ever saw. Could you coax him off,
+or sneak up and shoot him? He means to keep us prisoners all night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was no wordy answer. But presently the treed heroes heard an odd,
+bird-like whistle. Dol thought it came from a feathered creature; his more
+experienced companion guessed that the guide&rsquo;s lips gave it as a signal
+that he was coming, but that he didn&rsquo;t want to draw the moose&rsquo;s
+attention in his direction just yet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such a quarter of an hour followed! With the fresh spurt of anger the
+bull-moose became more savage than ever. He grunted, tramped, and hooked the
+trees with his horns, so that the pair who were perched like night-birds on the
+branches had to hold on for dear life, lest a surprising shock should dislodge
+them. Whenever the creature stood off, to gather more fury, they could have
+counted their heart-beats while they listened, breathlessly anxious to, know
+what action the approaching woodsman would take.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once Cyrus spoke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dol Farrar,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I guess this caps all the adventures
+that you or I have had up to date. No wonder you felt all day as if you were
+working up to something. I&rsquo;ll believe in presentiments in future.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The words had scarcely passed his lips, when there was the sharp bang! bang! of
+a rifle not twenty yards distant. A bright sputter of fire cut the darkness
+beneath the hemlocks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The moose&rsquo;s blind rage threatened to be his own undoing. While he was
+fighting an imaginary danger, ears and nostrils half-choked by fury, through
+the calm night Herb Heal, Winchester in hand, had crept noiselessly on, till he
+reached the very trees which sheltered his friends.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once, twice, three times the rifle snapped. The first shot missed altogether.
+At the second, the moose rose upon his hind-legs, with a sharp sound of fright
+and pain, quite unlike his former noises. Then he gave a quick jump.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Great Governor&rsquo;s Ghost! he&rsquo;s gone;&rdquo; yelled Cyrus, who
+had swung himself down a few feet, and was hanging by one arm, in his anxiety
+to see the result of the firing. &ldquo;You needn&rsquo;t shoot again, Herb!
+He&rsquo;s off! Let him go!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I guess that second shot cut some hair from him, and drew blood
+too,&rdquo; answered Herb, his deep voice giving the pair a queer sensation as
+they heard it right beneath. &ldquo;It was too dark to see plain, but I think
+he reared; and that&rsquo;s a sign that he was hurt, little or much.
+Don&rsquo;t drop down for a minute, boys, till we see whether he has bolted for
+good.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig20.jpg" width="400" height="164" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap20"></a>Chapter XX.<br/>Triumph</h2>
+
+<p>
+He had bolted for good, vanished into the mysterious deeps of the primeval
+forest, whether hurt unto death, or merely &ldquo;nipped&rdquo; in a fore-leg,
+as Herb inclined to think, nobody knew.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s too dark to see blood-marks, if there are any, so we
+can&rsquo;t trail him to-night. If he&rsquo;s hit bad&mdash;but I guess he
+ain&rsquo;t&mdash;we can track him in the morning,&rdquo; said the guide; as,
+after an interval of listening, the rescued pair dropped down from their
+perches. &ldquo;Did he chase you, boys? Where on earth did you come on
+him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Talking together, their words tumbling out like a torrent let loose, Cyrus
+Garst and Dol Farrar gave an account of the past two hours&mdash;strangest
+hours of their lives&mdash;filling up the picture of them bit by bit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Whew! whew! You did have a narrow squeak, boys, and a scarey time; but I
+guess you had a lot of fun out of the old snorter,&rdquo; said Herb, his rare
+laugh jingling out, starting the forest echoes like a clang of bells.
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve won those antlers, Dol&mdash;won &rsquo;em like a man.
+Blest, but you have! I promised &rsquo;em to the first fellow who called up a
+moose; and nary a woodsman in Maine could have done it better. I&rsquo;m
+powerful glad &rsquo;twasn&rsquo;t your own death-call you gave. I&rsquo;ll
+keep my eye on you now till you leave these woods. Where&rsquo;s the
+horn?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Smashed to bits,&rdquo; answered Dol regretfully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the camp-kettle?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Lying by the spring, over there on the knoll, unless the moose kicked it
+to pieces,&rdquo; said Cyrus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My senses! you&rsquo;re a healthy pair to send for water, ain&rsquo;t
+ye? Let&rsquo;s cruise off and find it. I guess you&rsquo;ll be wanting a drink
+of hot coffee, after roosting in them trees for so long.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Garst led the way to the spring. Its pretty hum sounded like an angel&rsquo;s
+whisper through the night, after the tumult of the past scene. Herb fumbled in
+his leather wallet, brought out a match and a small piece of birch-bark, and
+kindled a light. With some groping, the kettle was found; it was filled, and
+the party started for camp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I heard the distant challenge of a bull-moose a couple of hours
+ago,&rdquo; said the guide, as they went along. &ldquo;I never suspicioned he
+was attacking you; but after the camp was a&rsquo; ready, and you hadn&rsquo;t
+turned up, I got kind o&rsquo; scared. I left Neal to tend the fire and toast
+the pork, and started out to search. I s&rsquo;pose I took the wrong direction;
+for I hollered, and got no answer. Afterwards, when I was travelling about the
+bog, I heard a &lsquo;Coo-hoo!&rsquo; and the noises of an angry moose. Then I
+guessed there was trouble.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Won&rsquo;t Neal look blue when he hears that he was toasting pork while
+we were perched in those trees, with the moose waltzing below!&rdquo; exclaimed
+Dol. &ldquo;Well, Cy, I&rsquo;ve won the antlers, and I&rsquo;ve got my ripping
+story for the Manchester fellows. I don&rsquo;t care how soon we turn home
+now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t, don&rsquo;t ye?&rdquo; said the guide. &ldquo;Well, I
+should s&rsquo;pose you&rsquo;d want to trail up that moose to-morrow, and see
+what has become of him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course I do! I forgot that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Dol Farrar, who had thought his record of adventure and triumph so full
+that it could hold no more, realized that there is always for ambition a
+farther point.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Neal did feel a little blue over the thought of what he had missed. But, being
+a generous-hearted fellow, he tasted his young brother&rsquo;s joy, when the
+latter cuddled close to him upon the evergreen boughs that night, muttering, as
+if the whole earth lay conquered at his feet:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My legs are as stiff as ramrods, but who&rsquo;d think of his legs after
+such a night as we&rsquo;ve had?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say, Neal, this is life; the little humbugging scrapes we used to call
+adventures at home are only play for girls. It&rsquo;s something to talk about
+for a lifetime, when a fellow comes to close quarters with a creature like that
+moose. I said I&rsquo;d get the better of his ears, and I did it. Pinch me, old
+boy, if I begin a moose-call in my sleep.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Several times during the night Neal found it necessary to obey this injunction,
+else had there been no peace in the camp. But, in spite of Dol&rsquo;s ravings
+and riotings in his excited dreams, the party enjoyed a needed ten hours&rsquo;
+slumber, all save Herb, who, as usual, was astir the next morning while his
+comrades were yet snoring.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He got his fire going well, and baked a great flat loaf of bread in his
+frying-pan, setting the pan amid hot ashes and covering it over. Previous to
+this, he had made a pilgrimage to the distant spring, to fill his kettle for
+coffee and bread-making, and had carefully examined the ground about the clump
+of hemlocks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The result of his investigation was given to the boys as they ate their
+breakfast under the shade of a cedar, with a sky above them whose morning
+glories were here and there overshot by leaden tints.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I guess we&rsquo;ve got a pretty fair chance of trailing that
+moose,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I found both hair and blood on the spot where he
+was wounded. I&rsquo;m for following up his tracks, though I guess
+they&rsquo;ll take us a bit up the mountain. If he&rsquo;s hurt bad,
+&rsquo;twould be kind o&rsquo; merciful to end his sufferings. If he
+ain&rsquo;t, we can let him get off.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Right, as you always are, Herb,&rdquo; answered Cyrus. &ldquo;But what
+on earth made the creature bolt so suddenly? If you had seen him five minutes
+before he was shot, you&rsquo;d have said he had as much fight in him as a
+lion.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the way with moose a&rsquo;most always. Their courage
+ain&rsquo;t that o&rsquo; flesh-eating animals. It&rsquo;s only a spurt; though
+it&rsquo;s a pretty big spurt sometimes, as you boys know now. It&rsquo;ll fail
+&rsquo;em in a minute, when you least expect it. And, you see, that one last
+night didn&rsquo;t know where his wound came from. I guess he thought he was
+struck by lightning or a thunder-ball, so he skipped. Talking of thunder-balls,
+boys,&rdquo; wound up Herb, &ldquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t be surprised if the old
+Mountain Spirit, who lives up a-top there, gave us a rattling welcome with his
+thunders to-day. The air is awful heavy for this time of year. Perhaps
+we&rsquo;d better give up the trailing after all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nonsense!&rdquo; exclaimed Dol indignantly. &ldquo;Do you think a shower
+will melt us? Or that we&rsquo;ll squeal like girls at a few flashes of
+lightning? &rsquo;Twould be jolly good fun to see old Pamolah sending off his
+artillery.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, there&rsquo;d be no special danger, I guess, if we were past the
+heavy timber growth before the storm began. There&rsquo;s lots of rocky dens on
+the mountain side where we could shelter under a granite ledge, and be safer
+than we&rsquo;d be here in tent. Or we might come a-near our old log camp. I
+guess, if that&rsquo;s standing yet, you&rsquo;d like to see it. Say!
+we&rsquo;ll leave it to Cyrus. He&rsquo;s boss, ain&rsquo;t he?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cyrus, desperately anxious to know whether it would be life or death for the
+wounded moose, and regarding the signs of bad weather as by no means certain,
+decided in favor of the expedition. The campers hurriedly swallowed the
+remainder of their breakfast, and made ready for an immediate start.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In trailing a moose the first rule is: go as light as you can; that is,
+don&rsquo;t carry an ounce more stuff than is necessary. Even a man&rsquo;s
+rifle is apt to get in his way when he has to scramble over windfalls, or slump
+between big bowlders of rock, which a&rsquo;most tear the clothes off his back.
+And we may have to do some pretty tall climbing. So leave all your traps in the
+tent, boys; I&rsquo;ll fasten it down tight. There won&rsquo;t be any human
+robbers prowling around, you bet! Bears and coons are the only burglars of
+these woods, and they don&rsquo;t do much mischief in daytime.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The guide rapidly gave these directions, his breezy voice setting a current of
+energy astir, like a wind-gust cutting through a quiet grove, while he rolled
+his indispensable axe, some bread that was left from the meal, and a lump of
+pork into a little bundle, which he strapped on his back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;if that trail should give us a long tramp,
+or if you boys should take a notion to go a good ways up Katahdin, or anything
+turns up to hinder our getting back to camp till nightfall, I&rsquo;ve our
+snack right here. I can light a fire in two minutes, to toast our pork; and
+we&rsquo;ll wash it down with mountain water, the best drink for climbers. I
+could rig you up a snug shelter, too, in case of accidents. A woodsman
+ain&rsquo;t in it without his axe.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To what strange work that axe would be put ere night again closed its shutters
+over granite peaks and evergreen forest, Herb Heal little knew; nor could he
+have guessed that the coming hours would make the most heart-stirring day of
+his stirring life. If he could, would he have started out this morning with a
+happy-go-lucky whistle, softly modulated on his lips, and no more sober burden
+on his mind than the trail of that moose?
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig21.jpg" width="400" height="163" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap21"></a>Chapter XXI.<br/>On Katahdin</h2>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;See there, boys, I told you so,&rdquo; said Herb, as the party reached
+the ever-to-be-remembered clump of hemlocks, the beginning of the trail which
+they were ready to follow up like sleuth-hounds. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s plenty of
+hair; I guess I singed him in two places.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He pointed to some shaggy clotted locks on the grass at his feet, and then to a
+small maroon-colored stain beside them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is that blood?&rdquo; asked Neal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Blood, sure enough, though there ain&rsquo;t much of it. But I&rsquo;ll
+tell you what! I&rsquo;d as soon there wasn&rsquo;t any. I wish it had been
+light enough last night for me to act barber, and
+
+only cut some hair from that moose, instead of wounding him. It might have
+answered the purpose as well, and sent him walking.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe it would have done anything of the kind,&rdquo;
+exclaimed Dol. &ldquo;He was far too red-hot an old customer to bolt because a
+bullet shaved him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I don&rsquo;t set up to be soft-hearted like Cyrus here; and
+I&rsquo;m ready enough to bag my meat when I want it,&rdquo; said the woodsman.
+&ldquo;But sure&rsquo;s you live, boys, I never wounded a free game creature
+yet, and seed it get away to pull a hurt limb and a cruel pain with it through
+the woods, that I could feel chipper afterwards. It&rsquo;s only your delicate
+city fellows who come out here for a shot once a year, who can chuckle over the
+pools of blood a wounded moose leaves behind him. Sho! it&rsquo;s not
+manly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A start was now made on the trail, Herb leading, and showing such wonderful
+skill as a trailer that the English boys began to believe his long residence in
+the woods had developed in him supernatural senses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That moose was shot through the right fore-leg,&rdquo; he whispered, as
+the trackers reached the edge of the forest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How do you know?&rdquo; gasped the Farrars.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The woodsman answered by kneeling, bending his face close to the ground, and
+drawing his brown finger successively round three prints on a soft patch of
+earth, which the unpractised eyes could scarcely discern.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no mark of the right fore-hoof,&rdquo; he whispered again
+presently; &ldquo;nothing but <i>that</i>,&rdquo; pointing to another dark red
+blotch, which the boys would have mistaken for maroon-tinted moss.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A breathless, wordless, toiling hour followed. Through the dense woods, which
+sloped steadily upward, clothing Katahdin&rsquo;s highlands, Herb Heal
+travelled on, now and again halting when the trail, because of freshly fallen
+pine-needles or leaves, became quite invisible. Again he would crouch close to
+the ground, make a circle with his finger round the last visible print, and
+work out from that, trying various directions, until he knew that he was again
+on the track which the limping moose had travelled before him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His comrades followed in single file, carrying their rifles in front of their
+bodies instead of on their shoulders, so that there might be no danger of a
+sudden clang or rattle from the barrels striking the trees. Following the
+example of their guide, each one carefully avoided stepping on crackling twigs
+or dry branches, or rustling against bushes or boughs. The latter they would
+take gingerly in their hands as they approached them, bend them out of the way,
+and gently release them as they passed. Heroically they forebore to growl when
+their legs were scraped by jagged bowlders or prickly shrubs, giving thanks
+inwardly to the manufacturers of their stout tweeds that their clothes held
+together, instead of hanging on them like streamers on a rag-bush.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a good, practical lesson in moose-trailing; but, save for the knowledge
+gained by the three who had never stalked a moose before, it was a failure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The air beneath the dense foliage grew depressing&mdash;suffocating. Each one
+longed breathlessly for the minute when he should emerge from this heavy
+timber-growth, even to do more rugged climbing. Distant rumbles were heard.
+Herb&rsquo;s prophecy was being fulfilled. Pamolah was grumbling at the
+trailers, and sending out his Thunder Sons to bid them back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But it was too late for retreat. If they gave up their purpose, turned and fled
+to camp, the storm, which was surely coming, would catch them under the
+interlacing trees, a danger which the guide was especially anxious to avoid. He
+pressed on with quickened steps, stooping no more to make circles round the
+moose&rsquo;s prints. Old Pamolah&rsquo;s threatenings grew increasingly
+sullen. At last the desired break in the woods was reached; the trackers found
+themselves on the open side of Katahdin, surrounded by a tangled growth of
+alders and white birches struggling up between granite rocks; then the mountain
+artillery broke forth with terrifying clatter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A loud, long thunder-roll was echoed from crag, slide, forest, spur, and basin.
+The &ldquo;home of storms&rdquo; was a fort of noise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ha! there&rsquo;ll be a big cannonading this time, I guess. Pamolah is
+going to let fly at us with big shot, little shot, fire and water&mdash;all the
+forces the old scoundrel has,&rdquo; said Herb Heal, at last breaking the
+silence which had been kept on the trail, and looking aloft towards the five
+peaks guarding that mysterious basin, from which heavy, lurid clouds drifted
+down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the same time a blustering, mighty wind-gust half swept the four climbers
+from their feet. A great flash of globe lightning cut the air like a dazzling
+fire-ball.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll have to quit our trailing, and scoot for shelter, I&rsquo;m
+thinking!&rdquo; exclaimed Cyrus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good land, I should say so!&rdquo; agreed the guide. &ldquo;The
+bull-moose likes thunder. He&rsquo;s away in some thick hole in the forest now,
+recovering himself. We couldn&rsquo;t have come up with him anyhow, boys, for
+them blood-spots had stopped. I guess his leg wasn&rsquo;t smashed; and
+he&rsquo;ll soon be as big a bully as ever. Follow me now, quick! Mind yer
+steps, though! Them bushes are awful catchy!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Undazzled by the lightning&rsquo;s frequent flare, unstaggered by the
+down-rushing wind, as if the mountain thunders were only the roll of an organ
+about his ears, Herb Heal sprang onward and upward, tugging his comrades one by
+one up many a precipitous ledge, and pulling them to their feet again when the
+tripping bushes brought their noses to the ground and their heels into the air.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hitch on to me, Dol!&rdquo; he cried, suddenly turning on that
+youngster, who was trying to get his second breath. &ldquo;Tie on to me tight.
+I&rsquo;ll tow you up! I wish we could ha&rsquo; reached that old log camp,
+boys. &rsquo;Twould be a stunning shelter, for it has a wall of rock to the
+back. But it&rsquo;s higher up, and off to the right. There! I see the den
+I&rsquo;m aiming for.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A few energetic bounds brought Herb, with Dol in tow, to a platform of rock,
+which rose above a bed of blueberry bushes. It narrowed into a sort of cave,
+roofed by an overhanging bowlder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll be snug enough under this rock!&rdquo; he exclaimed,
+pointing to the canopy. &ldquo;Creep in, boys. We&rsquo;ll have tubs of rain,
+and a pelting of hail. The rumpus is only beginning.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So it was. The storm had been creeping from its cradle. Now it swept down with
+an awful whirl and commingling of elements.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boys, peering out from their rocky nest, saw a magnificent panorama beneath
+them. The regiments of the air were at war. Lightning chains encircled the
+heavens, lighting up the forests below. Winds charged down the mountain-side,
+sweeping stones and bushes before them. Hail-bullets rattled in volleys.
+Thunder-artillery boomed until the very rocks seemed to shake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s fine!&rdquo; exclaimed Cyrus. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
+super-fine!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then a curtain of thick rain partly hid the warfare, the lightning still
+rioting through it like a beacon of battle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The stones up above will have to be pretty firmly fixed to keep their
+places,&rdquo; said Herb. &ldquo;Boys, I hope there ain&rsquo;t a-going to be
+slides on the mountain after this.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Slides?&rdquo; echoed Dol questioningly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Landslides, kid. Say! if you want to be scared until your bones feel
+limp, you&rsquo;ve got to hear a great big block of granite come ploughing down
+from the top &rsquo;o the mountain, bringing earth and bushes along with it,
+and smashing even the rocks to splinters as it pounds along.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I guess that&rsquo;s a sensation we&rsquo;d rather be spared,&rdquo;
+said Cyrus gravely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And under the quieting spell of the airy warfare there was silence for a while.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you think it&rsquo;s lightening up, Herb?&rdquo; asked Neal, after
+the storm had raged for three-quarters of an hour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I guess it is. The rain is stopping too. But we&rsquo;ll have an awful
+slushy time of it getting back to camp. To plough through them soaked forests
+below would be enough to give you city fellows a shaking ague.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Couldn&rsquo;t we climb on to your old log camp?&rdquo; suggested Garst.
+&ldquo;If we have the luck to find the old shanty holding together, we can
+light a fire there after things dry out a bit, and eat our snack. Then we
+needn&rsquo;t be in a hurry to get down. We&rsquo;ll risk it, anyhow.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I reckon that&rsquo;s about the only thing to be done,&rdquo; assented
+the guide.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And in twenty minutes&rsquo; time the four were again straining up Katahdin,
+clutching slippery rocks, sinking in sodden earth, shivering as they were
+besprinkled by every bush and dwarfed tree, and dreadfully hampered with their
+rifles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never mind, boys; we&rsquo;ll get there! Clinch yer teeth, and
+don&rsquo;t squirm! Once we&rsquo;re past this tangle, the bit of climbing
+that&rsquo;s left will be as easy as rolling off a log!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So shouted Herb cheerfully, as he tore a way with hand and foot through the
+stunted growth of alders and birch, which, beaten down by the winds, was now an
+almost impassable, sopping tangle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Keep in my tracks!&rdquo; he bellowed again. &ldquo;Gracious! but this
+sort o&rsquo; work is as slow as molasses crawling up-hill in winter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But ten minutes later, when the dripping jungle was behind, he dropped his
+jesting tone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He came to a full stop, catching his breath with a big gulp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Boys,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s standing yet! I see
+it&mdash;the old home-camp! There it is above us on that bit of a platform,
+with the big rock behind it. And I&rsquo;ve kep&rsquo; saying to myself for the
+last quarter of an hour that we wouldn&rsquo;t find it&mdash;that we&rsquo;d
+find nary a thing but mildewed logs!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A wealth of memories was in the woodsman&rsquo;s eyes as he gazed up at the
+timber nest, the log camp which his own hands had put up, standing on a narrow
+plateau, and built against a protecting wall of rock that rose in jagged might
+to a height of thirty or forty feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An earth bank or ridge, covered with hardy mosses and mountain creepers, sloped
+gently up to the sheltered platform. To climb this was, indeed, &ldquo;as easy
+as rolling off a log.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We used to have a good beaten path here, but I guess it&rsquo;s all
+growed over,&rdquo; said Herb in a thick voice, as if certain cords in his
+throat were swelling. &ldquo;Many&rsquo;s the time I&rsquo;ve blessed the sight
+of that old home-camp, boys, after a hard week&rsquo;s trapping.
+Hundert&rsquo;s o&rsquo; night&rsquo;s I&rsquo;ve slept snug inside them log
+walls when blasts was a-sweeping and bellowing around, like as if they&rsquo;d
+rip the mountain open, and tear its very rocks out.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While the guide spoke he was leaping up the ridge. A few minutes, and he stood,
+a towering figure, on the platform above, waving his battered hat in salute to
+the old camp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I guess some traveller has been sheltering here lately!&rdquo; he cried
+to Neal Farrar, as the latter overtook him. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a litter
+around,&rdquo; pointing to dry sticks and withered bushes strewn upon the
+camping-ground. &ldquo;And the door&rsquo;s standing open. I wonder who found
+the old shanty?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Neal remembered, hours afterwards, that at the moment he felt an odd awakening
+stir in him, a stir which, shooting from head to foot, seemed to warn him that
+he was nearing a sensation, the biggest sensation of this wilderness trip.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He heard the voices of Cyrus and Dol hallooing behind; but they sounded away
+back and indistinct, for his ears were bent towards the deserted camp,
+listening with breathless expectation for something, he didn&rsquo;t know what.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One minute the vague suspense lasted, while he followed Herb towards the hut.
+Then heaven and earth and his own heart seemed to stand still.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Through the wide-open door of the shanty came random, crooning snatches of
+sound. Was the guttural voice which made them human? The English boy scarcely
+knew. But as the noise swelled, like the moaning of a dry wind among trees, he
+began, as it were, to disentangle it. Words shaped themselves, Indian words
+which he had heard before on the guide&rsquo;s tongue.
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;<i>N&rsquo;loan pes-saus, mok glint ont-aven,<br/>
+Glint ont-aven, nosh morgun</i>.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These lines from the &ldquo;Star Song,&rdquo; the song which Herb had learned
+from his traitor chum, floated out to him upon Katahdin&rsquo;s breeze. They
+struck young Farrar&rsquo;s ears in staggering tones, like a knell, the sadness
+of which he could not at the moment understand. But he had a vague impression
+that the mysterious singer in the deserted camp attached no meaning to what he
+chanted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look out, I say! I don&rsquo;t want to come a cropper here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was Dol&rsquo;s young voice which rang out shrilly among the mountain
+echoes. Side by side with Cyrus, the boy had just gained the top of the ridge
+when the guide suddenly backed upon him, Herb&rsquo;s great shoulder-blade
+knocking him in the face, so that he had to plant his feet firmly to avoid
+spinning back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Herb had heard that guttural crooning. Just now he could hear nothing else.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Twice he made a heaving effort to speak, and the voice cracked in his throat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then, as he sprang for the camp-door, four words stumbled from his lips:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By thunder! it&rsquo;s Chris.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig22.jpg" width="400" height="165" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap22"></a>Chapter XXII.<br/>The Old Home-Camp</h2>
+
+<p>
+The silence which followed that ejaculation was like the hush of earth before a
+thunder-storm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not a syllable passed the lips of the boys as they followed Herb into the log
+hut, but feeling seemed wagging a startled tongue in each finger-tip which
+convulsively pressed the rifles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And not another articulate sentence came from the guide; only his throat
+swelled with a deep, amazed gurgle as he reached the interior of the shanty,
+and dropped his eyes upon the individual who raised that queer chanting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On a bed of withered spruce boughs, strewn higgledy-piggledy upon the
+camp-floor&mdash;mother earth&mdash;lay the form of a man. Thin wisps of
+blue-black hair, long untrimmed, trailed over his face and neck, which looked
+as if they were carved out of yellow bone. His figure was skeleton-like. His
+lips&mdash;the lips which at the entrance of the strangers never ceased their
+wild crooning&mdash;were swollen and fever-scorched. His black eyes, disfigured
+by a hideous squint, rolled with the sick fancies of delirium.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cyrus and the Farrars, while they looked upon him, felt that, even if they had
+never heard Herb&rsquo;s exclamation, they would have had no difficulty in
+identifying the creature, remembering that story which had thrilled them by the
+camp-fire at Millinokett. It was Herb Heal&rsquo;s traitor chum&mdash;the
+half-breed, Cross-eyed Chris.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Herb, backing off from the withered couch as far as the limited space of
+the cabin would allow, stood with his shoulders against the mouldy logs of the
+wall, his eyes like peep-holes to a volcano, gulping and gurgling, while he
+swallowed back a fire of amazed excitement and defeated anger, for which his
+backwoods vocabulary was too cheap.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A flame seemed scorching and hissing about his heart while he remembered that
+during some hour of every day for five years, since last he had seen the
+&ldquo;hound&rdquo; who robbed him, he had sworn that, if ever he caught the
+thief, he would pounce upon him with a woodsman&rsquo;s vengeance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I couldn&rsquo;t touch him now&mdash;the scum! But I&rsquo;ll be
+switched if I&rsquo;ll do a thing to help him!&rdquo; he hissed, the flame
+leaping to his lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet he had a strange sensation, as if that vow was broken like an egg-shell
+even while he made it. He knew that &ldquo;the two creatures which had fought
+inside of him, tooth and claw,&rdquo; about the fate of his enemy, were
+pinching his heart by turns in a last hot conflict.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His eyes shot flinty sparks; he drew his breath in hard puffs; his knotted
+throat twitched and swelled, while they (the man and the brute) strove within
+him; and all the time he stood staring in grisly silence at the half-breed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The latter still continued his Indian croon; though from the crazy roll of his
+malformed eyes it was plain that he knew not whether he chanted about the
+stars, his old friends and guides, or about anything else in heaven or earth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But one thing quickly became clear to Cyrus, and then to the Farrar
+boys,&mdash;less accustomed to tragedy than their comrade,&mdash;that this
+strange personage, in whose veins the blood of white men and red men met,
+carrying in its turbid flow the weaknesses of two races, was singing his
+swan-song, the last chant he would ever raise on earth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At their first entrance, as their bodies interfered with the broad light
+streaming through the cabin-door, Chris had lifted towards them a scared,
+shrinking stare. But, apparently, he took them for the shadows which walked in
+the dreams of his delirium. Not a ray of recognition lightened the blankness of
+that stare as Herb&rsquo;s big figure passed before him. Letting his eyes
+wander aimlessly again from log wall to log wall, from withered bed to mouldy
+rafters, his lips continued their crooning, which sank with his weakening
+breath, then rose again to sink once more, like the last wind-gusts when the
+storm is over.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly his shrunken body shivered in every limb. The humming ceased. His
+yellow teeth tapped upon each other in trouble and fear. He raised himself to a
+squatting posture, with his knee-bones to his chin, the wisps of hair tumbling
+upon his naked chest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s dark&mdash;heap dark!&rdquo; he whimpered, between long
+gasps. &ldquo;Can&rsquo;t strike the trail&mdash;can&rsquo;t find the
+home-camp. Herb&mdash;Herb Heal&mdash;ole pard&mdash;&rsquo;twas I took
+&rsquo;em&mdash;the skins. &rsquo;Twas&mdash;a dog&rsquo;s trick. Take it
+out&mdash;o&rsquo; my hide&mdash;if yer wants to&mdash;yah! Heap sick!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not a ray of sense was yet in the half-breed&rsquo;s eyes. An imaginary,
+vengeance-dealing Herb was before him; but he never turned a glance towards the
+real, and now forgiving, old chum, who leaned against the wall not ten feet
+away. His voice dropped to a guttural rumble, in which Indian sounds mingled
+with English.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the flame at Herb&rsquo;s heart was quenched at the first whimpered word.
+His stiffened muscles and lips relaxed. With a gurgle of sorrow, he crossed the
+camp-floor, and dropped into a crawling position on the faded spruces.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Chris!&rdquo; he cried thickly. &ldquo;Chris,&mdash;poor old
+pard,&mdash;don&rsquo;t ye know me? Look, man! Herb is right here&mdash;Herb
+Heal, yer old chum. You&rsquo;re &lsquo;heap sick&rsquo; for sure; but
+we&rsquo;ll haul you off to a settlement or to our camp, and I&rsquo;ll bring
+Doc along in two days. He&rsquo;ll&rdquo;&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Cross-eyed Chris became past hearing, his flicker of strength had failed;
+he keeled over, and lay, with his limp legs curled up, faint and speechless,
+upon the dead evergreens.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You ain&rsquo;t a-going to die!&rdquo; gasped Herb defiantly.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll be jiggered if you be, jest as I&rsquo;ve found you! Say,
+boys! Cyrus! Neal! rub him a bit, will ye? We ain&rsquo;t got no brandy,
+I&rsquo;ll build a fire, and warm some coffee.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was strange work for the hands of the Bostonian, and stranger yet for those
+of young Farrar,&mdash;son of an English merchant-prince,&mdash;this
+straightening and rubbing of a dying half-Indian, a &ldquo;scum,&rdquo; as Herb
+called him, drunkard, and thief. Yet there was no flash of hesitation on
+Farrar&rsquo;s part, as they brought their warm friction to bear upon the chill
+yellow skin, piebald from dirt and the stains of travel, as if it were the very
+mission which had brought them to Katahdin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They had grave thoughts meanwhile that the old mountain was decidedly gloomy in
+its omens, first a thunder-storm and then a tragedy; for, rub as they might
+with brotherly hands, they could not pass their own warmth into the body of the
+half-breed, though he still lived.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the mountain had not ended its terrors yet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Its mumbling lips began to speak, with a threatening, low at first like
+muttered curses, but swelling into a nameless noise&mdash;a rumbling, pounding,
+creeping, crashing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Great Governor&rsquo;s Ghost! what&rsquo;s that?&rdquo; gasped Cyrus,
+stopping his rubbing. &ldquo;Pamolah or some other fiend seems to be bombarding
+us from the top now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s more thunder rolling over us,&rdquo; said Neal; but as he
+spoke his tongue turned stiff with fear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sounds as if the whole mountain was tumbling to pieces. Perhaps
+it&rsquo;s the end of the world,&rdquo; suggested Dol, as a succession of
+booming shocks from above seemed to shake the camping-ground under his feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was one second of awful indecision. The boys looked at each other, at the
+dying man, at the roof above them, in the stiffness of uncertain terror.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then a figure leaped into their midst, with an armful of dry sticks, which he
+dashed from him. It was Herb, with the fuel for a fire. And, for the first and
+last time in his history, so far as these friends of his knew it, there was
+that big fear in his face which is most terrible when it looks out of the eyes
+of a naturally brave man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Boys, where&rsquo;s yer senses?&rdquo; he yelled cuttingly. &ldquo;Out,
+for your lives! Run! There&rsquo;s a slide above us on the mountain!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Him?&rdquo; questioned Cyrus&rsquo;s stiff lips, as he pointed to the
+breathing wreck on the spruce boughs. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s not dead yet.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;D&rsquo;ye think I&rsquo;d leave him? Clear out of this camp&mdash;you,
+or we&rsquo;ll be buried in less&rsquo;n two minutes! To the right! Off this
+ridge! Got yer rifles? I&rsquo;m coming!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The woodsman flung out the words while his brawny arms hoisted the body of his
+old chum. His comrades had already disappeared when he turned and sprang for
+the camp-door with his limp burden, but his moccasined foot kicked against
+something.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A great hiccough which was almost a sob rose from Herb&rsquo;s throat. It was
+his one valuable possession, his 45-90 Winchester rifle, his second self, which
+he had rested against the log wall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good-by, Old Blazes!&rdquo; he grunted. &ldquo;You never went back on
+me, but I can&rsquo;t lug him and you! My stars! but that was a narrow
+squeak.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For, as he cleared the camping-ground with a blind dash, with head bent and
+tongue caught between his clenched teeth, with a boom like a Gatling gun, a
+great block of granite from the summit of Katahdin struck the rock which
+sheltered the old camp, breaking a big piece off it, and shot on with mighty
+impetus down the mountain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An avalanche of loose earth, stones, and bushes, brought down by this
+battering-ram of the landslide, piled themselves upon the log hut, smashing to
+kindling-wood its walls, which had stood many a hard storm, burying them out of
+sight, and flinging wide showers of dust and small missiles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A scattered rain of clay caught Herb upon the head, and lodged, some of it, on
+the little pack containing axe and lunch which was strapped upon his shoulders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He shook. His grip loosened. The limp, dragging body in his arms sank until the
+feet touched the earth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But with the supreme effort, moral and physical, of his life, the forest guide
+gathered it tight again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll be blowed if I&rsquo;ll drop him now,&rdquo; he gasped.
+&ldquo;He ain&rsquo;t nothing but a bag o&rsquo; bones, anyhow.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Only a strong man in the hour of his best strength could have done it. With a
+defiant snort Herb charged through the choking dust-clouds, pelted by flying
+pebbles, sods, and fragments of sticks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This way, boys!&rdquo; he roared, after five straining, staggering
+minutes, as he caught a glimpse of his comrades ahead, tearing off to the
+right, as he had bidden them. &ldquo;You may let up now. We&rsquo;re safe
+enough.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They faced back, and saw him make a few reeling, descending steps, then lay
+what now seemed to be an out-and-out lifeless man on a bed of moss beneath a
+dwarfed spruce.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The nerves of the three were in a jumping condition, their brains felt
+befuddled, and their hearts sinking and melting in the midst of their bones,
+from the astounding shock and terror of the land-slide. But, as they beheld the
+guide deposit his burden, with its helplessly trailing head and limbs, a cheer
+in unsteady tones rang above the slackening rattle of earth and stones, and the
+far-away boom of the granite-block as it buried itself in the forest beneath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hurrah! for you, Herb, old boy,&rdquo; yelled Cyrus triumphantly.
+&ldquo;That was the grittiest thing I ever saw done&rsquo; Hurrah! Hurrah!
+Hoo-ray!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The English boys, open-throated, swelled the peal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But their cheering broke off as they came near, and saw the mask-like face over
+which Herb bent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is he gone, poor fellow?&rdquo; asked Garst. &ldquo;What do you suppose
+caused it&mdash;the slide?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, it was a thundering big lump of granite from the top o&rsquo; the
+mountain,&rdquo; answered Herb, replying to the second question. &ldquo;That
+plaguy heavy rain must ha&rsquo; loosened the earth around it the clay and
+bushes that kep&rsquo; it in place. So it got kind o&rsquo; top-heavy, and came
+slumping and pitching down, slow at first, and then a&rsquo;most as quick as a
+cannon-ball, bringing all that pile along with it. I&rsquo;ve seen the like
+before; but, sho! I never came so near being buried by it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He pointed as he spoke to the late camping-ground, with its lodgment of clay,
+sods, pygmy trees, and pieces of rock, big and little.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus09"></a>
+<img src="images/illus09.jpg" width="375" height="600" alt="Illustration: " />
+<p class="caption"><b>&ldquo;Herb Charged Through The Choking Dust-Clouds.&rdquo;</b><br/></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The old camp&rsquo;s clean wiped out, boys,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;and I
+guess one of the men that built it is gone, or a&rsquo;most gone, too. Stick
+your arm under his head, Cyrus, while I hunt for some water.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Garst did as he was bidden, but his help was not needed long. The guide went
+off like a racer, covering the ground at a stretching gallop. He remembered
+well the clear Katahdin spring, which had supplied the home-camp during that
+long-past trapping winter. He returned with his tin mug full.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the ice-cold drops touched Chris&rsquo;s forehead, and lay on his parted
+lips, gem-like drops which he was past swallowing, his malformed eyes slowly
+opened. There was intelligence in them, shining through the gathering
+death-film, like a sinking light in a lantern.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was groping in the dim border-land now, and in it he recognized his old
+partner with shadowy wonder; for delirium was past, with the other storms of a
+storm-beaten life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Herb,&rdquo; he gurgled in snatches, the words being half heard, half
+guessed at, &ldquo;&rsquo;twas I&mdash;took &rsquo;em&mdash;the
+skins&mdash;an&rsquo; the antlers. I wanted&mdash;to get&mdash;to the ole
+camp&mdash;an&rsquo; let you&mdash;take it out o&rsquo; me&mdash;afore
+I&mdash;keeled over.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Herb had taken Cyrus&rsquo;s place, and was upholding him with a tenderness
+which showed that the guide&rsquo;s heart was in this hour melted to a jelly.
+Two tears were dammed up inside his eyelids, which were so unused to tears that
+they held them in. He neither wiped nor winked them away before he
+answered:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you fret about that&mdash;poor kid. We&rsquo;ll chuck that
+old business clean out o&rsquo; mind. You&rsquo;ve jest got to suck this water
+and try to chipper up, and&mdash;we&rsquo;ll make camp together again.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Herb knew as well as he knew anything that the man who had robbed him was
+long past &ldquo;chippering up,&rdquo; and was starting alone to the unseen
+camping-grounds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How long since you got back here?&rdquo; he&rsquo; asked, close to the
+dulling ear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Couldn&rsquo;t&mdash;keep&mdash;track&mdash;o&rsquo; days.
+Got&mdash;turned&mdash;round&mdash;in woods.
+Lost&mdash;trail&mdash;heap&mdash;long&mdash;getting&mdash;to&mdash;th&rsquo;
+old&mdash;camp.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The words seemed freezing on the lips which uttered them. Herb asked no more
+questions. Silence was broken only by the rolling voice of the land-slide,
+which had not yet ceased. Occasional volleys of loose earth and stones,
+dislodged or shaken by the down-plunging granite, still kept falling at
+intervals on the buried camp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At one unusually loud rattle, Chris&rsquo;s lips moved again. In those strange
+gutturals which the boys had heard in the hut, he rumbled an Indian sentence,
+repeating it in English with scared, breaking breaths.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a prayer of her tribe which his mother had taught him to say at morning
+and eve:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;God&mdash;I&mdash;am&mdash;weak&mdash;Pity&mdash;me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Heap&mdash;noise! Heap&mdash;dark!&rdquo; he gasped.
+&ldquo;Can&rsquo;t&mdash;find&mdash;th&rsquo; old&mdash;camp.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re near it now, old chum,&rdquo; said Herb, trying to soothe
+him. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the home-camp.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll&mdash;camp&mdash;to-ge-ther?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We will again, sure.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+The last stone pounded down on the heap above the old camp; and Herb gently
+laid flat the body of the man he had sworn to shoot, closed the malformed eyes,
+and turned away, that the fellows he was guiding might not see his face.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig23.jpg" width="400" height="163" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap23"></a>Chapter XXIII.<br/>Brother&rsquo;s Work</h2>
+
+<p>
+They buried Chris upon Katahdin&rsquo;s breast. It was a good cemetery for
+woodsmen, so Herb said, granite above and forest beneath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But, good or bad, this was the one thing to be done. An attempt to transfer the
+body to a distant settlement would be objectless labor; for, as far as the
+guide knew, the half-breed had not a friend to be interested in his fate,
+father and mother having died before Herb found him in the snow-heaped forest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There were three reliable witnesses, besides the man who was known to have a
+grudge against him, to testify as to the cause and manner of his death when the
+party returned to Greenville; so no suspicious finger could point at Herb Heal,
+with a hint that he had carried out his old threat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How long Chris, in lonely, crazed repentance, had sheltered in the camp on the
+mountain-side could only be a matter of guess. Herb inclined to think that he
+had been there for weeks,&mdash;months, perhaps,&mdash;judging from the
+withered spruce bed and the dry boughs and sticks upon the camping-ground,
+which had evidently been gathered and broken for fuel. His ravings made it
+clear that, on returning to the old haunts after years of absence, he had
+missed the trail he used to know, and wandered wearily in the dense woods about
+the foot of Katahdin before he escaped from the prison of trees, and climbed to
+the hut he sought.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such wanderings, Herb declared, generally ended in &ldquo;a man having wheels
+in his head,&rdquo; being half or wholly insane, though he might keep
+sufficient wits to provide himself with food and warmth, as Chris had done
+while his strength held out. This was not long; for the half-breed&rsquo;s
+words suggested that he felt near to the great change he roughly called
+&ldquo;keeling over,&rdquo; when he started to find his cheated partner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Cyrus, while he watched the guide making preparations for the mountain
+burial, pictured the poor weakling tramping for hundreds of miles through
+rugged forest-land, doubtless with aching knee-joints and feet, that he might
+make upon his own skin justice for the skins which he had stolen, and so, in
+the only way he knew, square things with his wronged chum. And the city man
+thought, with a tear of pity, that even that poor drink-fuddled mind must have
+been lit by some ray of longing for goodness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a strange funeral.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The guide chose a spot where the earth had been much softened by the recent
+rain; and, with the ingenuity of a man accustomed to wilderness shifts, he
+broke up the drenched ground with the axe which he took from his shoulders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That axe, which had so often made camp, had never before made a grave; the
+Farrars doubted that it ever would. But Herb worked away upon his knees,
+moisture dripping from his skin, putting sorrow for years of anger into every
+blow of his arms. Then, stopping a while, he went off down the mountain to the
+nearest belt of trees, and cut a limb from one, out of which, with his
+hunting-knife, he fashioned a rude wooden implement, a cross between a spade
+and shovel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With this he scooped out the broken earth until a grave appeared over three
+feet deep. He lined it with fragrant spruce-boughs from the wind-beaten tangle
+below.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These Cyrus and Dol had busied themselves in cutting. Neal thought of other
+work for his fingers. Getting hold of Herb&rsquo;s axe when the owner was not
+using it, he felled one of the dwarf white birches. Out of its light, delicate
+wood, with the help of his big pocket-knife and a ball of twine that was hidden
+somewhere about him, he made a very presentable cross, to point out to future
+hunters on Katahdin the otherwise unmarked grave.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was a bit of a genius at wood-carving, and surveyed his work with
+satisfaction when he considered it finished, having neatly cut upon it the
+name, &ldquo;Chris Kemp,&rdquo; with the date, &ldquo;October 20th,
+1891.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Couldn&rsquo;t you add a text or motto of some kind?&rdquo; suggested
+Dol, glancing over his shoulder. &ldquo;Twould make it more like the things one
+sees in cemeteries. You&rsquo;re such a dab at that sort of work.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can&rsquo;t think of anything,&rdquo; answered the elder brother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then, with a sudden lighting of his face, he seized the knife again, and worked
+in, in fine lettering, the frightened prayer he had heard on the
+half-breed&rsquo;s lips:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;God, I am weak; pity me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Herb and Cyrus lowered the body into its resting-place, and covered it with the
+green spruces.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The four campers knelt bare-headed by the grave.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Couldn&rsquo;t one of you boys say a bit of a prayer?&rdquo; asked Herb
+in a thick voice. &ldquo;I ain&rsquo;t used to spouting.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All former help had been easily given. This was a harder matter, yet not so
+difficult as it would have been amid a city congregation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Garst tried to recall some suitable prayer from a funeral service; so did Neal.
+Both failed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But here upon Katahdin&rsquo;s side, where, in the large forces of storm and
+slide, in forest and granite, through every wind-swept bush, waving blade, and
+tinted lichen, breathed a whisper from God, it seemed no unnatural thing for a
+man or a boy to speak to his Father.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can&rsquo;t one of you fellers say a prayer?&rdquo; asked Herb again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the river of feeling in Cyrus broke the dam of reserve, and flowed over
+his lips in a prayer such as he had never before uttered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was the prayer of a son who was for the minute absorbed in his Father.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It left the five, those who were camping here and one who had gone to unseen
+camping-grounds, with son-like trust to the Father&rsquo;s dealings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Herb and the Farrars responded to it with heart-eager &ldquo;Amens!&rdquo; the
+fervor of which was new to their lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thank you as if he were my own brother, boys,&rdquo; said the
+woodsman, while he filled in the grave, and planted Neal&rsquo;s cross at its
+head. &ldquo;Sho! when it comes to a time like we&rsquo;ve been through to-day,
+a man, if he has anything but a gizzard in him, must feel as how we&rsquo;re
+all brothers,&mdash;every man-jack of us,&mdash;white men, red men,
+half-and-half men, whatever we are or wherever we sprung.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A fellow is always hearing that sort of thing,&rdquo; said Neal Farrar
+to Cyrus. &ldquo;But I&rsquo;m blessed if I ever felt it stick in me before!
+that we&rsquo;re all of the one stuff, you know&mdash;we and that poor beggar.
+Some of us seem to get such precious long odds over the others.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All the more reason why we should do our level best to pull the backward
+ones up to us,&rdquo; answered the American.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The words struck into the ears of Dol&mdash;that youngster listening with a
+soberness of attention seldom seen in his flash-light eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A few years afterwards, when Neal Farrar was a newly blown lieutenant in his
+Queen&rsquo;s Twelfth Lancers, as full of heroic impulses and enthusiasms as a
+modern young officer may be,&mdash;while his half-fledged ambitions were
+hanging on the chances of active service, and the golden, remote possibility of
+his one day being a V.C.,&mdash;there was a peaceful honor which clung to him
+unsought.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During his first year of army life, he became the paragon of every poor private
+and raw recruit struggling with the miseries of goose-step, with whom he came
+even into momentary contact. For sometimes through a word or act, sometimes
+through a flash of the eye, or a look about the mouth, during the brief
+interchange of a military salute, these &ldquo;backward ones&rdquo; saw that
+the progressive young officer looked on them, not as men-machines, but as
+brothers, as important in the great schemes of the nation and the world as he
+was himself; that he was proud to serve with them, and would be prouder still
+to help them if he could.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was an understanding which inspired many a tempted or newly joined fellow to
+drill himself morally as his sergeant drilled him physically, with a
+determination to become as fine a soldier and forward a man as his paragon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But only one American friend of Lieutenant Farrar&rsquo;s, who has let out the
+secret to the writer, knows that the binding truth of human brotherhood was
+first born into him when, on Katahdin&rsquo;s side, he helped to bury a
+thieving half-Indian.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig24.jpg" width="400" height="163" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap24"></a>Chapter XXIV.<br/>&ldquo;Keeping Things Even&rdquo;</h2>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, you musn&rsquo;t be moping, boys, because of this day&rsquo;s work
+that you took a hand in, and that wasn&rsquo;t in your play-bill when you come
+to these woods. We&rsquo;ll have to try and even things up to-morrow with some
+big sport. You look kind o&rsquo; wilted.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So said Herb when the tired party were half-way back to camp, doing the descent
+of the mountain in a silence clouded by the scene which they had been through.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The woodsman seemed troubled with a rasping in his throat. He cleared it twice
+and spat before he could open a passage for a decently cheerful voice in which
+to suggest a rise of spirits. But Herb was too faithful a guide to bear the
+thought that his employers&rsquo; trip should end in any gloom because the one
+painful chapter in his own life had closed forever. Moreover, although more
+than once, as he fought his way through a jungle or jumped a windfall,
+something nipped his heart, pinching him up inside, and making his eyes leak,
+he felt that the thing had ended well for him&mdash;and for Chris.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Herb, in his simple faith, scarcely doubted that the old chum, whom he had
+forgiven, had reached a Home-Camp where his broken will and stunted life might
+be repaired, and grow as they had poor chance to grow here.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say, boys!&rdquo; he burst forth, a few minutes after his protest
+against &ldquo;moping,&rdquo; and when the band were within sight of the spring
+whence they had started, an age back, as it seemed, on the trail of the moose.
+&ldquo;Say, boys! I&rsquo;ve been all these years raging at Chris. Seems to me
+now as if he was a poor sort of overgrowed baby, and not so bad a thief as the
+chump who gave him that whiskey, and stole his senses. It&rsquo;s a thundering
+big pity that man hadn&rsquo;t the burying of him to-day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He was always the under dog,&mdash;was Chris,&rdquo; he went on slowly,
+as if he was seeking from his own heart an excuse for those unforeseen impulses
+which had worked it and his body during the past five hours. &ldquo;Whites and
+Injuns jumped on him. They said he was criss-cross all through, same as his
+eyes. But he warn&rsquo;t. Never seed a half-breed that had less gall and more
+grit, except when the hanker for whiskey would creep up in him, and boss him.
+He could no more stand agen it, and the things it made him do, than a
+jack-rabbit.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Another reason why we Americans ought to feel our responsibility towards
+every man in whose veins runs Indian blood, a thousand times more hotly than we
+do!&rdquo; burst out Cyrus. &ldquo;It maddens a fellow to think that we made
+them the under dogs, and as much by giving them a &lsquo;boss,&rsquo; as you
+say, in fire-water, as by anything else.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I kind o&rsquo; think that way myself sometimes,&rdquo; said Herb.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And there was silence until the guide cried:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here&rsquo;s our camp, boys. I&rsquo;ll bet you&rsquo;re glad to see it.
+I must get the kettle, and cruise off for water. &rsquo;Tain&rsquo;t likely
+I&rsquo;ll trust one of you fellers after last night. But you can hustle round
+and build the camp-fire while I&rsquo;m gone.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Herb had a shrewd motive in this. He knew that there is nothing which will cure
+the blues in a camper, if he is touched by that affliction, rare in forest
+life, like the building of his fire, watching the little flames creep from the
+dull, dead wood, to roar and soar aloft in gold-red pennons of good cheer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The result proved his wisdom. When he returned in a very short time from that
+ever-to-be-famous spring, with his brimming kettle, he found a glorious fire,
+and three tired but cheerful fellows watching it, its reflection playing like a
+jack-o&rsquo;-lantern in each pair of eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now I&rsquo;ll have supper ready in a jiffy,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I
+guess you boys feel like eating one another. Jerusha! we never touched our
+snack&mdash;nary a crumb of it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the strange happenings and chaotic feelings of the day, hunger, together
+with the bread and pork for satisfying it which Herb had carried up the
+mountain, were forgotten until now.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never mind! We&rsquo;ll make up for it. Only hurry up!&rdquo; pleaded
+Dol. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re like bears, we&rsquo;re so hungry.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Like bears! You&rsquo;re a sight more like calves with their mouths
+open, waiting for something to swallow,&rdquo; answered Herb, his eyes flashing
+impudence, while, with an energy apparently no less brisk than when he started
+out in the morning, he rushed his preparations for supper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say I&rsquo;m like a Sukey, and I&rsquo;ll go for you!&rdquo; roared
+Dol, a gurgling laugh breaking from him, the first which had been heard since
+the four struggled through that tangle on Katahdin to a sight of the old camp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once or twice during supper the mirth, which had been frozen in each
+camper&rsquo;s breast by a sight of the drifted wreck of a human life, warmed
+again spasmodically. Herb did his manly best to fan its flame, though his heart
+was still pinched by a feeling of double loss.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Later in the evening, when the party were huddling close to the camp-fire, he
+lifted his right hand and looked at it blankly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My!&rdquo; he gasped, &ldquo;but it will feel awful queer and empty
+without Old Blazes. That rifle was a reg&rsquo;lar corker, boys. I was saving
+up for three years to buy it. An&rsquo; it never went back on me. Times when
+I&rsquo;ve gone far off hunting, and had nary a chance to speak
+
+to a human for weeks, I&rsquo;d get to talking to it like as if &rsquo;twas a
+living thing. When I wasn&rsquo;t afeard of scaring game, I&rsquo;d fire a
+round to make it answer back and drive away lonesomeness. Folks might ha&rsquo;
+thought I was loony, only there was none to see. Well, it&rsquo;s smashed to
+chips now, &rsquo;long with the old camp.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What awfully selfish jackasses we were, to skip off with our own rifles,
+and never think of yours, or that you couldn&rsquo;t save it, carrying that
+poor fellow! I feel like kicking myself,&rdquo; said Cyrus, sharp vexation in
+his voice. &ldquo;But that slide business sprang on us so quickly. The sudden
+rumbling, rattling, and pounding jumbled a fellow&rsquo;s wits. I scarcely
+understood what was up, even when we were scooting for our lives.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I felt a bit white-livered myself, I tell ye; and I&rsquo;m more
+hardened to slides than you are,&rdquo; was the woodsman&rsquo;s answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The confession, taken in the light of his conduct, made him doubly a hero to
+his city friends.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They thought of him staggering along the mountain, blinded, bewildered, pelted
+by clay, with that dragging burden in his arms, a heart tossed by
+danger&rsquo;s keenest realization in his breast. And they were silent before
+the high courage which can recognize fear, yet refuse to it the mastery.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Neal, whose secret musings were generally crossed by a military thread, seeing
+that he had chosen the career of a cavalry-soldier, and hoped soon to enter
+Sandhurst College, stared into the heart of the camp-fire, glowering at fate,
+because she had not ordained that Herb should serve the queen with him, and
+wear upon his resolute heart&mdash;as it might reasonably be expected he
+would&mdash;the Victoria Cross.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Young Farrar&rsquo;s feeling was so strong that it swept his lips at last.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Blow it all! Herb,&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a tearing pity
+that you can&rsquo;t come into the English Lancers with me. I don&rsquo;t
+suppose I&rsquo;ll ever be a V.C., but you would sooner or later as sure as
+gun&rsquo;s iron.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A &lsquo;V.C.!&rsquo; What&rsquo;s that?&rdquo; asked Herb.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A Vigorous Christian, to be sure!&rdquo; put in Cyrus, who was
+progressive and peaceful, teasingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the English boy, full of the dignity of the subject to him, summoned his
+best eloquence to describe to the American backwoodsman that little cross of
+iron, Victoria&rsquo;s guerdon, which entitles its possessor to write those two
+notable letters after his name, and which only hero-hearts may wear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But a vision of himself, stripped of &ldquo;sweater&rdquo; and moccasins, in
+cavalry rig, becrossed and beribboned, serving under another flag than the
+Stars and Stripes, was too much for Herb&rsquo;s gravity and for the grim
+regrets which wrung him to-night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, sugar!&rdquo; he gasped; and his laughter was like a rocket shooting
+up from his mighty throat, and exploding in a hundred sparkles of merriment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He laughed long. He laughed insistently. His comrades were won to join in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the fun had subsided, Garst said:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Herb Heal, old man, there&rsquo;s something in you to-night which
+reminds me of a line I&rsquo;m rather stuck on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s have it!&rdquo; cried Herb.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Cyrus quoted:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;As for this here earth,<br/>
+It takes lots of laffin&rsquo; to keep things even!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now you&rsquo;ve hit it! The man that wrote that had a pile o&rsquo;
+sense. Come, boys, it&rsquo;s been an awful full day. Let&rsquo;s turn
+in!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As he spoke, Herb began to replenish the fire, and make things snug in the camp
+for the night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But shortly after, when he threw himself on the spuce-boughs near them, the
+boys heard him murmur, deep in his throat, as if he took strength from the
+words:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;It takes lots of laffin&rsquo; to keep things even!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig25.jpg" width="400" height="168" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap25"></a>Chapter XXV.<br/>A Little Caribou Quarrel</h2>
+
+<p>
+But things on this old planet seemed even enough the next day, when, after a
+dozen hours of much needed sleep, the campers&rsquo; eyes opened upon a scene
+which might have stirred any sluggish blood&mdash;and they were not sluggards.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A fresh breath of frost was in the air to quicken circulation and hunger. Under
+a smiling sun an October breeze frolicked through leaves with tints of fire and
+gold, humming, while it swiftly skimmed over their beauties, as if it was
+reading a wind&rsquo;s poem of autumn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Katahdin looked as though it had suddenly taken on the white crown of age, with
+age&rsquo;s stately calm. The weather had grown colder during the night.
+Summer&mdash;the balmy Indian summer, with its late spells of
+sultriness&mdash;had taken a weeping departure yesterday. To-day there was no
+threatening of rain-storm or slide. The mountain&rsquo;s principal peaks had
+fleecy wraps of snow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ha! Old Katahdin has put on its nightcap,&rdquo; exclaimed Cyrus, when
+the trio issued from their tent in the morning. &ldquo;Listen, you fellows!
+This is the 21st of October. I propose that we start back to our home-camp
+to-morrow. It will take us two days to reach Millinokett Lake. Then we&rsquo;ll
+set our faces towards civilization the first week in November, or
+thereabouts.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, bother it! So soon!&rdquo; protested Dol.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, Young Rattlebrain,&rdquo;&mdash;Garst took the calm tone of
+leadership,&mdash;&ldquo;please consider that this is the first time
+you&rsquo;ve camped out in Maine woods. You might find it fun to be snowed up
+in camp during a first fall, and to tramp homewards through a thawing slush.
+But your father wouldn&rsquo;t relish its effects on your British constitution.
+And out here&mdash;once we&rsquo;re well into November&mdash;there&rsquo;s no
+knowing when the temperature
+
+may drop to zero with mighty short notice. I&rsquo;ve often turned in at night,
+feeling as if I were on &lsquo;India&rsquo;s coral strands&rsquo; and woke up
+next morning thinking I had popped off in my sleep to &lsquo;Greenland&rsquo;s
+icy mountains.&rsquo; Herb Heal! you know what tricks a thermometer, if we had
+one, might play in our camp from this out; talk sense to these fellows.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Herb, who had risen an hour before his charges, had already fetched fresh
+water, coaxed up the fire, and was busily mixing flapjacks for breakfast. His
+ears, however, had caught the drift of the talk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Guess Cyrus is right,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Seeing as it&rsquo;s the
+first time you Britishers have slept off your spring mattresses, I&rsquo;d say,
+light out for the city and steam-heat afore the snow comes. Oh! you
+needn&rsquo;t get your mad up. I ain&rsquo;t thinking you&rsquo;d growl at
+being snowed in. I know better.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By the great horn spoon! I b&rsquo;lieve I&rsquo;ll go right along to
+Greenville with you,&rdquo; exclaimed the guide a minute later. &ldquo;I might
+get a chance to pick up a bargain of a second-hand rifle there. And I guess
+you&rsquo;d be mighty sick o&rsquo; your luck, Dol, if you had to lug them
+moose-antlers part o&rsquo; the way yerself.
+
+I ain&rsquo;t stuck on carrying &rsquo;em either, if we can get a
+jumper.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But there was a third reason, still more powerful than these two, why he should
+make a trip to the distant town, which stirred Herb&rsquo;s mind while he
+stirred his cakes. His sturdy sense told him that it would be well he should
+put in an appearance when Cyrus made a statement before the Greenville coroner
+as to the cause and manner of Chris&rsquo;s death.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, you boys, we don&rsquo;t want no fooling this blessed day,&rdquo;
+he said, when breakfast was in order, and the campers were emptying for the
+second time their tin mugs of coffee. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s sport before
+us&mdash;tearing good sport. Whatever do you s&rsquo;pose I come on this
+morning when I was cruising over the bog for water? Caribou-tracks!
+Caribou-tracks, as sure as there&rsquo;s a caribou in Maine!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who&rsquo;s for following &rsquo;em? We hain&rsquo;t got much provisions
+left; and I guess a chunk of broiled caribou-steak about as big as a
+horse&rsquo;s upper lip would cheer each of us up, and make us feel first-rate.
+What say, boys?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By all that&rsquo;s glorious!&rdquo; ejaculated Cyrus, his eyes striking
+light. &ldquo;Caribou-signs! Of course we&rsquo;ll follow them. A bit of fresh
+meat
+
+would be pretty acceptable, and a good view of a herd of caribou would be still
+more so&mdash;to me, at any rate. That would just about top off our exploring
+to a T.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got to be mighty spry, then,&rdquo; said the woodsman,
+lurching to his feet, muscles swelling, and nostrils spreading like a
+sleuth-hound&rsquo;s. &ldquo;If you want caribou, you&rsquo;ve got to take
+&rsquo;em while they&rsquo;re around. Old hunters have a saying:
+&lsquo;They&rsquo;re here to-day, to-morrow nowhere.&rsquo; And that&rsquo;s
+about the size of it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s start off this minute!&rdquo; Dol jerked out the words while
+he bolted the last salt shreds of his pork. &ldquo;Hurry up, you fellows!
+You&rsquo;re as slow as snails. I&rsquo;d eat the jolliest meal that was ever
+cooked in three minutes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No wonder you squirm and shout all night, then, until sane people with
+good digestions feel ready to blow your head off,&rdquo; laughed Cyrus, who was
+one of the laggards; but he disposed of the last mouthfuls of his own meal with
+little regard for his digestive canal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In rather less than twenty minutes the four were scanning with wide eyes
+certain fresh foot-marks, plainly printed on a patch of soft oozing clay,
+midway on the boggy tract.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Whew! Bless me! Those caribou-tracks?&rdquo; Cyrus caught his breath
+with amazement while he crouched to examine them. &ldquo;Why, they&rsquo;re
+bigger than any moose-tracks we&rsquo;ve seen!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t that great?&rdquo; gasped Dol.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, come to think of it, it is,&rdquo; answered the guide, in the
+stealthy tones of an expectant hunter; &ldquo;for a full-grown bull-caribou
+don&rsquo;t stand so high as a full-sized moose by two or three feet, and he
+don&rsquo;t weigh more&rsquo;n half as much. Still, for all that, caribou deer
+beat every other animal of the deer tribe, so far&rsquo;s I know, in the size
+of their hoofs, as you&rsquo;ll see bime-by if luck&rsquo;s with us! And my
+stars! how they scud along on them big hoofs. I&rsquo;d back &rsquo;em in a
+race against the smartest of your city chaps that ever spun through Maine on
+his new-fangled &lsquo;wheel,&rsquo; that he&rsquo;s so sot on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Garst, who was an enthusiastic cyclist, with a gurgle of unbelieving mirth,
+prepared to dispute this. There might have ensued a wordy sparring about
+caribou versus bicycle, had not the guide been impressed with the necessity for
+prompt action at the expense of speech.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We must quit our talk and get a move on,&rdquo; he whispered, and led
+the forward march across the bog, his eyes every now and again narrowing into
+two gleaming slits, as if he were debating within himself, while he studied the
+ground or some bush which showed signs of being nibbled or trampled. Then he
+would sweep the horizon with long-range vision.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But not a tuft of hair or glancing horn hove in sight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The marsh was left behind. The hoof-marks were lost in a wide meadowy sweep of
+open ground, bounded at a distance by an irregular line of hills, sparsely
+covered with spruce-trees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Towards these Herb headed, leaving Katahdin away back in the rear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Shaw! I&rsquo;m afeard they&rsquo;re &lsquo;nowhere&rsquo; by
+this time,&rdquo; he whispered, when the hunters reached the rising ground,
+glancing at Dol, who stepped lightly beside him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy&rsquo;s lips parted to breathe out compressed disappointment; but his
+answer was lost in a sharp whirr! whirr! and a sudden flutter of wings above
+his head. His eyes went aloft towards a bough about eight feet from the ground.
+So did Herb&rsquo;s, and lit with a new, whimsical hope.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A spruce partridge!&rdquo; hissed the guide, his voice thrilling even in
+its stealthy whisper. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s luck&mdash;dead sure! The Injuns say,
+&lsquo;The red eye never tells a lie;&rsquo;&rdquo; and the woodsman pointed
+out the strip of bare red skin above the beady eyes of the bird, which cuddled
+itself on its branch, and looked down at them unfrighted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol Farrar, who in this region of moose-birds and moose-calls could believe in
+anything, felt both his spirits and credulity rise together. He managed to keep
+abreast of the trained hunter, as the latter, with swift, stretching, silent
+steps climbed the hill. And he heard the hunter&rsquo;s sudden cluck of triumph
+as he reached the top, and looked down upon the valley at the other side, the
+inarticulate sound being followed by one softly rung word,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Caribou!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Caribou? They look awfully like quiet Alderney cows, except for the big
+antlers!&rdquo; The amazed exclamation stirred the English boy&rsquo;s tongue,
+but he did not make it audible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Following Herb&rsquo;s example, he stretched himself flat upon his stomach
+under a spruce, and stared over the brow of the hill at a forest pantomime
+which was being acted in the valley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cautiously slipping from tree to tree, Cyrus and Neal, who had lagged a few
+steps behind, joined the leaders, and lay low, eagerly gazing too.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On its farther side the hill was yet more sparsely covered, the scattered
+spruces showing gaps between them where the lumberman&rsquo;s axe had made
+havoc. Through these openings, which were as shafts of light amid the
+evergreen&rsquo;s waving play, the hunters saw the sun silver a brown pool in
+the valley. A few maples and birches waved their shrivelling splendors of
+scarlet and buff at irregular distances from the water. And in and out among
+these trees moved in graceful woodland frolic four or five large
+animals,&mdash;perhaps more,&mdash;their doings being plainly seen by the
+watchers on the hill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Their coats, like those of the smaller deer, were of a brown which seemed to
+have caught its dye from the autumnal tints surrounding them. In shape they
+justified Dol&rsquo;s criticism; for they certainly were not unlike cows of the
+Alderney breed, save for the widely branching horns.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of the strength of these antlers the hidden spectators got sudden, startling
+proof, as the two largest caribou drew off from the rest, and charged each
+other in a real or sham fight, the battle-clang of their meeting horns sounding
+far away to the hill-top.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Them two bulls are having a big time of it. Look at &rsquo;em now, with
+the small one. That&rsquo;s a stranger in the herd,&rdquo; hummed Herb into the
+ear of the boy next to him, his voice so light and even that it might have been
+but the murmur of a falling leaf. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s an all-fired pity that
+we&rsquo;re jest too far off for a shot.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The &ldquo;stranger,&rdquo; which the woodsman&rsquo;s long-range eye had
+singled out, was of a smaller size and paler color than the other caribou; and
+Herb&mdash;who could interpret the forest pantomime far better than he would
+have explained the acting of human beings on a stage&mdash;told his companions
+in whispers and signs that it was in distressed dread of its company.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The attentions which the rest paid to it seemed at first only friendly and
+facetious. The two big bulls, after trying their mettle against each other for
+a minute, separated, and moved towards it, prodded it lightly with their horns,
+and playfully bit its sides, a sport in which the other members of the herd
+joined.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They&rsquo;re playing it, like a cat with a mouse; but I guess
+they&rsquo;ll murder it in the long run if it&rsquo;s sickly or weak. Caribou
+are the biggest bullies in these woods&mdash;to each other,&rdquo; whispered
+Herb.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By the great horn spoon! they&rsquo;re doing for it now,&rdquo; he
+gasped, a minute later. &ldquo;Sho!... if I only had my old Winchester here,
+I&rsquo;d soon stop their lynching. Try it, you, Cyrus! You&rsquo;re a sure
+shot, an&rsquo; you can creep within a hundred yards of &rsquo;em without being
+scented. Try it, man!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The guide&rsquo;s flashing eyes and quick signs conveyed half his meaning; his
+excited sentences were so low that Garst only caught fag-ends of them. But they
+were emphasized unexpectedly by a faint bleating sound rising from the
+valley,&mdash;the helpless bleat of a buffeted creature.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We want meat, and I&rsquo;m going to spring a surprise on those
+bullies,&rdquo; muttered Cyrus, setting his teeth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Still lying flat, he shot his eyes down the hill-slope, forming a plan of
+descent; then he lifted the rifle beside him, and jammed some fresh cartridges
+into the magazine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ere a dozen long breaths had been drawn, he was stealthily moving towards the
+valley, slipping from spruce to spruce&mdash;an arrowlike, unnoticeable figure
+in his dark gray tweeds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was close to the foot of the hill when the three breathless fellows above
+saw him raise his rifle, just as the unfortunate little caribou, after many
+efforts to escape, had been beaten to its knees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;ll drop one, sure! He&rsquo;s a crack shot&mdash;is Cyrus!
+There! he&rsquo;s drawing bead. Bravo!... he&rsquo;s floored the
+biggest!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Herb&rsquo;s gusty breath blew the sentences through his nostrils, while the
+sudden, explosive bang of the Winchester cut through all other sounds, and set
+the air a-quiver.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Twice Cyrus fired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The largest bull-caribou leaped three feet upward, wheeled about, staggered to
+his knees. A third shot stopped his bullying forever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hurrah! I guess you&rsquo;ve got the leader&mdash;the best of the herd.
+That other bull was a buster too! You might ha&rsquo; dropped him, if
+you&rsquo;d been in the humor!&rdquo; bellowed the guide, springing to his
+legs, and letting out his pent-up wind in a full-blast roar of triumph.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He well knew that Cyrus, &ldquo;being a queer specimen sportsman,&rdquo; and
+the right sort after all, would be satisfied with the one inevitable deed of
+death.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As their leader fell, the caribou raised their heads, stared in stiffened
+wonder for a few seconds, offering a steady mark for the smoking rifle if it
+had been in the grasp of a butcher. Then, as though propelled by one shock,
+they cut for the wood at dazzling speed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A minute&mdash;and they were in the distance as tufts of hair blown before a
+storm-wind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The half-killed weakling sought shelter more slowly in another direction.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well done, Cy!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Congratulations, old man!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve got a trophy now. You&rsquo;ll never leave this splendid
+head behind. My eye, what antlers!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such were the exclamations blown to Garst&rsquo;s ears by the hot breath of his
+English friends, as they reached his side, and stooped with him to examine the
+fallen forest beauty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No; I guess we can manage to haul the head back to camp, with as much
+meat as we need. You&rsquo;ll have your &lsquo;chunk of caribou-steak as big as
+a horse&rsquo;s upper lip,&rsquo; to-night, Herb, and bigger if you want it.
+I&rsquo;m tickled at getting the antlers, especially as I didn&rsquo;t shoot
+this beauty for the sake of them. I&rsquo;ll hook them on my shoulders when we
+start back to Millinokett to-morrow.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So answered the successful hunter, tingling with some pride in the skill which,
+because of his reverence for all life, he generally kept out of sight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And he stuck to his purpose about the antlers.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+Cheered and invigorated by a sumptuous supper and breakfast of broiled
+caribou-steaks, supplemented by Herb&rsquo;s lightest cakes, and carrying some
+of the meat with them as provision for the way, the campers accomplished their
+backward tramp to the log camp on Millinokett Lake in fulness of strength and
+spirits.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once or twice during the journey, when the guide was stalking ahead, and
+thought himself unnoticed, the city fellows saw him lift his right hand and
+look at it for a full minute. Then it swung heavily back to his side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s missing his rifle, the partner that never went back on
+him,&rdquo; said Cyrus. &ldquo;Say, boys! I&rsquo;ve got an idea!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Out with it if it&rsquo;s worth anything,&rdquo; grunted Dol. &ldquo;I
+never have ideas these days. Too much doing. I don&rsquo;t feel as if there was
+a steady peg in me to hang one on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh! quit your nonsense, Chick, and listen. Herb will wait for us in a
+few minutes,&rdquo; was the Boston man&rsquo;s impatient rejoinder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then followed a low-toned consultation, in the course of which such talk as
+this was heard:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Our Pater will want to shell out when he hears about Chris.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So will mine. He&rsquo;ll be for sending Herb a cool five hundred or
+thousand dollars, right away. And, as likely as not, Herb would feel flaring
+mad, and ready to chuck it in his face. He&rsquo;s not the sort of fellow to
+stand being paid by an outsider for a plucky act, done in the best hour of his
+life.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I say! wouldn&rsquo;t it be decenter to manage the thing ourselves,
+without letting anybody who doesn&rsquo;t know him meddle in it?&rdquo; This
+suggestion was in Dol&rsquo;s voice. &ldquo;Neal and I could draw our
+allowances for three months in advance; the Pater will be willing enough.
+We&rsquo;ll be precious hard up without them, but we&rsquo;ll rub through
+somehow. Then you can chip in an even third, Cy, and we&rsquo;ll order an A I
+rifle,&mdash;the best ever invented, from the best company in
+America,&mdash;silver plate, with his name,&mdash;and all the rest of it.
+I&rsquo;d swamp my allowance for a year to see Herb&rsquo;s face when he gets
+it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the plan! You do have occasional moments of wisdom, Dol;
+I&rsquo;ll say that much for you,&rdquo; commented the leader. &ldquo;Well,
+Herb has taken a special sort of liking to you. You may tip him a hint to wait
+in Greenville for a few days, and not to go looking for second-hand rifles till
+he hears from us. Better not say anything until we&rsquo;re just parting. Ten
+to one, though, you&rsquo;ll blurt the whole thing out in some harebrained
+minute, or give it away in your sleep.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Blow me if I do!&rdquo; answered Dol solemnly.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig26.jpg" width="400" height="166" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap26"></a>Chapter XXVI.<br/>Doc Again</h2>
+
+<p>
+Herb, turning back at that minute to wait for his party, experienced a shock of
+curiosity which was new to him, at seeing the three in close counsel,
+shouldering each other upon a trail a couple of feet wide.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the sensation passed. Dol for once was not guilty of an indiscretion,
+waking or sleeping. The woodsman got no hint of what matter had been discussed
+until more than two weeks later, when he stood in the main street of
+Greenville, beside a tanned, muscular, newly shaven trio, waiting for their
+departure for Boston.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A few pleasant days, marked by no particular excitements, had been spent at the
+log camp on Millinokett after that wonderful trip into the forests of Katahdin.
+Then the weather turned suddenly blustering and cold; and Cyrus, as captain,
+ordered an immediate forced march to Greenville.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Under Herb&rsquo;s guidance that march was made with singularly few hardships.
+He managed to hire a &ldquo;jumper&rdquo; from a new settler who had a farm a
+couple of miles from their camp. This contrivance was a rough sort of sled,
+formed of two stout ash saplings, and hitched to a courageous horse. The
+&ldquo;jumper&rsquo;s&rdquo; one merit was that it could travel along many a
+rough trail where wheels would be splintered at the outset. But since, as Herb
+said, it went at &ldquo;a succession of dead jumps,&rdquo; no camper was
+willing to trust his bones to its tender mercies. However, it answered
+admirably for carrying the tent, knapsacks, and trophies of the party, tightly
+strapped in place, including Neal&rsquo;s bear-skin, which was duly called for,
+and the moose-antlers, more precious in Dol&rsquo;s sight than if they had been
+made of beaten gold.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus the campers journeyed homeward with their backs as light as their spirits,
+caring little for the chills of a couple of nights spent under canvas and
+rubber coverings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two gala evenings they had,&mdash;one with Uncle Eb in his bark hut near Squaw
+Pond, where they were regaled with a sumptuous supper, for &ldquo;coons war in
+eatin&rsquo; order now;&rdquo; and the second with Doctor Phil Buck at his
+little frame house near Moosehead Lake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dear old Doc was as ever a power,&mdash;a power to welcome, uplift, entertain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The campers sought him immediately on their arrival at Greenville; and he stood
+by them while Cyrus made a full statement before the local coroner about the
+death and burial of the half-breed, Chris Kemp, the Farrars and Herb confirming
+what was said with due dignity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But dignity was blown to the four winds by the very unprofessional and very
+woodsman-like cheer that Doc raised, and that was echoed thunderously by Joe
+Flint and a few other guides and loungers who had collected to hear the story,
+when Cyrus described the splendid rush which Herb made, with the dying man in
+his arms, and the clay of the landslide half smothering him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry I wasn&rsquo;t near to try and do something for the poor
+fellow,&rdquo; said the doctor, later on, when his friends were gathered round
+a blazing wood-fire in his own snug house. &ldquo;But I doubt if I could have
+helped him. I guess he was born with the hankering for whiskey, and when that
+is in the mongrel blood of a half-breed it is pretty sure to wreck him some
+time. We must leave him to God, boys, and to changes larger than we
+know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve a letter for you, Neal,&rdquo; added the host presently in a
+lighter tone. &ldquo;It was directed to my care. It is from Philadelphia, from
+Royal Sinclair, I think.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Neal slit the envelope which was handed to him, and read the few lines it
+contained aloud, with a longing burst of laughter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Royal was as short with his pen as he was dash-away with his tongue. The letter
+was a brief but pressing invitation to Cyrus and the Farrars to visit their
+camping acquaintances of the Maine wilds at the Sinclairs&rsquo; home in
+Philadelphia before the English boys recrossed the Atlantic.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come you must!&rdquo; wrote Roy. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve promised to give a
+big spread, and invite all the crowd we train with to meet you. We&rsquo;ll
+have a great old time, and bring out our best yarns. Don&rsquo;t let me catch
+you refusing!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus10"></a>
+<img src="images/illus10.jpg" width="600" height="445" alt="Illustration: " />
+<p class="caption"><b>Greenville,&mdash;&ldquo;Farewell To The Woods.&rdquo;</b><br/></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We won&rsquo;t if we can help it,&rdquo; commented Neal; &ldquo;if only
+we can coax the Pater to give us another week in jolly America.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The campers slept upon mattresses that night for the first time in many weeks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The following morning saw them grouped in the main street of Greenville, with
+Doc and Herb on hand for a final farewell, waiting for the departure of the
+coach which was to bear them a little part of the way towards Boston
+civilization.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol was turning over in his jostled thoughts the delicate wording of the hint
+which he was to convey to Herb about the rifle, when he became aware that
+Doctor Phil was pinching his shoulder, and saying, while he drew Neal&rsquo;s
+attention in the same way:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, you fellows! I&rsquo;m glad to have known you. If you ever come to
+Maine again, remember that there&rsquo;s one old forest fogy who&rsquo;ll have
+a delightful welcome for you in his house or camp, not to speak of the thing he
+calls his heart. And I hope you&rsquo;ll keep a pleasant corner in your
+memories for our Pine Tree State, and for American States generally, so far as
+you&rsquo;ve seen them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol tried to answer; but recalling the evening when, wrecked at heart, with
+stinging feet, he had stumbled at last into the trail to Doc&rsquo;s camp, he
+could only mutter, &ldquo;Dash it all!&rdquo; and rub his leaking eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course I&rsquo;ll think in an hour from now of all the things I want
+to say,&rdquo; began Neal helplessly, and stopped. &ldquo;But I&rsquo;ll tell
+you how I feel, Doc,&rdquo; he added, with a sudden rush of breath: &ldquo;I
+think I can never see your Stars and Stripes again without taking off my hat to
+them, and feeling that they&rsquo;re about equal to my own flag.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Neatly put, Neal! I couldn&rsquo;t have done it better,&rdquo; laughed
+Cyrus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shake!&rdquo; and Doc offered his hand in a heart-grip, while the hairs
+on it bristled. &ldquo;Boy! long life to that feeling. You men who are now
+being hatched will show us one day what Young England and Young America, as a
+grand brotherhood under comrade flags, can do to give this old earth a lift
+which she has never had yet towards peace and prosperity. We&rsquo;re looking
+to you for it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hur-r-r-rup!&rdquo; cheered Herb, subduing his shout to the requirements
+of a settlement, but sending his battered hat some ten feet into the air, and
+recovering it with a dexterous shoot of his long arm, by way of giving his
+friends an inspiring send-off.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tell you what it is!&rdquo; he said suddenly, turning upon the Farrars,
+&ldquo;I never guided
+
+Britishers till now; but, wherever you sprung from, you&rsquo;re clean grit. If
+a man is that, it don&rsquo;t matter a whistle to me what country riz
+him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A few minutes afterwards, with a jingle, jangle, lurch, and rattle, the
+stage-coach was swaying its way out of Greenville. Dol, stooping from his seat
+upon it, gripped the guide&rsquo;s hand in a wringing good-by.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Herb,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;we three fellows want you to stay here for
+a few days, and not to do anything about a second-hand rifle until you hear
+from us. Mind!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<p>
+And so it happened that, ten days or so later, while the three were enjoying
+the hospitalities of the Sinclairs and &ldquo;their crowd&rdquo; in the Quaker
+City, Herb, who was still in Greenville, waiting for a fresh engagement as
+guide, was accosted by the driver of the coach from Bangor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Herb Heal, here&rsquo;s a bully parcel for you,&rdquo; said the Jehu,
+with a knowing grin. &ldquo;Came from Boston, I guess. I war booked to take
+pertik&rsquo;lar care of it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Herb, feeling his strong fingers tingle, undid many wrappers, and hauled
+out, before the eyes of Greenville loungers, a rifle such
+
+as it is the desire of every Maine woodsman&rsquo;s heart to possess.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A best grade, 45-90, half-magazine Winchester it was, fitted with shot-gun
+stock and Lyman sights, and bearing a gleaming silver plate, on which was
+prettily lettered:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+HERB HEAL
+
+</p> <p>
+In Memory Of October, 1891.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Underneath was engraved a miniature pine, its trunk bearing three sets of
+initials.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Herb stalked straight off a distance of one mile to Doctor Buck&rsquo;s house,
+pushed the door open as if it had been the door of a wilderness camp, and shot
+himself into Doc&rsquo;s little study.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look what those three gamy fellows have sent me,&rdquo; he said; and his
+eyes were now like Millinokett Lake under a full sun-burst. &ldquo;I thought
+the old one was a corker, but this&rdquo;&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here the woodsman&rsquo;s dictionary gave out.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig27.jpg" width="400" height="167" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap27"></a>Chapter XXVII.<br/>Christmas on the Other Side</h2>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Christmas, 1893.&rsquo; Those last two figures are a bit crooked;
+aren&rsquo;t they, Dol?&rdquo; said a tall, soldierly fellow, who was no longer
+a boy, yet could scarcely in his own country call himself a man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He read the date critically, having fixed it as the centre-piece in a festive
+arch of holly and bunting, which spanned the hall of a mansion in Victoria
+Park, Manchester.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I believe that&rsquo;s better,&rdquo; he added, straightening a tipsy
+&ldquo;93,&rdquo; and bounding from a chair-back on which he was perched, to
+step quickly backward, with a something in gait and bearing that suggested a
+cavalry swing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Christmas, 1893,&rsquo;&rdquo; he read musingly again.
+&ldquo;Goodness! to think it&rsquo;s two years since we laid eyes on old Cyrus,
+and that he has landed on English soil before this, may be here any
+minute&mdash;and Sinclair too. I guess&rdquo;&mdash;these two words were
+brought out with a smile, as if the speaker was putting himself in touch with
+the happiness of a by-gone time&mdash;&ldquo;I guess that &lsquo;Star-Spangled
+Banner&rsquo; will look home-like to them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Neal Farrar, just back for a short vacation from Sandhurst Military
+College, twice gravely saluted the gay bunting with which his Christmas arch
+was draped, where the Union Jack of old England kissed the American Stars and
+Stripes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say!&rdquo; he exclaimed, turning to a tall youth, who had been
+inspecting his operations, &ldquo;that Liverpool train must be beastly late,
+Dol. Those fellows ought to be here before this. The Mater will be in a stew.
+She ordered dinner at five, as the youngsters dine with us, of course, to-day,
+and it&rsquo;s past that now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hush! will you? I&rsquo;ll vow that cab is stopping! Yes! By all
+that&rsquo;s splendid, there they are!&rdquo; and Dol Farrar&rsquo;s joy-whoop
+rang through the English oaken hall with scarcely less vehemence than it had
+rung in former days through the dim aisles of the Maine forests.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A sound of spinning cab-wheels abruptly stopping, a noise of men&rsquo;s feet
+on the steps outside, and the hall-door was flung wide by two pairs of
+welcoming hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Cyrus! Royal! Got here at last? Oh! but this is jolly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Neal, dear old boy, how goes it? Dol, you&rsquo;re a giant. I
+wouldn&rsquo;t have known you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such were the most coherent of the greetings which followed, as two visitors,
+in travelling rig, their faces reddened by eight days at sea in midwinter,
+crossed the threshold.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There could be no difficulty in recognizing Cyrus Garst&rsquo;s well-knit
+figure and speculative eyes, though a sprouting beard changed somewhat the
+lower part of his face. And if Royal Sinclair&rsquo;s tall shoulders and
+brand-new mustache were at all unfamiliar, anybody who had once heard the click
+and hum of his hasty tongue would scarcely question his identity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Americans had steamed over the Atlantic amid bluster of elements, purposing
+a tour through southern France and Italy. And they were to take part, before
+proceeding to the Continent, in the festivities of an English Christmas at the
+Farrars&rsquo; home in Manchester.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, but this is jolly!&rdquo; cried Neal again, his voice so thickened
+by the joy of welcome that&mdash;embryo cavalry man though he was&mdash;he
+could bring out nothing more forceful than the one boyish exclamation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol&rsquo;s throat was freer. Sinclair and he raised a regular tornado in the
+handsome hall. Questions and answers, only half distinguishable, blew between
+them, with explosions of laughter, and a thunder of claps on each other&rsquo;s
+shoulders. When their gale was at its noisiest, Royal&rsquo;s part of it
+abruptly sank to a dead calm, stopped by &ldquo;an angel unawares.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A girl of sixteen, with hair like the brown and gold of a pheasant&rsquo;s
+breast, opened a drawing-room door, stepped to Neal&rsquo;s side, and
+whispered,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Introduce me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My sister,&rdquo; said Neal, recovering self-possession. &ldquo;Myrtle,
+I believe I&rsquo;ll let you guess for yourself which is Garst and which is
+Sinclair.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;ve heard so much about you for the past two years that I
+know you already,
+
+all but your looks. So I&rsquo;m sure to guess right,&rdquo; said Myrtle
+Farrar, scrutinizing the Americans with a pretty welcoming glance, then giving
+to each a glad hand-shake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Royal&rsquo;s tongue grew for once less active than his eyes, which were so
+caught by the golden shades on the pheasant-like head that for a minute he
+could see nothing else. Even Cyrus, who was accustomed to look upon himself as
+the cool-blooded senior among his band of intimates, tingled a little.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re just in time for dinner&mdash;I&rsquo;m so glad,&rdquo;
+laughed Miss Myrtle. &ldquo;A Christmas dinner with a whole tribe of Farrars,
+big and little.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But our baggage hasn&rsquo;t come on yet,&rdquo; answered Garst
+ruefully. &ldquo;Will Mrs. Farrar excuse our appearing in travelling
+rig?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed she will!&rdquo; answered for herself a fair, motherly-looking
+English woman, as pretty as Myrtle save for the gold-brown hair, while she came
+a few steps into the hall to welcome her sons&rsquo; friends.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Five minutes afterwards the Americans found themselves seated at a table
+garlanded with red-berried holly, trailing ivy, and pearl-eyed mistletoe, and
+surrounded by a round dozen of Farrars, including several youngsters whose
+general place was in schoolroom or nursery, but who, even to a tot of three,
+were promoted to dine in splendor on Christmas Day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, this is festive!&rdquo; remarked Cyrus to Myrtle, who sat next to
+him, when, after much preparatory feasting, an English plum-pudding, wreathed,
+decorated, and steaming, came upon the scene. Fluttering amid the almonds which
+studded its top were two wee pink-stemmed flags. And here again, in compliment
+to the newly arrived guests, the &ldquo;Star-Spangled Banner&rdquo; kissed the
+English Union Jack.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say, Neal!&rdquo; exclaimed Cyrus, his eyes keenly bright as he looked
+at the toy standards, &ldquo;wouldn&rsquo;t this sort of thing delight our
+friend Doc? By the way, that reminds me, I have a package for you from him, and
+a message from Herb Heal too. Herb wants to know &lsquo;when those gamy
+Britishers are coming out to hunt moose again?&rsquo; And Doc has sent you a
+little bundle of beaver-clippings. They are from an ash-tree two feet in
+circumference, felled by that beaver colony which we came across near the
+<i>brûlée</i> where you shot your bear and covered yourself with glory. Doc
+asked you to put the wood in sight on Christmas Night, and to think of the
+Maine woods.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Think of them!&rdquo; Neal ejaculated. &ldquo;Bless the dear old brick!
+does he think we could ever forget them and the stunning times we had in camp
+and on trail?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13946 ***</div>
+</body>
+
+</html>
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+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #13946 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13946)
diff --git a/old/13946-0.txt b/old/13946-0.txt
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Camp and Trail, by Isabel Hornibrook
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+Title: Camp and Trail
+       A Story of the Maine Woods
+
+Author: Isabel Hornibrook
+
+Release Date: November 4, 2004 [EBook #13946]
+[Most recently updated: May 31, 2020]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAMP AND TRAIL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Curtis Weyant, Josephine Paolucci, Joshua Hutchinson and
+the PG Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+Camp and Trail
+
+A Story of the Maine Woods
+
+by Isabel Hornibrook
+
+[Illustration]
+
+TO
+
+J.L.H.
+
+[Illustration:  The Moose Was Now Snorting Like a War-Horse Beneath]
+
+Preface
+
+
+In adding another to the list of stories bearing on that subject of
+perennial interest to boys, adventures in camp and on trail among the
+woods and lakes of Northern Maine, one thought has been the inspiration
+that led me on.
+
+It is this: To prove to high-mettled lads, American, and English as
+well, that forest quarters, to be the most jovial quarters on earth,
+need not be made a shambles. Sensation may reach its finest pitch,
+excitement be an unfailing fillip, and fun the leaven which leavens the
+camping-trip from start to finish, even though the triumph of killing
+for triumph’s sake be left out of the play-bill.
+
+“There is a higher sport in preservation than in destruction,” says a
+veteran hunter, whose forest experiences and descriptions have in part
+enriched this story. I commend the opinion to boy-readers, trusting
+that they may become “queer specimen sportsmen,” after the pattern of
+Cyrus Garst; and find a more entrancing excitement in studying the live
+wild things of the forest than in gloating over a dying tremor, or
+examining a senseless mass of horn, hide, and hoofs, after the
+life-spring which worked the mechanism has been stilled forever.
+
+One other desire has trodden on the heels of the first: That Young
+England and Young America may be inspired with a wish to understand
+each other better, to take each other frankly and simply for the
+manhood in each; and that thus misconception and prejudice may
+disappear like mists of an old-day dream.
+
+ISABEL HORNIBROOK.
+
+
+Contents
+
+ Chapter I. Jacking For Deer
+ Chapter II. A Spill-Out
+ Chapter III. Life in a Bark Hut
+ Chapter IV. Whither Bound?
+ Chapter V. A Coon Hunt
+ Chapter VI. After Black Ducks
+ Chapter VII. A Forest Guide-Post
+ Chapter VIII. Another Camp
+ Chapter IX. A Sunday Among the Pines
+ Chapter X. Forward All!
+ Chapter XI. Beaver Works
+ Chapter XII. “Go It, Old Bruin!”
+ Chapter XIII. “The Skin Is Yours.”
+ Chapter XIV. A Lucky Hunter
+ Chapter XV. A Fallen King
+ Chapter XVI. Moose-Calling
+ Chapter XVII. Herb’s Yarns
+ Chapter XVIII. To Lonelier Wilds
+ Chapter XIX. Treed By a Moose
+ Chapter XX. Triumph
+ Chapter XXI. On Katahdin
+ Chapter XXII. The Old Home-Camp
+ Chapter XXIII. Brother's Work
+ Chapter XXIV. “Keeping Things Even”
+ Chapter XXV. A Little Caribou Quarrel
+ Chapter XXVI. Doc Again
+ Chapter XXVII. Christmas on the Other Side
+
+List Of Illustrations
+
+ The Moose Was Now Snorting Like A War-Horse Beneath.
+ “There Is Moosehead Lake.”
+ Dol Sights A Friendly Camp.
+ In The Shadow Of Katahdin.
+ “Go It, Old Bruin! Go It While You Can!”
+ “Herb Heal.”
+ A Fallen King.
+ The Camp On Millinokett Lake.
+ “Herb Charged Through The Choking Dust-Clouds.”
+ Greenville,—“Farewell To The Woods.”
+
+
+
+
+Camp And Trail
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter I. Jacking For Deer
+
+
+“Now, Neal Farrar, you’ve got to be as still as the night itself,
+remember. If you bounce, or turn, or draw a long breath, you won’t have
+a rag of reputation as a deer-hunter to take back to England. Sneeze
+once, and we’re done for. That means more diet of flapjacks and pork,
+instead of venison steaks. And I guess your city appetite won’t rally
+to pork much longer, even in the wilds.”
+
+Neal Farrar sighed as if there was something in that.
+
+“But, you know, it’s just when an unlucky fellow would give his life
+not to sneeze that he’s sure to bring out a thumping big one,” he said
+plaintively.
+
+“Well, keep it back like a hero if your head bursts in the attempt,”
+was the reply with a muffled laugh. “When you know that the canoe is
+gliding along somehow, but you can’t hear a sound or feel a motion, and
+you begin to wonder whether you’re in the air or on water, flying or
+floating, imagine that you’re the ghost of some old Indian hunter who
+used to jack for deer on Squaw Pond, and be stonily silent.”
+
+“Oh! I say, stop chaffing,” whispered Neal impetuously. “You’re enough
+to make a fellow feel creepy before ever he starts. I could bear the
+worst racket on earth better than a dead quiet.”
+
+This dialogue was exchanged in low but excited voices between a young
+man of about one and twenty, and a lad who was apparently five years
+his junior, while they waded knee-deep in water among the long, rank
+grasses and circular pads of water-lilies which border the banks of
+Squaw Pond, a small lake in the forest region of northern Maine.
+
+The hour was somewhere about eleven
+o’clock. The night was intensely still, without a zephyr stirring among
+the trees, and of that wavering darkness caused by a half-clouded moon.
+On the black and green water close to the bank rocked a light
+birch-bark canoe, a ticklish craft, which a puff might overturn. The
+young man who had urged the necessity for silence was groping round it,
+fumbling with the sharp bow, in which he fixed a short pole or
+“jack-staff,” with some object—at present no one could discern what—on
+top.
+
+“There, I’ve got the jack rigged up!” he whispered presently. “Step in
+now, Neal, and I’ll open it. Have you got your rifle at half-cock?
+That’s right. Be careful. A fellow would need to have his hair parted
+in the middle in a birch box like this. Remember, mum’s the word!”
+
+The lad obeyed, seating himself as noiselessly as he could in the bow
+of the canoe, and threw his rifle on his shoulder in a convenient
+position for shooting, with a freedom which showed he was accustomed to
+firearms.
+
+At the same time his companion stepped into the canoe, having first
+touched the dark object on the pole just over Neal’s head. Instantly
+it changed into a brilliant, scintillating, silvery eye, which flashed
+forward a stream of white light on a line with the pointed gun, cutting
+the black face of the pond in twain as with a silver blade, and making
+the leaves on shore glisten like oxidized coins.
+
+The effect of this sudden illumination was so sudden and beautiful that
+the boy for a minute or two held his rifle in unsteady hands while the
+canoe glided out from the bank. An exclamation began in his throat
+which ended in an indistinct gurgle. Remembering that he was pledged to
+silence, he settled himself to be as wordless and motionless as if his
+living body had become a statue.
+
+From his position no revealing radiance fell on him. He sat in shadow
+beside that glinting eye, which was really a good-sized lantern, fitted
+at the back with a powerful silvered reflector, and in front with a
+glass lens, the light being thrown directly ahead. It was provided also
+with a sliding door that could be noiselessly slipped over the glass
+with a touch, causing the blackness of a total eclipse.
+
+This was the deer-hunters’ “jack-lamp,” familiarly called by Neal’s
+companion the “jack.”
+
+And now it may be readily guessed in what thrilling night-work these
+canoe-men are engaged as they skim over Squaw Pond, with no swish of
+paddle, nor jar of motion, nor even a noisy breath, disturbing the
+brooding silence through which they glide. They are “jacking” or
+“floating” for deer, showing the radiant eye of their silvery jack to
+attract any antlered buck or graceful doe which may come forth from the
+screen of the forest to drink at this quiet hour amid the tangled
+grasses and lily-pads at the pond’s brink.
+
+Now, a deer, be it buck, doe, or fawn in the spotted coat, will stand
+as if moonstruck, if it hears no sound; to gaze at the lantern,
+studying the meteor which has crossed its world as an astronomer might
+investigate a rare, radiant comet. So it offers a steady mark for the
+sportsman’s bullet, if he can glide near enough to discern its outline
+and take aim. There is one exception to this rule. If the wary animal
+has ever been startled by a shot fired from under the jack, trust him
+never to watch a light again, though it shine like the Kohinoor.
+
+As for Neal Farrar, this was his first attempt at playing the part of
+midnight hunter; and I am bound to say that—being English
+born and city bred—he found the situation much too mystifying for his
+peace of mind.
+
+He knew that the canoe was moving, moving rapidly; for giant pines
+along the shore, looking solid and black as mourning pillars, shot by
+him as if theirs were the motion, with an effect indescribably weird.
+Now and again a gray pine stump, appearing, if the light struck it,
+twice its real size, passed like a shimmering ghost. But he felt not
+the slightest tremor of advance, heard no swish or ripple of paddle.
+
+A moisture oozed from his skin, and gathered in heavy drips under the
+brim of his hat, as he began to wonder whether the light bark skiff was
+working through the water at all, or skimming in some unnatural way
+above it. For the life of him he could not settle this doubt. And,
+fearful of balking the expedition by a stir, he dared not turn his head
+to investigate the doings of his comrade, Cyrus Garst.
+
+Cyrus, though also city bred, was an American, and evidently an old
+hand at the present business. The Maine wilds had long been his
+playground. He had studied the knack of noiseless paddling under the
+teaching of a skilled forest guide until he fairly brought it
+to perfection. And, in perfection, it is about the most wizard-like art
+practised in the nineteenth century.
+
+The silent propulsion was managed thus: the grand master of the paddle
+gripped its cross handle in both hands, working it so that its broad
+blade cut the water first backward then forward so dexterously that not
+even his own practised hearing could detect a sound; nor could he any
+more than Neal feel a sensation of motion.
+
+The birch-bark skiff skimmed onward as if borne on unseen pinions.
+
+To Neal Farrar, who had been brought up amid the tumult of rival noises
+and the practical surroundings of Manchester, England, who was a
+stranger to the solitudes of primitive forests, and almost a stranger
+to weird experiences, the silent advance was a mystery. And it began to
+be a hateful one; for he had not even the poor explanation of it which
+has been given in this record.
+
+It was only his third night in Maine wilds; and I fear that his friend
+Cyrus, when inviting him to join in the jacking excursion, had
+refrained from explaining the canoe mystery, mischievously promising
+himself considerable fun from the English lad’s bewilderment.
+
+Neal’s hearing was strained to catch any sound of big game beating
+about amid the bushes on shore or splashing in the water, but none
+reached him. The night seemed to grow stiller, stiller, ever stiller,
+as they glided towards the head of the pond, until the dead quiet
+started strange, imaginary noises.
+
+There was a pounding as of dull hammers in his ears, a belling in his
+head, and a drumming at his heart.
+
+He was tortured by a wild desire to yell his loudest, and defy the
+brooding silence.
+
+Another—a midnight watchman—broke it instead.
+
+“Whoo-ho-ho-whah-whoo!”
+
+It was the thrilling scream of a big-eyed owl as he chased a squirrel
+to its death, and proceeded to banquet in unwinking solemnity.
+
+“Whoo-ho-ho-whah-whoo!”
+
+Neal started,—who wouldn’t?—and joggled the canoe, thereby nearly
+ending the night hunt at once by the untimely discharge of his rifle.
+
+He had barely regained some measure of steadiness, though he felt as if
+needles were sticking into him all over, when at last there was a
+crashing amid the bushes on the right bank, not a hundred yards
+distant.
+
+Noiselessly as ever the canoe shot around, turning the jack’s eye in
+that direction. A minute later a magnificent buck, swinging his antlers
+proudly, dashed into the pond, and stooped his small red tongue to
+drink, licking in the water greedily with a soft, lapping sound.
+
+Neal silently cocked his rifle, almost choking with excitement; then
+paused for a few seconds to brace up and control the nervous terrors
+which had possessed him, before his eye singled out the spot in the
+deer’s neck which his bullet must pierce. But he found his operations
+further delayed; for the animal suddenly lifted its head, scattered
+feathery spray from its horns and hoofs, and retired a few steps up the
+bank.
+
+In its former position every part of its body was visibly outlined
+under the silver light of the jack. Now a successful shot would be
+difficult, though it might be managed. The boy leaned slightly forward,
+trying to hold his gun dead straight and take cool aim, when the most
+curious of all the curious sensations he had felt this night ran
+through him, seeming to scorch like electricity from his scalp to his
+feet.
+
+From the stand which the deer had taken,
+its body was in shadow. All that the sportsman could discern were two
+living, glowing eyes, staring—so it appeared to him—straight into his,
+like starry search-lights, as if they read the death-purpose in the
+boy’s heart, and begged him to desist.
+
+It was all over with Neal Farrar’s shot. He lowered his rifle, while
+the speech, which could no longer be repressed, rattled in his throat
+before it broke forth.
+
+“I’ll go crazy if I don’t speak!” he cried.
+
+At the first word the buck went scudding like the wind through the
+forest, doubtless vowing by the shades of his ancestors that he never
+would stand to gaze at a light again.
+
+“And—and—I can’t shoot the thing while it’s looking at me like that!”
+the boy blurted out.
+
+“You dunderhead! What do you mean?” gasped Cyrus, breaking silence in a
+gusty whisper of mingled anger and amusement. “You won’t get a chance
+to shoot it or anything else now. You’ve lost us our meat for
+to-night.”
+
+“Well, I couldn’t help it,” Neal whispered back. “For pity’s sake, what
+has been moving this canoe? The quiet was enough to set a fellow mad!
+And then that buck stared
+straight at me like a human thing. I could see nothing but two burning
+eyes with white rings round them.”
+
+“Stuff!” was the American’s answer. “He was gazing at the jack, not at
+you. He couldn’t see an inch of you with that light just over your
+head. But it would have been a hard shot anyhow, for his nose was
+towards you, and ten to one you’d have made a clean miss.”
+
+“Well,” he added, after five minutes of acute listening, “I guess we
+may give over jacking for to-night. That first cry of yours was enough
+to set a regiment of deer scampering. I’m only half mad after all at
+your losing a chance at such a splendid buck. It was something to see
+him as he stooped to drink in the glare of the jack, a midnight forest
+picture such as one wants to remember. Long may he flourish! We
+wouldn’t have started out to rid him of his glorious life if we weren’t
+half-starved on flapjacks and ends of pork. Let’s get back to camp! I
+guess you felt a few new sensations to-night, eh, Neal Farrar?”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter II. A Spill-Out
+
+
+Indeed, shocks and sensations seemed to ride rampant that night in
+endless succession; a fact which Neal presently realized, as does every
+daring young fellow who visits the Maine wilderness for the first time,
+whatever be his object.
+
+Ere turning the canoe towards home, Cyrus drove it a few feet nearer to
+shore, again warily listening for any further sound of game. Just then
+another wild, whooping scream cleft the night air; and, on looking
+towards the bank, Neal beheld his owlship, who had finished the
+squirrel, seated on an aged windfall,[1] one end of which dipped into
+the water. The gray bird on the gray old trunk formed a second
+thrilling midnight picture, but at this moment young Farrar was in no
+mood for studying effects. He felt rather unstrung by his recent
+emotions; and, though he was by no means an imaginative youth, he
+actually took it into his head half seriously that the whooping,
+hooting thing was taunting him with making a failure of the jacking
+business. Without pausing to consider whether the owl would furnish
+meat for the camp or not, he let fly at him suddenly with his rifle.
+
+ [1] A forest tree which has been blown down.
+
+The fate of that ghostly, big-eyed creature will be forever one of
+those mysteries which Neal Farrar would like to solve. Whether the
+heavy bullet intended for deer laid him open—which is improbable—or
+whether it didn’t, nobody had a chance to discover. Being unused to
+birch-bark canoes, the sportsman gave a slight lurch aside after he had
+discharged his leaden messenger of death, startled doubtless by the
+loud, unexpected echoes which reverberated through the forest after his
+shot.
+
+“Hold on!” cried Cyrus, trying to avert a ducking by a counter-motion.
+“You’ll tip us over!”
+
+Too late! The birch skiff spun round,
+rocked crazily for a second or two, and keeled over, spilling both its
+occupants into the black and silver water of the pond.
+
+Of course they ducked under, and of course they rose, gurgling and
+spluttering.
+
+“You didn’t lose the rifle, Neal, did you?” gasped the American
+directly he could speak.
+
+“Not I! I held on to it like grim death.”
+
+“Good for you! To lose a hundred-and-fifty-dollar gun when we’re
+starting into the wilds would be maddening.”
+
+Then, just because they were extremely healthy, happy, vigorous
+fellows, whose lungs had been drinking in pure, exhilarating ozone and
+fragrant odors of pine-balsam and were thereby expanded, they took a
+cheerful view of this duck under, and made the midnight forest echo,
+echo, and re-echo, with peals and gusts and shouts of laughter, while
+they struggled to right their canoe.
+
+The merry jingles rang on in challenge and answer, repeating from both
+sides of the pond, until they reached at last the wooded slopes and
+mighty bowlders of Old Squaw Mountain, a peak whose “star-crowned head”
+could be imagined rather than discerned against the horizon, near the
+distant shore from which the hunters had started. Here
+echo ran riot. It seemed to their excited fancies as if the ghost of
+Old Squaw herself, the disappointed Indian mother who had, according to
+tradition, lived so long in loneliness upon this mountain, were joining
+in their mirth with haggish peals.
+
+The canoe had turned bottom uppermost. On righting it they found that
+the jack-staff had been dislodged. The jack was floating gayly away
+over the ripples; its light, being in an air-tight case, was
+unquenched.
+
+“Swim ashore with the rifle, Neal,” said Cyrus. “I’ll pick up the jack.
+Did you ever see anything so absurdly comical as it looks, dodging off
+on its own hook like a big, wandering eye?”
+
+With his comrade’s help young Farrar succeeded in getting the gun
+across his back, slinging it round him by its leather shoulder-strap;
+then he struck out for the bank, having scarcely twenty yards to swim
+before he reached shallow water.
+
+Now, for the first time to-night, the moon shone fully out from her
+veil of cloud, casting a flood of silver radiance, and showing him a
+scene in white and black, still and clear as a steel engraving, of a
+beauty so unimagined and grand that it seemed a little awful. It
+gave him a sudden respect for the unreclaimed, seldom-trodden region to
+which his craving for adventure had brought him.
+
+The outline of Old Squaw Mountain could be plainly discerned, a dark,
+towering shape against the horizon. A few stars glinted like a diamond
+diadem above its brow. Down its sides and from the base stretched a
+sable mantle of forest, enwrapping Squaw Pond, of which the moon made a
+mirror.
+
+“My! I think this would make the fellows in Manchester open their eyes
+a bit,” muttered Neal aloud. “Only one feels as if he ought to see some
+old Indian brave such as Cyrus tells about,—a Touch-the-Cloud, or
+Whistling Elk, or Spotted Tail, come gliding towards him out of the
+woods in his paint and feather toggery. Glad I didn’t visit Maine a
+hundred years ago, though, when there’d have been a chance of such a
+meeting.”
+
+Still muttering, young Farrar kicked off his high rubber boots, and
+dragged off his coat. He proceeded to shake and wring the water from
+his upper garments, listening intently, and glancing half expectantly
+into the pitch-black shadows at the edges of the forest, as if he might
+hear the stealthy steps and see
+the savage form of the superseded red man emerge therefrom.
+
+“Ugh! I mind the ducking now more than I did a while ago,” he murmured.
+“The water wasn’t cold. Why, we bathed at the other end of the pond
+late last evening! But these wet clothes are precious uncomfortable. I
+wish we were nearer to camp. Good Gracious! What’s that?”
+
+He stood stock-still and erect, his flesh shrinking a little, while his
+drenched flannel shirt clung yet more closely and clammily to his skin.
+
+A distant noise was wafted to his ears through the forest behind. It
+began like the gentle, mellow lowing of a cow at evening, swelled into
+a quavering, appealing crescendo cadence, and gradually died away.
+Almost as the last note ceased another commenced at the same low pitch,
+with only the rest of a heart-beat between the two, and surged forth
+into a plaintive yet tempestuous call, which sank as before. It was
+followed by a third, terminating in an impatient roar. The weird solo
+ran through several scales in its performance, rising, wailing,
+booming, sinking, ever varying in expression. It marked a new era in
+Neal’s experience of sounds, and
+left him choking with bewilderment about what sort of forest creature
+it could be which uttered such a call.
+
+He began to get out some bungling description when Cyrus joined him
+shortly afterwards, but the American had had a lively time of it while
+recovering his jack-light and righting the canoe on mid-pond. He was in
+no mood for explanations.
+
+“Keep the yarn, whatever it is, till to-morrow, Neal,” he said. “I
+didn’t hear anything special. Perhaps I was too far away. I’m so wet
+and jaded that I feel as limp as a washed-out rag. Let’s get back to
+camp as fast as we can.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter III. Life in a Bark Hut
+
+
+It was two o’clock in the morning when the tired, draggled pair
+stumbled ashore at the place where they embarked, hauled up their birch
+skiff, leaving it to repose, bottom uppermost, under a screen of
+bushes, and then stood for some minutes in deliberation.
+
+“I’m sure I hope we can find the trail all right,” said Cyrus. “Yes, I
+see the blazes on the trees. Here’s luck!”
+
+He had been turning the jack-lamp on either side of him, trying to
+discover the “blazes,” or notches cut in some of the trunks, which
+marked the “blazed trail”—in other words, the spotted line through the
+otherwise trackless forest, which would lead him whither he wanted to
+go.
+
+It required considerable experience and unending watchfulness to follow
+these “blazes”; but young Garst seemed to have the instinct of a true
+woodsman, and went ahead unfalteringly, if vigilantly, while Neal
+followed closely in his tracks.
+
+After rather a lengthy trudge, they reached a point where the ground
+sloped gently upward into a low bluff. Still keeping to the trail, they
+ascended this eminence, finding the forest not so dense, and the
+walking easier than it had been hitherto. Gaining the top, they emerged
+upon an open patch, which had been cleared of its erect, massive pines,
+and the long-hidden earth laid bare to the sky by the lumberman’s axe.
+
+Here the eagerly desired sight—that sight of all others to the tired
+camper; namely, the camp itself, with its cheery, blazing
+camp-fire—burst upon their view, sheltered by a group of sapling pines,
+which had grown up since their giant brothers went to make timber.
+
+Now, a Maine camp, as every one knows, may consist of any temporary
+shelter you choose to name, according to the tastes and
+opportunities of its occupants, from a fair white canvas home to a log
+cabin or a hastily erected canopy of spruce boughs. In the present
+instance it was a “wangen,” or hut of strong bark, such as is sometimes
+used by lumbermen to rest and sleep in when they are driving their
+floats of timber down one of the rivers of this region to a distant
+town, which is a centre of the lumber trade.
+
+Cyrus and Neal were making across the clearing in the direction of the
+camp-fire with revived spirits, when the American suddenly grabbed his
+friend by the arm, and drew him behind a clump of low bushes.
+
+“Hold on a minute!” he whispered. “By all that’s glorious, there’s
+Uncle Eb singing his favorite song! It’s worth hearing. You never
+listened to such music in England.”
+
+“I don’t suppose I ever did,” answered Neal, suppressed laughter making
+him shake.
+
+Upon a gray pine stump, beside the blaze, which he was feeding with a
+hemlock bough, sat a battered-looking yet lively personage. Had he been
+standing upright upon the remnant of trunk, he would certainly, in the
+bright but changeful firelight, have deceived an onlooker into
+believing him to be a continuation
+of it; for the baggy tweed trousers which he wore on his immense legs,
+and which partially hid his loose-fitting brogans, or woodsman’s boots,
+his thick, knitted jersey, his mop of woolly hair, with the cap of
+coon’s fur that adorned it, were a striking mixture of grays, all
+bordering upon the color of the stump. His skin, however, was a fine
+contrast, shining as he bent towards the flame like the outside of a
+copper kettle. In daylight it would be three shades darker, because the
+thick coral lips, gleaming teeth, and prominent, friendly eyes of the
+individual, betrayed him to be in his own words, “a colored gen’leman;”
+that is, a full-blooded negro, and a free American citizen.
+
+Beside him, squatting upon his haunches and wagging his shaggy tail,
+was a good-sized dog, not of pure breed, but undoubtedly possessed of
+fire and fidelity, as was shown by the eye he raised to his master. His
+red coat and general formation showed that his father had been an Irish
+setter, though he seemed to have other and fiercer blood in his veins,
+mingling with that of this gentle parent.
+
+To him the negro was chanting a war-song,—some lines by a popular
+writer which he
+had found in an old newspaper, and had set to a curious tune of his own
+composition, rendering the performance more inspiriting by sundry wild
+whoops, and an occasional whacking of his teeth together.
+
+Here are two verses, under the influence of which the dog worked
+himself up to such excitement that he seemed to feel the ghosts of
+rabbits slain—for he could smell no live ones—hovering near him:—
+
+“I raise my gun whar de rabbit run—
+    Ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!
+En de rabbit say:
+    ‘Gimme time ter pray,
+Fer I ain’t got long fer to stay, to stay!’
+    Oh, ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!
+
+“Ketch him, oh, ketch him!
+Run ter de place en fetch him!
+De bell done chime
+Fer de breakfast time—
+    Oh, ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!”
+
+
+“If there are any more verses, Uncle Eb, keep them until we’ve had
+supper, or breakfast, or whatever you like to call a meal at this
+unearthly hour. I’m so hungry that I could chew nails!” cried Cyrus,
+springing from behind the bushes, and reaching the, camp-fire with a
+few strides, Neal following him.
+
+“Sakes alive! yonkers; is dat you?” cried the darkey, uprearing his
+gray figure. “I’se mighty glad to see you back. Whar’s yer meat? Left
+it in de canoe mebbe? De buck too big to drag ’long to camp—eh?”
+
+There was a wicked rolling of Uncle Eb’s eyes while he spoke. Evidently
+from the looks of the sportsmen he guessed immediately what had been
+the result of their excursion.
+
+“No luck and no buck to-night!” answered Garst. “But don’t roast us,
+Uncle Eb. Get us something to eat quicker than lightning or we’ll go
+for you—at least we would if we weren’t entirely played out. It isn’t
+everybody who can manage a hard shot as cleverly as you do, when he can
+only see the eyes of an animal. And that was the one chance we got.”
+
+No man living ever heard a further word from Cyrus as to how his
+English friend bore the scares of a first night’s jacking.
+
+“Ya-as, dat’s a ticklish shot. Most folks is skeered o’ trying it,”
+drawled out Ebenezer Grout, a professional guide as well as “colored
+gen’leman,” familiarly called by visitors to this region who hired the
+use of his hut and his services, “Uncle Eb.”
+
+“There’s some comfort for you,” whispered Cyrus slyly into Neal’s ear.
+Aloud he said, addressing the guide, “We had a spill-out, too, as a
+crown-all. I’m mighty glad that this is the second of October, not
+November, and that the weather is as warm as summer; otherwise we’d be
+in a pretty bad way from chill. I feel shivery. Hurry up, and get us
+some steaming hot coffee and flapjacks, Uncle Eb, while we fling off
+these wet clothes. The trouble is we haven’t got any dry ones.”
+
+“Hain’t got no oder suits?” queried the woodsman. “Den go ’long, boys,
+and rig yerselves up in yer blankets. Ye can pertend to be Injuns fer
+to-night. Like enough dis ain’t de worst shift ye’ll have to make ’fore
+ye get out o’ dese parts.”
+
+As the draggled pair were making towards the hut, which stood about six
+feet from the fire, to follow his advice, its bark door was suddenly
+pushed wide open. Forth stepped, or rather staggered, another boy,
+younger and shorter than Neal. His tumbled fair hair was here and there
+adorned with a green pine-needle, which was not remarkable, considering
+that he had just arisen from a bed of pine boughs. Sundry others were
+clinging to the surface of the warm, fleecy blankets in which he was
+wrapped, and his feet were thrust into a pair of moccasins. He had the
+appearance and voice of a person awaking from sound sleep.
+
+“I say, you fellows, it’s about time you got back!” he said, rubbing
+his heavy eyes, and addressing the hunters. “I hope you’ve had some
+luck. I dreamt that I was smacking my lips over a venison steak.”
+
+“Smack ’em w’en you git it, honey!” remarked Uncle Eb, while he mixed a
+plain batter of flour, baking-powder, and cold water, which he dropped
+in big spoonfuls on a frying-pan, previously greased, proceeding to fry
+the mixture over his camp-fire.
+
+The thin, round cakes which presently appeared were the “flapjacks”
+despised by Cyrus as insufficient diet.
+
+Without waiting to answer the new boy’s greeting, the hunters had
+disappeared into the bark shanty. When next they issued forth they were
+rigged up Indian fashion in moccasins and blankets, the latter being
+doubled and draped over their underclothing,—of which luckily they had
+a dry supply,—and gathered round their waists with leather straps.
+Knitted caps, usually worn when sleeping, adorned their heads.
+
+“You see, we followed Dol’s example and your advice, Uncle Eb,” said
+Cyrus, as they seated themselves by the camp-fire. “And I tell you
+these make tip-top dressing-gowns when you’re feeling a little bit
+chilly after a drenching. We didn’t bring along a second suit of tweeds
+for the simple reason that we mean to do some pretty rough tramping
+with our packs on our backs, and then a fellow is likely to grumble at
+any unnecessary pound of weight he carries.”
+
+“Shuah—shuah!” assented Uncle Eb.
+
+“And that is why we left our fishing-rods behind,” continued Garst.
+“You see, our main object this trip is neither hunting nor fishing. But
+a creel of gamey trout from Squaw Pond would come in handy now to
+replenish our larder.”
+
+“Wal, I b’lieve I’ll fix up a rod to-mo-oh an’ hook a few, fer de
+pork’s givin’ out. Hain’t got mich use fer trout meself. Dey’s kind o’
+tasteless eatin’ if a man can git a bit o’ fat coon or a fatty [hare],
+let ’lone ven’zon. Pork’s a sight better’n ’em to my mind.”
+
+While Uncle Eb was giving his views on food, he was hurriedly “bilin’”
+coffee, frying unlimited flapjacks, and breaking up some
+crystal cakes of maple sugar, which he melted into a sirup, and poured
+over them.
+
+“De bell done chime
+Fer de breakfast time!”
+
+
+he shouted gleefully when all was accomplished. “Heah, yonkers! I guess
+we may call dis meal breakfast jest as well as not, fer it’s neah to
+dawn now.”
+
+And the trio fell to voraciously, as he handed them each a steaming tin
+mug and an equally steaming plate. The newly awakened youngster, who
+had been cuddling his head sleepily against Neal’s shoulder (a glance
+showed that they were brothers), had clamored for his share of the
+banquet.
+
+“You haven’t been lonely, Dol, I hope, have you?” said Cyrus, as a
+whole flapjack, doubled over and drenched in sirup, disappeared down
+his capacious throat.
+
+“Not I,” answered Dol (Adolphus Farrar, ladies and gentlemen), shutting
+and opening a pair of steel-gray eyes with a sort of quick snap. “Uncle
+Eb and I sat by the fire until twelve o’clock. He sang songs, and told
+tip-top stories about coon hunts. I tell you it was fun! I’d rather see
+a coon hunt than go out at night jacking, especially if I
+got a ducking instead of a deer, like some bungling fellows I know.”
+
+“Don’t be saucy, Young England, or I’ll go for you when I’ve finished
+eating,” laughed Cyrus good-humoredly. “Who told you what we got?”
+
+Dol winked at Uncle Eb, who had, indeed, entertained him with giggling
+jokes about the unsuccessful hunters while they were stripping off
+their wet garments.
+
+Adolphus, being the youngest of the camping-party, was favored with the
+softest pine-bough bed and the best of the limited luxuries which the
+camp possessed, with unlimited nicknames,—from “Young England” to
+“Shaver” or “Chick,” according to the whims of his comrades.
+
+“Say, Uncle Eb, we’re having a fine old time to-night—all sorts of
+experiences! I guess you may as well finish that song we interrupted
+while we’re finishing our meal.”
+
+“All rightee, gen’lemen!” answered the jolly guide and cook.
+
+The dog Tiger had retreated to the back of the camp-fire, where he lay
+blissfully snoozing; but at a booming “Whoop-ee!” from his master,
+which formed a prelude to the following verses, he shot up like a
+rocket, and
+manifested all his former signs of excitement.
+
+“Dey’s a big fat goose whar de turkey roos’—
+    Ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!
+En de goose—he say,
+    ‘Hit’ll soon be day,
+En I got no feders fer ter give away!’
+    Oh, ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!
+
+“Ketch him, oh, ketch him,
+Run ter de roos’ en fetch him!
+He ain’t gwine tell
+On de dinner bell—
+    Ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!”
+
+
+“Scoot ’long to bed now, you yonkers, or ye’ll look like spooks
+to-mo-oh! Hit’s day a’ready,” cried the singer directly he had whooped
+out his last note.
+
+And the “yonkers,” nothing loath, for they had finished their repast,
+sprang up to obey him.
+
+“Isn’t it a comfort that we haven’t any trouble of undressing and
+getting into our bedclothes, fellows?” Cyrus said, as they reached the
+wangen, and prepared to throw themselves upon the fragrant camp-bed of
+fresh green pine-boughs, which made the bark hut smell more healthily
+than a palace.
+
+The natural mattress was wide enough to accommodate three. The boughs
+were laid
+down in rows with the under side up, and overlapped each other. To be
+sure, an occasional twig might poke a sleeper’s ribs, but what mattered
+that? To the English boys especially—having the charm of entire
+novelty—it was a matchless bed, wholesome, restful, and rich with
+balsamic odors hitherto unknown.
+
+The trio were stupidly tired; but on the American continent no happier
+or healthier youths could have been found.
+
+It had, indeed, been a night big with experiences; and there was one
+still to come, which, to Neal Farrar at any rate, was as novel as the
+rest. He had thrown himself upon his bough couch, too weary to offer
+anything but the gladness of his heart for worship, when Cyrus touched
+his arm.
+
+“Look there!” he said. “If a fellow could see that without feeling some
+sensations go through him which he never felt before, he wouldn’t be
+worth much!”
+
+He pointed through the open door of the hut at the sky above the
+clearing, over which was stealing a pearly hue of dawn, shot with a
+tinge of rosy light, like the fire in the heart of an opal.
+
+This made a royal canopy over the towering
+head of Old Squaw Mountain,—near by now and plainly visible,—which had
+not yet lost its starry diadem, though the gems were paling one by one.
+The shoulders of the peak wore a mantle of purple, and the forest which
+clothed its bulk was changing from the blackness of a mourning robe to
+the emerald green of a sea-nymph’s drapery.
+
+The shutters of Night were rolling back, and young Day was stepping out
+to cast her first smile on a waiting earth.
+
+As the watchers in the hut caught that smile, every thought which rose
+in them was a daybreak song to the God who is light, and the secret of
+every dawning.
+
+With the day-smile kissing their faces they fell asleep, feeling that
+they were wrapped in the embrace of the invisible King.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IV. Whither Bound?
+
+
+“Where from? Whither bound?” It is not often that a man or boy burns to
+put these questions—which ships signal to each other when they pass
+upon the ocean—to some individual who hurries by him on a crowded
+thoroughfare, whose name perhaps he knows, but whose hand he has never
+clasped, of whose thoughts, feelings, and capabilities he is ignorant.
+
+But just let him meet that same fellow during a holiday trip to some
+wild sea-beach or lonely mountain, let an acquaintance spring up, let
+him observe the habits of the other traveller, discovering a few of his
+weak points and some of his good ones, and then he wishes
+to ask, “Where do you hail from? Whither are you bound?”
+
+Therefore, having encountered three fairly good-looking, jovial,
+well-disposed young fellows amid the solitudes of a Maine forest,
+having spent some eventful hours in their company, learning how they
+behaved in certain emergencies, it is but natural that the reader
+should wish to know their ordinary occupations, with their reasons for
+venturing into these wilds, and the goal they wish to reach, before he
+journeys with them farther.
+
+Just at present, being fast asleep, dreaming, and—if I must say
+it—snoring like troopers, upon their mattresses of pine boughs, they
+are unable to give any information about themselves. But the friend who
+has been authorized to record their travels will be happy to satisfy
+all reasonable curiosity.
+
+To begin, then, with the “boss” of the party, Cyrus Garst, the writer
+would say that he is a student of Harvard University, and a brainy,
+energetic, robust son of America. Among his college classmates he is
+regarded as a bit of a hero; for, in spite of his comparative youth, he
+is an enterprising traveller and a veteran camper, whose camp-fire has
+blazed in some of the wildest solitudes of his native
+land. For his hobby is natural history, and his playground the “forest
+primeval,” where he studies American animals amid the lonely passes
+which they choose for their lairs and beats.
+
+Every year when Harvard’s learned halls are closed for the long summer
+vacation,—sometimes at other seasons too,—he starts off on a trip to a
+wilderness region, with his knapsack on his back, his rifle on his
+shoulder, and often carrying his camera as well.
+
+Once in a while he has been accompanied by a bosom friend or two. More
+frequently he has gone alone, hiring the services of a professional
+guide accustomed to the locality he visits. Now, such a guide is the
+indispensable figure in every woodland trip. He is expected to supply
+the main part of his employer’s camp “kit”; namely, a tent or some
+shelter to sleep under, cooking utensils, axes, etc., as well as a boat
+or canoe if such be required. And this son of the forest, whose foot
+can make a bee-line to its destination through the densest wooded maze,
+is not only leader, but cook and general-utility man in camp as well.
+The guide must be equally grand-master of paddle, rifle, and
+frying-pan.
+
+For these tireless woodland heroes Cyrus Garst has a general
+admiration. He has always agreed with them famously—save on one point;
+and he has never had to shorten his wanderings for fear of lengthening
+their fees. For Cyrus has a millionnaire father in the Back Bay of
+Boston, who is disposed to indulge his whims.
+
+The one point of variance is this: while all guides admire young Garst
+as a crack shot with a rifle, he frequently dumfounds them by letting
+slip stunning chances at game, big and little. They call him “a queer
+specimen sportsman,”—understanding little his love for the wild
+offspring of the woods,—because he never uses his gun save when the
+bareness of his larder or the peril of his own life or his chum’s
+demands it.
+
+Nevertheless, feeling the need of fresh meat, the naturalist was for
+the moment hotly exasperated because his English comrade, Neal Farrar,
+missed even a poor chance at a buck during the midnight excursion on
+Squaw Pond.
+
+His friends are proud of stating that up to the present Cyrus had
+proceeded well in his friendly acquaintance with wild creatures, his
+desire being to study their habits when alive rather than to pore over
+their anatomy when dead. And he has always reaped a plentiful harvest
+of fun during his trips, declaring that he has “the pull over fellows
+who go into the woods for killing,” seeing that he can thoroughly enjoy
+the escape of a game animal if he can only catch a sight of it, and
+perceive how its pluck or cunning enables it to baffle pursuing man.
+There are those who call Cyrus a sportsman of the best type. Perhaps
+they are right.
+
+Yet in the year of our story, when he had just attained his majority,
+this student of forest life is still unsatisfied, because he has not
+been able to obtain a good view of the behemoth of American woods, the
+_ignis fatuus_ of hunters,—the mighty moose.
+
+Once only, when paddling on a still pond with his experienced guide for
+company, the latter suddenly closed the slide of the jack-lamp, hiding
+its light. At the same moment a dark, splendid monster, tall as a horse
+and swinging a pair of antlers five feet broad, suddenly appeared upon
+the bank, near to which the canoe lay in black shadow. The hunters
+dared not breathe. It was at a season of year when the Maine law exacts
+a heavy fine for the killing of a moose; and even the guide had no
+desire to send his bullets through the law, though he might have
+riddled the game without compunction.
+
+For a minute or two the creature halted at the pond’s brink, magnified
+in the mirror of moonlit water into a gigantic, wavering shape. Then
+with slow, solemn tread he walked along the bank ahead, gave a loud
+snort something like the snort of a war-horse, made a crunching,
+chopping noise with his jaws, resembling the sound of a dull axe
+striking against wood, plunged into the lake, and swam across to the
+opposite shore.
+
+“If we had fired, he might have come for us full tilt,” whispered the
+guide so softly that his words were like a gliding breath. “And then I
+tell you we’d have had a narrow squeak. He’d have kicked the canoe into
+splinters and us out o’ time in short order.”
+
+“But a moose won’t charge unless he’s attacked, will he?” asked Cyrus,
+later in the night, when a couple of quacking black ducks which had
+received a dose of lead were lying silent at his feet, and the hunters
+were returning to camp with food.
+
+“Not often,” was the reply. “Only at this time o’ year, if they’ve got
+a mate to defend, you can’t say for sure what they’ll do. They won’t
+always fight either, even if they’re
+wounded, when they can get a chance to bolt. But a moose, if he has to
+die, will be sure to die game, with his face to his enemy; and so will
+every wild animal that I know. I’ve even seen a shot partridge flutter
+up its feathers like a game-cock at the fellow who dropped it.”
+
+Well, this memorable glimpse of his mooseship was obtained in the year
+before our story. And now, in the beginning of October, young Garst was
+off into Maine wilds again, having arranged to “do” the forest
+thoroughly after his usual fashion, seeing all he could of its
+countless phases of life, and finally to meet this same guide—a
+dare-devil fellow who was reported to have had adventures in
+moose-hunting such as other woodsmen did not dream of—at a log camp far
+in the wilderness. Thence they could proceed to solitudes where the
+voice of man seldom echoed, where the foot of man rarely trod, and
+where moose signs were pretty sure to be found.
+
+But there was one very unusual feature in his present expedition. The
+student of nature, who generally started forth alone, was this year,
+owing to a freak of fate and to his natural good-nature, accompanied by
+two English lads.
+
+Early in the summer of this same year, Francis Farrar, a wealthy
+cotton-merchant of Manchester, England, visited America on a
+business-trip, and became the guest of Cyrus’s father. He brought with
+him his two sons, Neal, aged sixteen and a half, and Adolphus,
+familiarly called Dol, who was more than a year younger.
+
+Both boys had been at a large public school, and physically, as well as
+mentally, were well developed. They were accustomed to spending long
+vacations with their father at wild spots on the seashore, or amid
+mountains in England and Scotland. They could tirelessly do a
+sixty-mile spin on their “wheels,” were good football players,
+excellent rowers, formed part of the crew of their father’s yacht,
+could skilfully handle gun and fishing-rod, but they had never camped
+out.
+
+They knew none of the delights of sleeping in woodland quarters, with
+only a canvas or bark roof, or perhaps a few spruce boughs, between
+them and the sky—
+
+“While a music wild and solemn
+    From the pine-tree’s height
+Rolls its vast and sea-like volume
+    On the wind of night.”
+
+
+Small wonder, then, that when they heard Cyrus Garst tell of his
+camping excursions, of his jolly times, long tramps, and hairbreadth
+escapes, their hearts swelled with a tremendous longing to accompany
+him on the trip into northern Maine which he was then projecting for
+the following October.
+
+Now, Cyrus at the first start-off conceived a liking for these English
+fellows, to whom, for his father’s sake, he played the part of genial
+host. With a lordly recognition of his superior years he pronounced
+them “first-rate youngsters, with lots of snap in them.” And as the
+acquaintance progressed, Neal Farrar, with his erect figure, broad
+chest, musical voice, and wide-apart gray eyes,—so clear and honest
+that their glance was a beam,—proved a personage so likable that the
+student adopted him as “chum,” forgetting those five years which had
+been a gulf between them.
+
+Dol, whose eyes were of a more steely hue than his brother’s, striking
+fire readily and showing all manner of flinty lights, who had a
+downright talent for mimicry, and a small share of juvenile
+self-importance, came in for regard of a more indulgent and less equal
+nature.
+
+Directly he got an inkling of the desire for a forest trip which
+stirred in the boys’ breasts, making them yearn all day and toss all
+night, Cyrus gave them both a cordial invitation to accompany him into
+Maine. Mr. Farrar did not purpose returning to Europe till midwinter.
+His consent was easily obtained. He presented each of his sons with a
+new Winchester repeating rifle, with which they practised diligently at
+a target ere the eventful day of the start dawned, though their leader
+emphatically insisted that the prime pleasures of the trip were not to
+be looked for in the slaughter done by their hands.
+
+Wearing the camper’s favorite dress of stout gray tweed, the trio left
+Boston on a lovely September evening towards the close of the month,
+taking a fast night train for Maine, brimful of enthusiasm about the
+wild woods and free camp-life. The hue of their clothes was chosen with
+a view to making their figures resemble the forest trunks, so that they
+would be less likely to attract the notice of animals, and might get a
+chance to creep upon them undetected.
+
+About their waists were their ammunition belts, with pouches well
+stocked. Their large
+knapsacks contained blankets, moccasins, and various other necessaries
+of a camper’s outfit, including heavy knitted jerseys for chill days
+and nights, and rubber boots reaching high on the legs for wear in
+wading and traversing swampy tracts.
+
+About twenty-four hours later they dropped off the rattling, jingling
+stage-coach which bore them over the latter part of their journey, at
+the flourishing village of Greenville, on the borders of the Maine
+wilds.
+
+Here they were greeted by a view, the loveliness of which made the
+English boys, who had never looked on it before, experience strange
+heart-leaps.
+
+A magnificent sheet of water nearly forty miles long and fourteen broad
+lay before them, studded with islands, girt with evergreen forests and
+wooded peaks. Under the rays of the setting sun its bosom was shot with
+arrows of pale, quivering gold. Banners of gold and flame-color floated
+over the crests of the hills, flinging streamers of light down their
+emerald sides.
+
+“Fellows, there is Moosehead Lake; and I guess you’ll find few lakes in
+America or elsewhere that can beat it for beauty,” said Cyrus, with a
+patriotic thrill in his voice, for
+he had a feeling that he was doing the honors of his country.
+
+His English comrades were warm with admiration, and here, in view of
+the forest-land which was their El Dorado, tingled with anticipation of
+the unknown.
+
+The three rested that night at Greenville, and began their tramping on
+the following morning. They trudged a distance of seven miles or so to
+the camp of Ebenezer Grout, which, as Garst knew, was situated between
+Squaw Pond and Old Squaw Mountain, the latter being one of the finest
+peaks near Moosehead Lake.
+
+“Uncle Eb” was an old acquaintance of Cyrus’s, a dusky, lively
+woodsman, who spent a great part of the year in his lone bark hut, with
+his dog Tiger for company. He subsisted chiefly on what he brought down
+with his rifle, and sometimes earned three dollars a day for guiding
+tourists up Old Squaw or through the adjacent forests.
+
+
+Illustration: There Is Moosehead Lake.
+
+
+He was not an ambitious hunter, and rarely pushed far into the
+solitudes of the wilderness in search of moose or other big game. A
+coon hunt was to him the climax of all fun. It was chiefly with a hope
+that his comrades might enjoy some novel entertainment of this kind
+that Cyrus made his first stoppage at Uncle Eb’s camp, purposing to
+sojourn there for a few days.
+
+He was not disappointed.
+
+The stupidly tired trio had slept for about two hours, while the reader
+has been receiving information second-hand about their past and future,
+when a scratching, scraping, boring noise on the outside of their bark
+roof temporarily disturbed their slumbers. Dol called out noisily, and,
+as was the way of that youngster on sundry occasions, talked some
+gibberish in his sleep. The scraping instantly ceased.
+
+A renewed and blissful season of snoring. Another awakening. More music
+on the roof, evidently caused by the claws of some wild animal, while
+each of the campers was startled by a loud “Cluck!”
+
+“Lie still, fellows! Don’t budge. Let’s see what the thing is,”
+breathed Cyrus in a peculiarly still whisper which he had learned from
+his moose-hunting guide of whom mention has been made.
+
+Dead silence in the hut. Redoubled scraping and rattling above, with a
+scattering of bark chips.
+
+Then light appeared through a jagged hole
+just over a string which was stretched across one corner of the cabin,
+and from which dangled sundry articles of camp bric-a-brac, mostly of a
+tinny nature, with Uncle Eb’s last morsel of “pork.
+
+“By all that’s glorious! it’s a coon,” breathed Cyrus, but so softly
+that his companions did not hear.
+
+As for the two Farrars, they were working up to such a heat of
+excitement that they felt as if life were now only beginning. They had
+heard of the thievish raids made by the black bear on unprotected
+camps, and of his special fondness for pork. Not knowing that there was
+no chance of an encounter with Bruin so near to civilization as this,
+they peered at that hole in the roof, expecting every moment to see a
+huge, black, snarling snout thrust through it.
+
+It was a pointed gray muzzle which warily appeared instead—appeared and
+disappeared on the instant. For at this crisis Tiger’s shrill
+bugle-call resounded without, giving warning of an attack on the camp.
+The thing, whatever it was, scrambled from the roof, and with a
+strange, shrill cry of one note made towards the woods. The dog
+followed it, barking for all he was worth.
+
+Now, too, Uncle Eb’s booming “Whoop-ee!” was heard.
+
+The hardy old woodsman, after his visitors had gone to roost, instead
+of stretching himself as usual upon his pine mattress, had started off,
+accompanied by Tiger, to visit some traps which he had set in the
+forest, hoping to catch a marten or two. He took the precaution of
+closing the door of the hut when he saw that its inmates were soundly
+sleeping, thinking meanwhile, that, as day was dawning, there was
+little chance of any wild “critter” coming round the camp during his
+absence.
+
+But a greedy raccoon, which had been prowling near in the woods during
+the night, and had been tantalized to desperation by the smell of the
+late meal, especially by the odor of flapjacks frying in pork fat, had
+stolen from cover after the departure of his natural enemy, the dog.
+
+Finding the coast clear and the camp unguarded, he made himself quietly
+at home, rooted among some potato parings which the guide had thrown
+aside a day or two before, devoured a cold flapjack, and cleaned the
+camp frying-pan as it had never been cleaned before, with his tongue.
+But his
+appetite was whetted, not glutted. Scent or instinct told him that
+pork, molasses, and other eatables were hidden in the bark hut. Here
+was a golden opportunity for Mr. Coon. No one molested him. Meditating
+a feast, he climbed to the roof, and began cautiously to scrape off
+portions of the bark. The rising sun ought to have warned him back to
+forest depths; but he persisted in his scratching, repeating now and
+again a satisfied cluck.
+
+His hole was made. His keen nose told him that pork was almost within
+reach, when the bugle-call of his enemy—Tiger’s challenging bark—smote
+upon his ear. Guide and dog were opportunely returning to camp.
+
+Of course, as soon as the marauder scrambled off the roof, Cyrus and
+the boys sprang from their couch. Barefooted, and in night costume,
+they were already at the door of the hut before Uncle Eb was heard
+booming,—
+
+“Boys! Boys! Tumble out—tumble out! Dere’s a reg’lar razzle-dazzle
+fight goin’ on heah. Tiger’s nabbed de coon.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter V. A Coon Hunt
+
+
+A razzle-dazzle fight it surely was! On one side of the camp, between
+the camping-ground, which Uncle Eb had cleared with many a backache,
+and the woods, was a narrow strip covered with a stunted, prickly
+growth of wild raspberry bushes and tiny cherry-trees. These had sprung
+up after the pines had been cut down, as soon as the sun peeped at the
+long-hidden earth.
+
+Into it the bare-legged trio dared not venture, knowing that they would
+get a worse scratching and tearing than if the coon itself mauled them.
+
+But they could see and hear a whirling, howling, clawing, spitting,
+rough-and-tumble
+conflict going on in the midst of this miniature jungle.
+
+“Whew! Whew!” gasped Cyrus. “Here’s your first sight of a wild coon,
+boys. I wish to goodness it had been a different sight, but I suppose
+he must pay for his thieving.”
+
+“Tiger’ll make him do dat. Bet yer life he will! He’s death on coons,
+if ever a dog was,” yelled Uncle Eb, gambolling with excitement, his
+eyes bulging and widening until they looked like oysters on the shell.
+
+The soft, battered, gray felt hat which replaced his fur cap in the
+daytime surged off his gray wool, and frisked gently away towards the
+camp-fire. There, coming in contact with a red ember, it scorched and
+shrivelled into smoking, smelling ashes, all unnoticed in the tumult of
+the fight.
+
+Whirling round and round, now under, now over, dog and coon rolled
+presently forth from the bushes, nearer to the feet of the spectators.
+Then Neal and Dol could get a clearer view of the strange animal. A
+breeze of exclamations came from them, mingling with the yelping,
+snarling, and clucking of the combatants.
+
+“Good gracious! Look at the stout body and funny little legs of the
+fellow!”
+
+“Doesn’t he fight like a spitfire?”
+
+“I’m glad he’s not clawing me!”
+
+“He’s not much like any picture of a raccoon I ever saw in a Natural
+History!”
+
+“I guess he wouldn’t resemble them greatly, especially in that
+attitude, Dol,” said Cyrus, as soon as there was a lull in the boys’
+comments.
+
+The raccoon had now rolled on his back, and was fighting so fiercely
+with teeth and claws that a despairing cry broke from Uncle Eb,—
+
+“Yah! He’s makin’ Tiger’s wool fly!”
+
+It was then that the old guide began to deliberate about rushing
+forward and despatching his coonship with the butt end of his rifle.
+Cyrus would gladly have stopped the tussle long before, for there was
+too much savagery about it to suit him; but he could only have done so
+by stunning or killing one of the combatants.
+
+A heart-rending howl from Tiger. The coon had caught him by his lower
+jaw. Uncle Eb, clutching his empty rifle like a club, was starting to
+the rescue, when the dog with a sudden, desperate jerk freed himself.
+Mad with rage and pain, he tried to seize the raccoon’s throat. But his
+enemy managed to
+elude the strangling grip, and getting on his feet, again caught Tiger,
+this time by the cheek, causing another agonizing yelp.
+
+Now, however, the undaunted dog whirled round and round with such
+rapidity as to make Mr. Coon relax his hold, and, gathering all his
+strength, flung the wild animal off to a distance of several feet.
+
+Probably the raccoon felt that he had enough of the conflict, and was
+doubtful about its final issue. He seized the chance for escape. While
+the spectators gasped with excitement, they beheld him, with his head
+doubled under his stomach, roll over and over like a huge gray
+India-rubber ball, until he reached the nearest tree, which happened to
+be one of the young pines that shaded the camp. Quick as lightning he
+climbed up its trunk, uttering a second shrill, far-reaching cry of one
+note.
+
+“Listen! Listen, fellows!” cried Cyrus. “That raccoon is a
+ventriloquist. The cry seemed to come from somewhere far above him. I
+had a tame coon long ago, and I often heard him call like that. I tell
+you he’s a ventriloquist, and a mighty clever one too.
+
+“The one piercing note was to warn his mate,” went on the naturalist,
+after a moment’s
+pause; “or in all probability, though we have been speaking of the
+animal as ‘he,’ it is really a female, for I have heard that peculiar
+call given more frequently by a mother to warn her cubs.”
+
+All that could now be seen of the animal—on whose gender new light had
+been cast—was a gray ball curled up on a tasselled bough near the top
+of the pine-tree, and a glimpse of a black nose over the edge of the
+limb.
+
+“Wal! ’tain’t no matter wedder de critter is a male or a fimmale; I’m
+a-goin’ to bring it down from dar mighty quick,” said Uncle Eb,
+fumbling with the cartridge-box which was attached to his broad leather
+belt, and preparing to load his rifle, while he cast murderous looks
+aloft.
+
+“No, you don’t, then!” said Cyrus hotly. “The creature has fought
+pluckily, and it deserves to get a fair chance for its life. I’ll see
+that it does too. You oughtn’t to be hard on it for liking pork, Uncle
+Eb.”
+
+“Coons will be gittin’ into eatin’ order soon,” murmured the guide,
+smacking his lips, and handling his gun undecidedly. “Roast coon’s a
+heap better’n roast lamb.”
+
+“Well, they’re not in eating order yet, and
+won’t be till next month,” answered Garst. “Come, you’ve got to let
+this one go, Uncle Eb, to please me.”
+
+“Tell ye wot: I’ll call Tiger off” (Tiger was alternately licking his
+wounds and baying furiously for vengeance about the tree which
+sheltered his enemy), “den, wen de coon finds de place clear, bime-by
+he’ll light down from dat limb, I’ll start off de dog, and let ’em
+finish de game atween ’em.”
+
+Cyrus considered for a minute, then decided that on the coon’s behalf
+he might safely accept the compromise.
+
+“Let’s get into our clothes, fellows!” he cried to Neal and Dol. “Now
+we’re going to have some fair fun! I guess there won’t be any more
+fighting; and I want you to see how cunningly the raccoon will cheat
+the dog and escape, if he gets an even chance.”
+
+In five minutes the trio were out of their blankets and in their
+ordinary day apparel. The old guide had hung the wet tweeds to dry by
+the blazing camp-fire before he started out to visit his traps,
+carefully stretching them to prevent their “swunking” (shrinking). Thus
+they were again fit for wear.
+
+A half-hour of waiting ensued, during which every one was on the tiptoe
+of expectation. They had all withdrawn to some distance from the tree.
+Uncle Eb had been obliged to drag Tiger away, and was bathing his cuts
+out of the camp water-bucket in a shady corner. The dog, recognizing
+that he was a patient, submitted without a growl or budge, until his
+master, who had been keeping a keen eye on that pine-tree, suddenly
+loosed him, and started him off afresh with a loud “Whoop-ee!” and a—
+
+“Ketch him, Tiger! ketch him!”
+
+
+The coon had “lighted down.”
+
+Away went the wild creature into the woods. Away after him, went dog,
+guide, student, and boys, plunging, tumbling, rushing along
+helter-skelter, with a yell on every lip.
+
+“There he is! See him? That gray ball rolling over and over!” shouted
+Cyrus. “I’ll tell you what, now; he’s going to resort to his clever
+dodge of ‘barking a tree.’ There never was a general yet who could beat
+a coon for strategy in making a retreat.”
+
+The forest surrounding the eminence on which Uncle Eb’s camp was
+situated consisted mostly of pines, with here and there the brilliant
+autumn foliage of a maple or
+birch showing amid the evergreens. The trees down the sides of the hill
+were not densely crowded, but grew in irregular clumps instead of an
+unbroken mass. This, of course, afforded a better opportunity for the
+pursuers to catch glimpses of the fugitive animal.
+
+On finding that it was again chased, the raccoon at first took shelter
+in a dense thicket of scrub oak, which formed in places a tangled
+undergrowth. Tiger quickly followed up its trail, and it was driven
+thence.
+
+Then Cyrus and the boys caught sight of it spinning over and over like
+a ball, towards a maple-tree with widely projecting limbs and thick
+foliage; for it knew well that in speed it was no match for the dog,
+and therefore resorted to a neat little stratagem. The next minute,
+being hotly pressed, it scrambled up the friendly trunk.
+
+“He’s treed again, yonkers! Come on!” shouted the guide, indifferent to
+the creature’s probable gender.
+
+Tiger sat on his haunches at the foot of the maple, setting up a slow,
+steady bark.
+
+“Keep where you are, fellows! Watch the other side of the tree!”
+whispered Cyrus, his face twitching with excitement.
+
+In his character of naturalist he had managed
+to find out more about the coon’s various dodges than even the old
+guide had done.
+
+In breathless wonder the Farrars presently beheld that ingenious
+raccoon steal along to the end of the most projecting limb on a
+different side of the tree from the one it had climbed, so that a
+screen of boughs and the trunk were between it and its adversary.
+
+Then it noiselessly dropped from the tip of the branch to the ground,
+alighting, like a skilled acrobat, on its shoulders, doubled its
+pointed black nose under its stomach, and again rolled over and over
+for a considerable distance, when it got on its short legs and scurried
+away, while Tiger still bayed at the foot of the maple-tree, thinking
+the vanished prey was above.
+
+“That’s what I called the coon’s dodge of ‘barking a tree,’” said
+Cyrus. “Don’t you see, when hard pressed, he runs up the trunk, leaving
+his scent on the bark; then he creeps to the other side under cover of
+the foliage, and drops quietly to the ground. So he breaks the scent
+and cheats the dog.”
+
+“Good gracious!” exclaimed Neal with an expressive whistle.
+
+“Perhaps it’s because of his long gray hairs that he has so much
+wisdom,” Dol suggested.
+
+“A bright idea, Chick!” chuckled the student, tapping the boy’s
+shoulder.
+
+“We keep on speaking of him as ‘he’ when you said the thing was
+probably a female,” put in Neal.
+
+“That doesn’t matter. I’m not certain. Look at old Tiger! He’s having
+fits now that he has discovered how he’s been tricked.”
+
+The dog was circling out from the tree, with wild, uncertain movements,
+nosing everywhere. Presently he struck the scent again, and darted off
+like a streak.
+
+But the raccoon had by this time reached a dark stream of water which
+coursed through the over-arching forest at the foot of the hill, as if
+it was flowing through a tunnel. Here this astute animal crossed and
+recrossed under the gloom of interlocking trees, mid dense undergrowth,
+until its trail was altogether lost.
+
+Tiger, having further “fits,” nosing about, darting hither and thither,
+venting short, baffled barks, finally gave up in despair.
+
+The pursuing party turned back to camp.
+
+“Did ye ever see ennyting to ekal de cunnin’ o’ de critter,” said Uncle
+Eb gloomily; “runnin’ up dat tree on’y to jump off, so as he’d break de
+scent an’ fool de dog? Ye’ll learn a heap o’ queer tings in dese woods,
+chillun, ’fore ye get t’rough,” he added, addressing the English lads.
+
+“We’ve learned queerer things than we ever imagined or dreamed of,
+already, Uncle Eb,” Neal answered.
+
+Meanwhile, Cyrus and Dol had begun to discuss the size of the escaped
+coon.
+
+“I should think it measured about two feet from the tip of its nose to
+the beginning of the tail, and that would add ten or eleven inches.
+Probably it weighed over thirty pounds,” said the experienced Garst.
+
+“A fine tail it had too!” answered Dol; “all ringed with black and
+buff—not black and white as the books say. There was hardly an inch of
+white about the animal anywhere. Its thick gray hair was marked here
+and there with black; wasn’t it, Cy?”
+
+“Rather with a darker shade of gray, bordering on black. I think old
+Tiger can testify that the creature had capable teeth; and it possesses
+a goodly number of them—forty in all; that’s only two less than a bear,
+an animal that might make six of it in size.”
+
+“Whew! No wonder it’s a good fighter!” ejaculated Dol.
+
+“But the funniest of the coon’s or—to give the animal its proper
+name—the raccoon’s
+funny habits is, that while it eats anything and everything, it souses
+all meat in water before beginning a feed. That’s what it would have
+done with our bit of pork,—dragged it to a stream, and washed it well
+before swallowing a morsel.
+
+“I caught glimpses of a raccoon chasing a jack-rabbit in this very
+section of the woods, last year,” went on the student, seeing that Dol
+was breathlessly listening. “The big animal killed the little one under
+a dead limb; and I traced its tracks through some mud, where it tugged
+the rabbit to the brink of the nearest brook to be dipped and devoured.
+
+“After the meal, Mr. Coon halted on an old bit of stump as gray as
+himself, close to where I lay under cover, trying to get a peep at his
+operations, but, unluckily, in my excitement I touched a bush, and
+broke a twig not as big as my little finger. I tell you he just jumped
+off that stump as if it scorched him, and disappeared.”
+
+“What about that tame coon you owned, Cy?” Dol asked. “You haven’t got
+him now.”
+
+“Bless your heart, I should think not!” Here the student indulged in a
+chuckle of mirth. “That coon was the fun and bane
+of my life. No fear of my being dull while I had him! I had him as a
+present, when he was only a cub, from a man out here who is my special
+chum among woodsmen, Herb Heal, the guide in whose company we’re going
+to explore for moose, and the soundest fellow in wind, limb, and temper
+that ever I had the luck to meet. I guess you English boys will say the
+same when you know him.
+
+“Well! when my friend Herb bestowed upon me that baby raccoon, I called
+the little innocent ‘Zip,’ and kept him in-doors, letting him roam at
+will. But after he grew to manhood, I was obliged to banish him to our
+yard and chain him up; and there his piteous, sky-piercing calls, which
+seemed to come from the roof of a house near him, first showed me what
+a ventriloquist the animal can be.”
+
+“Why on earth did you banish him?” asked Neal.
+
+“Because his plan of campaign, when loose, was to follow me about like
+a devoted cat, climbing over me whenever he got the chance, with
+slobbery fondness. But as soon as I was out of the way he’d steal every
+mortal thing I possessed, from my most precious instruments to my
+latest tie and handkerchiefs. I never saw anything to equal his
+ingenuity in ferreting out such articles, and his incorrigible mischief
+in destroying them. I chained him in the yard after he had torn my
+father’s silk hat into shreds, and made off with his favorite
+spectacles. Whether he wore them or not I don’t know; he chewed up the
+case; the glasses no man thereafter saw. I couldn’t endure his piteous
+cries for reconciliation while he was in banishment, so I gave him away
+to a friend who was suffering from an imaginary ailment, and needed
+rousing.
+
+“Talking of fathers, boys, reminds me that I feel responsible to
+Francis Farrar, Esq., for the welfare of his lusty sons. Neal had a
+pretty tiring time last night, and only about two hours’ sleep since. I
+don’t suppose any of us are outrageously hungry, seeing that we had
+some kind of breakfast at an unearthly hour. Here we are at camp! I
+propose that we turn in, and try to sleep until noon. What do you say?”
+
+Their leader having wound up his talk, thus, neither of his comrades
+ventured to oppose his suggestion, though they felt little inclined for
+slumber.
+
+“Pleasant day-dreams to you, fellows!” said Cyrus three minutes
+afterwards, flinging off his coat, and throwing himself on his mattress
+of boughs, while he wiped the steady drip of perspiration from his
+forehead and cheeks. “This day is going to be too warm for any more
+rushing. Our variable climate occasionally gives us these hot spells up
+to the middle of October; but they don’t last. So much the better for
+us! We don’t want sizzling days and oppressive nights, with mosquitoes
+and black flies to make us miserable. October in this country is the
+camper’s ideal—month”—
+
+The last sentence was broken by a great yawn, followed presently by a
+snort and an attempt at a shout, which quavered away into a queer
+little whine. Garst had passed into dreamland, where men revel in
+fragmentary memories and pell-mell visions.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VI. After Black Ducks
+
+
+If Cyrus’s dreams were ruffled after the morning’s excitement, those of
+his comrades were a perfect chaos.
+
+A slight wind hummed wordless songs through the tasselled tops of the
+pine-trees about the camp. The music was tender and drowsy as a
+mother’s lullaby. Contrary to their expectations, Neal and Dol were
+lulled to sleep by it like babies, with a feeling as if some guardian
+spirit were gliding among the tree-tops.
+
+But when slumber held them, when the murmur increased to a surge of
+sound, sank to a ripple and again rolled forth, in their dreams they
+imagined it the scurrying of a
+deer’s hoofs along some lonely forest deer-path, the rustling of a buck
+through bushes, the splashing of a mighty moose among lily-pads and
+grasses at the margin of a dark pond, the startled cluck of a coon. In
+fact, that rolling music of the pines was translated into every forest
+sound which they had heard, or expected to hear.
+
+The excitement of wild scenes, new sensations, strange knowledge, still
+thrilled them even in sleep. Their visions were accordingly wild,
+rushing, jumbled, yet all set in a light so bright as to be
+bewildering—a sign that health and happiness as great as human boys can
+enjoy were the possession of the dreamers.
+
+By and by their pulses grew steadier. Out of this confused rush of
+imaginings grew in the mind of each one steady, absorbing dream. Neal
+fancied that he was on the top of Old Squaw Mountain, and that beneath,
+above, around him, sounded the strangely prolonged weird call, which he
+had heard at a distance on the previous night while Cyrus was
+recovering the jack-light. Owing to the ever-changing excitements of
+camp-life, he had not questioned his comrade again about it.
+
+Dol’s visions resolved themselves into a
+mighty coon hunt. He tossed on his pine boughs, kicked and jabbered in
+his sleep, with sundry odd little cries and untranslatable mutterings,—
+
+“Go it, Tiger! Go it, old dog! There he is—up the tree! Ah”
+(disgustedly), “you’re no good!”
+
+A lull. Then the dreamer rolled out a string of what may be called
+gibberish, seeing that it consisted of fragments of words and was
+unintelligible, followed by,—
+
+“The coon’s eating the pork—no, he’s b-b-b-barking it! Hu-loo-oo!”
+
+“Oh, say, Chick, give us a chance! We can’t sleep with you chirping
+into our ears.”
+
+It was Cyrus who spoke, shaking with drowsy laughter, and Cyrus’s big
+hand gently shook the dreamer’s arm.
+
+“What? what? wh-wh-at?” gasped Dol, awaking. “I wasn’t talking out
+loud, was I?”
+
+“Not talking aloud! Well, I should smile!” answered the camp captain.
+“You were making as much noise as a loon, and that’s the noisiest thing
+I know. Go to sleep again, young one, and don’t have any more crazy
+spells before dinner-time.”
+
+Cyrus removed his hand, shut his eyes, and in a minute or two was
+breathing heavily. Neal, who had been aroused too, followed his
+example, laughing and mumbling something about “it’s being an old trick
+of Dol’s to hunt in his sleep.”
+
+But the junior member of the party remained awake. After his dreams had
+been dissipated he cared no more for slumber. When he could venture it
+without disturbing his companions, he rose to a sitting posture, and,
+after squatting for a while in meditation, got on his feet, picked up
+his coat and moccasins, and, stealthily as an Indian, crept out of the
+hut.
+
+The rolling music among the pine-tops had died down; only at long
+intervals a soft, random rustle swept through them. It was nearly
+midday. The camp-fire was almost dead, quenched by the dazzling
+sunlight which fell in patches on the camping-ground, and flooded the
+clearing beyond the shadow of the pines.
+
+Moreover, the camping-ground was deserted. Neither Uncle Eb nor Tiger
+could be seen, though Dol’s eyes sought for them wistfully. But
+something caught his attention. It was a ray of light filtering through
+the pine boughs and glinting on the trigger of an old-fashioned
+muzzle-loading shot-gun,
+which leaned against a corner of the hut. An ancient, glistening
+powder-horn and a coon-skin ammunition pouch hung above it.
+
+Dol lifted the antiquated weapon, withdrew to a short distance, and
+examined it closely. He knew it belonged to the guide, but was rarely
+used by him since he had purchased the 44-calibre Winchester rifle,
+with which he could do uncommon feats in shooting.
+
+The shot-gun interested the boy mightily. There was a facsimile of it,
+swathed in green baize, stowed away somewhere in his father’s house in
+Manchester. The first time he had ever used fire-arms was on a
+memorable day when his fingers pulled its trigger in his father’s
+garden under Neal’s direction, and a lean starling fell before his
+shot. After that he had often taken out a fowling-piece of a newer
+style, and had done pretty well with it too.
+
+As he handled the shot-gun, which the guide had bought away back in the
+year ’55, musing about it under the pines, the thought suddenly tumbled
+out of a corner of his brain that at present there was a brilliant
+opportunity for him to use the gun and all the shooting skill he
+possessed for the benefit of his comrades and himself.
+
+There was no meat in the camp for dinner or supper save the pork on
+which they had feasted since they arrived there, and that was fast
+giving out. Cyrus, in addition to his knapsack, had hauled over from
+Greenville, where articles of camp fare could be procured in abundance,
+a goodly supply of tea, coffee, condensed milk, flour, salt, sugar,
+etc., in a stout canvas bag, Neal at intervals helping him with the
+burden. For the rest he had trusted to Nature’s larder, and such food
+as he might purchase from his guides, desiring to go into the woods as
+“light” as possible.
+
+Uncle Eb had baked bread for his guests after a fashion of his own on
+the camp frying-pan, setting the pan on some glowing coals a foot or so
+from the fire; he had fried unlimited flapjacks, and had cheerfully
+placed what stores he had at their disposal. His three luxuries were
+novelties to the English lads, being pork, maple sugar,—drawn from the
+beautiful maple-trees near his camp,—and a small wooden keg of sticky,
+dark molasses. The sugar was the only one which Dol found palatable;
+and he knew that the Bostonian, Cyrus, shared his feeling. To tell the
+truth, the juvenile Adolphus was not fastidious, but
+he was suddenly seized with an ambitious desire to vary the diet of the
+camp.
+
+“Uncle Eb said that I could use this ‘ole fuzzee,’ as he called it,
+whenever I liked,” he muttered, looking wistfully at the shot-gun; “and
+I’ve a big mind to give those lazy fellows in there a surprise. They
+spent the night out jacking, and didn’t get any meat because Cyrus let
+Neal do the shooting, and he bungled it. It’s my turn next to go after
+deer, but I’m not going to wait for that.”
+
+Here his steel-gray eyes fell on the moccasins which he had not yet put
+on, and struck fire instantly. His ambition was doubled. For if there
+is one thing more than another which in the forest will stir the pluck
+of a novice, and make him feel like an old woodsman, it is the sight of
+his Indian footwear. Dol put his on, admired their light, comfortable
+feeling, their soft buckskin, and rashly decided that he could dispense
+with the loose inner soles which Cyrus had fitted into them to protect
+his feet.
+
+Then, being very much of a stranger to American woods, he communed with
+himself after this fashion,—
+
+“Cyrus says that different tribes of Indians wear differently made
+moccasins, and one redskin, if he sees the tracks of another in soft
+mud or snow, can tell what tribe he belongs to by his footmarks. That’s
+funny! I suppose if any old brave was knocking about and saw my tracks
+in a boggy spot, he’d think it was a Kickapoo who had passed that
+way—not Dol Farrar of Manchester, England. These are of the shape worn
+by the Kickapoo tribe—so Cy says.
+
+“I’m the kid of the camp, I know,” he went on, with another flash in
+his eyes, as if there was a bit of flint somewhere in his make-up which
+had struck their steel. “But I’ll be bound I can do as well or better
+than the others can. I’m off now to Squaw Pond. I think I can follow
+the trail easily enough. Uncle Eb showed me yesterday where he had
+spotted some of the trees all the way along to the water. And if I
+don’t shoot a couple of black ducks for dinner or supper, I’m a duffer,
+and not fit for camping.”
+
+He took down the powder-horn and slung it round him, saw that there was
+plenty of meat in the ragged coon-skin ammunition pouch which hung
+beside it, fastened that to his belt, slipped on his coat, and started
+off, with the “ole fuzzee” on his shoulder.
+
+Never a sound did he make as he crossed the clearing, passing the clump
+of bushes behind which Cyrus and Neal had lingered on the previous
+night to hear Uncle Eb’s song. Owing to his Indian footwear, silently
+as the gliding redskin himself he entered the woods at a point where he
+saw a tree with a fresh notch carved in it. He knew this marked the
+beginning of the “blazed trail,” and that he must be very wide-awake
+and show considerable “gumption” if he wanted to follow that line to
+the pond.
+
+Not every tree was spotted. Only at intervals of fifteen or twenty
+yards he came upon a trunk with two small pieces chopped out of it on
+opposite sides. These were Uncle Eb’s way-marks. One set of notches
+would catch his eye as he went towards the water, the other would lead
+him back to camp. Once or twice Dol got away from the trail, but he
+quickly found it again; and in due time emerged from the forest
+twilight into the broad glare of the sun, to see Squaw Pond lying
+before him like a miniature mother-of-pearl sea, so protected by its
+evergreen woods that scarcely a ripple stirred it.
+
+He heard the shrill, wild call of a loon, the noisy bird to which Cyrus
+had likened him, and saw its white breast rising above the water, as it
+swam about among the reeds near the opposite bank. The cry was oft
+repeated, making an unearthly din, now joyous, now dreary, among the
+echoes around the lake.
+
+Dol paused for a minute to listen; but he was bent on business, and did
+not want to be very long away from camp lest his absence should cause
+alarm. He took a careful survey of the scene. Not beholding any fleet
+of black ducks as yet, he loaded his gun, and warily proceeded along
+the bank towards the head of the pond.
+
+Keeping a sharp lookout, he by and by detected something moving among
+the water grasses a little way ahead, and heard a hoarse, squalling
+“Quack! quack!”
+
+Immediately afterwards a flock of half a dozen ducks sailed forth from
+their shelter, nodding and quacking inquisitively.
+
+A wild drumming was at Dol’s heart, and a reckless singing in his ears,
+as he raised his gun to his shoulder, and fired among them.
+Nevertheless, his aim was sure and deadly. Two quackers were killed
+with one shot! The others rose from the water, and with much fluttering
+and hoarse noise winged their way to safety.
+
+“How’ll they be for meat, I wonder? Won’t I have a crow over those
+fellows?” shouted Adolphus aloud, with a yell entirely worthy of a
+Kickapoo Indian, when he had recovered from surprise at the success of
+his own shot.
+
+He laid down the gun, pulled off his moccasins and socks, rolled up his
+trousers, and waded in for the prize. Truly luck was with him—so far—in
+his first venture in this region of the unknown. The water was so
+shallow that, having grabbed the ducks, he splashed out of it, kicking
+shiny drops from his toes, without wetting an inch of his garments.
+
+“I’m the kid of the camp, I know; but I’ll be the first fellow to bring
+any decent meat into it. Hooray!” he whooped again. “Shouldn’t wonder
+if these moccasins brought me wonderful luck; one can steal about so
+quietly in them.”
+
+He had hit upon the supreme advantage which the Indian footwear
+possesses over every other for the woodsman. A little later he was to
+learn its disadvantage, having, with foreign inexperience, disdained
+the extra soles because they were not “Indian” enough for his taste;
+for the soft buckskin could not
+protect from roots and stones a wearer whose flesh was not hardened to
+every kind of forest travelling.
+
+But at present Dol bepraised his moccasins; for they had enabled him to
+sneak upon his birds, the wildest of the duck tribe, who generally, at
+a single hoarse “Quack!” from their leader, will cease their antics in
+lake or stream, and disappear like a skimming breeze before a sportsman
+can get a fair shot at them.
+
+For a quarter of an hour Dol Farrar sat by this forest pond engaged in
+the cheerful occupation of “booming himself,” as his friend Cyrus would
+have said. He told himself that he had made a pretty smart beginning,
+not alone in shooting a brace of black ducks, but in successfully
+following a difficult trail on his fourth day in the woods. Henceforth,
+he thought, there would be little reason for him to dread the unknown
+in this great wilderness.
+
+He reclothed his legs, gathered the stiffening claws of the defunct
+quackers in his left hand, picked up his empty “ole fuzzee,” which had
+done such good service despite its age, and set forth on his return to
+camp.
+
+Retracing his steps along the bank, after some searching he found the
+beginning of the
+trail, and started along it with a know-it-all, cheerful confidence in
+the little bit of wood-lore which he had acquired. Hence he now found
+it considerably more difficult to follow the spotted trees. His brain
+was excited and preoccupied; and when once in fancied security he
+suffered his eyes and thoughts to stray for a minute from the trail,
+every unfamiliar woodland sight and sound tempted them to wander
+farther.
+
+First it was an old fox, which poked its sharp, inquisitive nose out of
+a patch of undergrowth near at hand. Dol uttered a mad “Whoop-ee!” and
+heedlessly dashed off a few steps in pursuit. Reynard whisked his brush
+as much as to say, “You can’t get the better of me, stranger!” and
+defiantly trotted away.
+
+Recovering his senses, the boy managed to recover the trail too, and
+was keeping to it carefully when a second temptation beset him. A
+chattering squirrel, seated on the low bough of a maple-tree, with his
+fore paws against his white breast, his eyes like twinkling beads, and
+his restless little head playing bo-peep with the intruding boy, began
+to scold the latter for venturing into his forest playground.
+
+Dol’s first thought was full of delighted interest. His second was a
+sanguinary one; namely, that a pair of ducks would only be one meal for
+four campers who were “camp-hungry,” and that Uncle Eb had spoken of
+squirrels as “fust-rate eatin’.” He handled his gun uncertainly,
+deliberating whether or not he would load it, and try a shot at the
+bright-eyed chatterbox.
+
+Before he had decided one way or the other, the squirrel, still
+scolding and playing bo-peep, scampered off his bough, and up the trunk
+of the maple. Thence he quickly made good his escape from one tree to
+another, affording a whisking, momentary view now and again of his
+white breast or bushy tail. Dol absolutely forgot the blazed trail,
+forgot the stories which he had heard about forest perils, forgot every
+earthly thing but his admiration for the pretty, tantalizing fellow;
+though to do the lad justice, he soon came to the conclusion that the
+camp must be in a worse strait for want of provisions before he could
+have the heart to shoot him. He gave chase nevertheless, plunging along
+in a ziz-zag way over a carpet of moss and dry pine-needles, and
+through some dense tangles of undergrowth, uttering a welcoming screech
+whenever he saw the bright eyes of the little trickster peering down at
+him from a bough.
+
+He had travelled farther than he knew before his interest in the game
+waned. He began to feel that it was rather beneath the dignity of a
+fellow who wore moccasins, carried coon-skin pouch and powder-horn, and
+who was bound for remote solitudes in search of the lordly moose, to be
+interested in such an insignificant phase of forest life as the doings
+of a red squirrel.
+
+Then he started back to find the trail. He walked a considerable
+distance. He searched hither and thither, straining his eyes anxiously
+through the bewildering gloom of the forest, but never a notched tree
+could he see. Whereupon Dol Farrar called himself some pretty hard
+names. He remarked that he had been a “hair-brained fool” and a
+“greenhorn” ever to leave the spotted track, but that he wasn’t going
+to be “downed;” he would search until he found it.
+
+And he certainly was enough of a greenhorn not to know that every step
+he now took was carrying him away from the trail, and plunging him into
+a hopeless, pathless labyrinth of woods. For Dol had lost all knowledge
+of directions, and was completely “turned round;” which means that he
+was miserably lost.
+
+The disaster came about in this way. The forest here was very dense,
+the giant trees interlocked above his head letting so little light
+filter through their foliage that he could scarcely see twenty yards
+ahead of him, and that in a puzzling, shadowy gloom resembling an
+English twilight.
+
+When he ceased chasing the squirrel, he imagined that he retraced his
+steps directly towards the point where he had quitted the trail. In
+reality, seeing nothing to aim for in this bewildering maze of endless
+trees, turned out of his way continually as he dodged in and out around
+massive trunks, he gradually worked farther and farther off the course
+by which he had come, drifting in random directions like a rudderless
+ship on mid-ocean. This helpless state is called, in the phraseology of
+the northern woods, being “turned round.”
+
+But Dol Farrar was spared for the present a thorough realization of the
+dreadful mishap which had befallen him. He had a shocked, breathless,
+flurried feeling, as if scales had suddenly fallen from his eyes, and
+he saw the dangers of the unknown as he had not before seen them. But
+even in the midst of abusing himself for his rash self-confidence, he
+uttered a cheerful “Hurrah!”
+
+“Why, good gracious!” he cried. “Here’s another trail! Now, where on
+earth does this lead to? I don’t see any spotted trees”—looking
+carefully about—“but it’s a well-beaten track, a regular plain path,
+where people have been walking. It must lead to our camp. I’ll follow
+it up, anyhow. That will be better than dodging around here until I get
+‘wheels in my head,’ as Uncle Eb says he did once when he lost his way
+in the woods, and kept wandering round and round in a circle.”
+
+Puffing with excitement and revived hope, the boy started off on this
+new trail, which he blessed at first—oh, how he blessed it!—as if it
+had been a golden clew to lead him out of his difficulty. To be sure,
+it was not a blazed trail; there were no notches in the trees, but the
+ground showed distinct signs of being frequently and recently travelled
+over. Though footprints were not traceable, moss, earth, and in some
+places the forest undergrowth of dwarfed bushes, were thoroughly
+pressed and trodden.
+
+Dol never doubted but that it was a human trail, a track continually
+used by some woodsman; but he thought that the unknown traveller,
+whoever he was, must have agile legs and a taste for athletics, for
+many times he had to hoist himself, his gun, and the ducks over some
+big windfall which lay right across the way. The dead quackers he
+pitched before him, fearing that by the time he got back to camp—if
+ever he did?—their flesh would be too bruised to look like respectable
+meat; for he was obliged to have one hand free to help him in
+scrambling over each fallen tree.
+
+Once or twice this strange trail led him through thickets where the
+bushes grew so high as to lash his face. He came to regard slippery,
+projecting roots and rough stones, which galled his feet, protected
+only by the thin soles of his moccasins, as matters of course. His wind
+decreased, and his blessings ceased. Yet he followed on, walking,
+walking, interminably walking, with now and again an interval of
+climbing or stumbling headlong, accompanied by ejaculations of
+thankfulness that his gun was not loaded.
+
+His breath came in hot, strangling gasps, the veins in his head were
+swollen and stinging like whipcords, there was a dull, pounding noise
+in his ears, and a drumming at his heart. He confessed that he was
+thoroughly “winded” when he had been following the trail for nearly two
+hours, so he seated himself upon a withered stump beside it to rest.
+
+He had relinquished the idea that the track would bring him out near
+Uncle Eb’s camp. Had it led thither, he would have rejoined his
+comrades long before this. His only hope now was that by patiently
+following it on he might reach the camp of some other traveller, or the
+lonely log cabin of a pioneer farmer. He had heard of such
+farm-settlements being scattered here and there on forest clearings.
+
+So presently Dol Farrar got to his feet again, when he had recovered
+breath and strength, and told himself pluckily that “he wasn’t going to
+knock under,” that “he had been in bad scrapes before now, and had not
+shown the white feather.” He gritted his teeth, and resolved that he
+would not show that craven pinion, even in the desperate solitude of
+these baffling woods where no eye could see his weakness. He did not
+want to have a secret, humiliating memory by and by that he had been
+faltering and distracted when his life depended on his wits and
+endurance.
+
+He squared his shoulders sturdily, as if to make the most of the
+budding manhood that was in him, and trudged ahead. And, indeed, he had
+need to take his courage in both hands, and force it to stand by him;
+for he had not gone far when, though the forest still continued dense,
+he became aware that he was beginning a steep ascent. Was the trail
+going to lead him up a mountain-side? The way grew yet more rugged.
+Every step was a misery. Jagged edges of rock and never-ending roots
+seemed to brand themselves with burning friction upon his feet, through
+their soft buckskin covering. He tried to hearten himself into a belief
+that he must soon reach some mountain camp or settlement.
+
+But a bleak horror threw a gray shade upon his face as his staring eyes
+saw that the trail was growing fainter—fainter—fainter. At the foot of
+a steep crag, where a mass of earth, stones, and dead spruce-trees
+showed that there had lately been a landslide on the mountain above, he
+lost it altogether. It had led him to a pile of rubbish.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VII. A Forest Guide-Post
+
+
+At the foot of that crag Dol stood still, while a great shiver crept
+from his neck up the back of his head, stirring his hair. He peered in
+every direction; but there was no sign of a camp, nothing to show that
+any human foot before his had disturbed the solitude of this
+mountain-side, and no further marks on the ground, save one impression
+on a bed of earth at his feet where some animal had lately lain.
+
+The disappointment was stupefying.
+
+At last a fog of terror settled down upon him,—a fog which blotted out
+every sight and sound, blotted out even his own thoughts, all except
+one, which, like a danger-signal in a mist, kept booming through his
+brain: “Lost! Lost!”
+
+By and by he was sitting on the piled-up stones and dirt of the slide;
+but he had no remembrance of getting to this resting-place, for he was
+still befogged.
+
+Something snorted close to his right ear,—loud snort, which banished
+stupor, and set his pulses jumping. It was a deer, a beautiful doe in a
+coat of reddish-drab, matching the autumnal tints of the forest,
+wherever maples, birches, and cedars mingled with the evergreens. She
+had bounded upon him suddenly from behind a dead spruce and a mound of
+earth.
+
+It was long since the game on this part of the mountain had been
+disturbed. Madam Doe had in all probability never seen a man before,
+therefore her behavior was not peculiar. A shock of surprise thrilled
+through her graceful body as she vented that snort, when she caught
+sight of the new-fangled gray animal who had intruded upon her world,
+and who sat spell-bound, gazing at her with hopeless eyes, in which
+gradually a light broke.
+
+But she did not fear him,—this creature in gray. She stood stock-still,
+and stared at him, so near that he could see her wink her
+starry eyes, with the white rings round them. She stamped one hoof,
+kicked an insect from her ear with another, snorted again, wheeled
+around, and at last broke away for the thick shelter of the trees,
+lightly and swiftly as a breeze which skims from one thicket to
+another.
+
+Seeing his mother go for the woods, her spotted fawn, which had been
+frolicking among the branches of the fallen spruce-tree, skipped from
+it, passed Dol with a bound which carried him a few feet, and
+disappeared like a whiff too.
+
+Here was a rouser, indeed, which no boy, unless he was in a far-gone
+state of suffering, could withstand. Dol Farrar forgot his terrible
+predicament. The fog had cleared away from his senses, leaving him free
+to think and act once more.
+
+“Well, I never!” he ejaculated, springing to his feet in amazement.
+“Wasn’t she a beauty? And wasn’t she a snorter? I didn’t think a deer
+could make such a row as that. And to stand still and stare at me! I
+wonder whether she took me for some new-fashioned sort of animal or a
+gray old stump.”
+
+It was a few minutes before he again thought of his plight, and then he
+was not
+overcome. He stood perfectly still, trying to review the position
+coolly, and to get a tight grip of his feelings, so that terror might
+not again master him.
+
+“I’m in a worse scrape than I ever dreamt of,” he muttered, puckering
+his forehead to do some tall thinking. “And I must do something to get
+out of it. But what? That’s the question.
+
+“I wonder if I loaded this ‘ole fuzzee,’”—the lad was making a valiant
+effort to cheer himself by being jocular,—“and blazed away with it for
+a while like mad, whether there is any human being around who would
+hear me. Some fellow might be hunting or trapping in this part of the
+forest, or farther up the mountain. But what a blockhead I am! Why on
+earth didn’t I do that before I started on this wretched trail?”
+
+But alas! as this was Dol Farrar’s first adventure in American woods,
+it had not occurred to him to do the right thing at the right time. Had
+he fired a round of signal shots when first he lost the line of spotted
+trees, he would probably have been heard at his camp, and would have
+been spared the worst scare he ever had in his life. The negligence was
+scarcely his fault, however; for Cyrus Garst, who had never before
+undertaken the responsibility of entertaining a pair of inexperienced
+boys in woodland quarters, had not, at this early stage of the trip,
+arranged with his comrades to fire a certain number of shots to signify
+“Help wanted!” if one of them should stray, or otherwise get into
+trouble. The idea now cropped up in Dol’s perplexed mind, through a
+confused recollection of tales about forest misadventures which Uncle
+Eb had told him by the cheery camp-fire.
+
+So he loaded the old shot-gun. It belched forth fire and smoke into
+space. And the thunder of his shot went rolling off in a reverberating
+din among the mountain echoes, until a hundred tongues repeated his
+appeal for help. Again he loaded rapidly and fired. And yet again, with
+nervous, eager fingers. So on, till he had let off half a dozen shots
+in quick succession.
+
+Then he waited, listening as if every pulse in his body had suddenly
+become an ear.
+
+But when the last growling echo had died away, not a sound broke the
+almost absolute silence on the mountain-side. Evidently not a human
+soul was near enough to hear or understand his signals of distress.
+
+In these bitter minutes some sensations ran through Dol Farrar which he
+had never known before; and, as he afterwards expressed it, “they were
+enough to cover any fellow with goose-flesh.”
+
+He felt that he had reached the dreariest point of the unknown, and was
+a lonely, drifting atom in this immense solitude of forest and rock.
+
+Never in his life before or afterwards did he come so near to Point
+Despair as when he stumbled down the mountain, spurning that
+treacherous trail, and going wherever his jaded feet found travelling
+tolerably easy. He had picked up the shot-gun; but the black ducks, the
+primary cause of his misadventure, he clean forgot, leaving them lying
+amid the chaos at the foot of the crag, to have their bones picked by
+some lucky raccoon or fox.
+
+Wandering along in a zigzag way, he by and by reached the base of the
+mountain at a point where there was a break in the forest. A patch of
+dreary-looking swamp was before him, covered with clumps of
+alder-bushes—a true Slough of Despond.
+
+Dol Farrar knew none of the miseries of plunging through an
+alder-swamp, but he luckily recalled in time a warning from Cyrus that
+a slight wetting would render his moccasins useless. While he halted
+undecidedly on its brink, he pulled out his watch; one glance at this,
+and another at the sky, which now lay open like a scroll above him,
+gave him a sickening shock. He had started from camp at noon; now it
+was after five o’clock. Little more than another hour, and not
+twilight, but the blackness of a total eclipse, would reign in the
+forest.
+
+The blood rushed to his head, and his mouth grew feverish at the
+thought. As he licked his cracking lips, he caught a faint, tinkling,
+rumbling sound of falling water somewhere to the right. Of a sudden his
+sufferings of mind and body were merged into one burning desire to
+drink, and he turned eagerly in that direction.
+
+At the edge of the woods he found a little fairy, foamy waterfall,
+which had tumbled down from the mountain to be lost in the dismal
+swamp. But Dol felt that it had accomplished its mission when he
+unfastened the tin drinking-mug which hung from his belt, and
+drank—drank—drank! He straightened himself again, feeling that some of
+the bubbling life of the mountain torrent had passed into him. His eyes
+lit on a towering pine-tree just beyond it. And then—
+
+Well! if that sky-piercing pine had suddenly changed at a jump into a
+gray post, bearing the inscription, “One mile to Boston,” Dol Farrar
+could not have been more astonished and relieved than when he saw for
+the first time a rude forest guide-post.
+
+To the dark, knotted trunk was fastened a piece of light, delicate
+bark, stripped from a white-birch tree. On this was scrawled in big
+letters, by some instrument evidently not intended for penmanship:—
+
+“FOLLOW THE BLAZED TRAIL AND YOU ARE SAFE.”
+
+
+“Another blazed trail! Hurrah!” shouted Dol. “Won’t I follow it? I
+never will follow any other again if I live to be a hundred, and come
+to these woods every year till I die!”
+
+The height of his relief could only be measured by the depth of his
+past misery, which would truly have been enough to set a weaker boy
+crazy. With watering eyes and panting breaths that came near to being
+sobs of gladness, he started upon the new trail. It led him off into
+the forest surrounding the swamp.
+
+The pine that had been chosen for guide-post was the first in the line
+of spotted trees. The others followed it closely, with intervals of
+eight or ten yards between them; and as the notches in their trunks
+were freshly cut, Dol followed the track without any difficulty for
+twenty minutes. He had a suspicion that he was nearing the end of it;
+though he was still in forest gloom, with light coming in meagre,
+ever-lessening streaks through the pine-tufts above. Then he started
+more violently than when the deer snorted near his ear.
+
+Suddenly and shrilly the blast of a horn rang through the darkening
+woodland aisles, followed, after a pause of a minute or two, by a
+second and louder blast.
+
+Then a well-pitched, far-reaching voice sang out:—“Come to supper,
+boys! Come to supper!”
+
+“Good gracious!” said Dol, conscious on the instant that he was as
+hollow as a drum. “There are enough surprises in these forests to raise
+the hair on a fellow’s head half a dozen times a day!”
+
+A matter of forty yards more, and a burst of light swam before his
+eyes. He had reached the end of the blazed trail.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII. Another Camp
+
+
+“Hello! Come to supper, boys! Come to supper right away!”
+
+Half eagerly, half shrinkingly, Dol emerged from the woods, feeling a
+very torment of hunger quickened in him by the tantalizing sound of
+that oft-repeated invitation.
+
+A sight met him which, because of what went before and all that came
+after, will be forever chief among the forest pictures which rise in
+exciting panorama before his memory, when camping is a thing of the
+past.
+
+A broad dash of evening light, the sun’s afterglow, fell upon a patch
+of clearing bordered by clumps of slim, outstanding pines, the scouts
+of their massive brethren. That this was used as a camping-ground the
+first glance revealed. A camp which looked to the tired eyes of the
+lost boy a real “home-camp,” though it consisted of rude log cabins,
+occupied it. A couple of birch-bark canoes reposed amid a network of
+projecting roots. Withered stumps and tree-tops littered the ground.
+
+In the foreground of the picture stood a man with a horn in his
+uplifted hand, which he had just taken from his mouth. He was minus a
+coat; and the rough-and-tumble disarray of his attire showed that he
+had been lounging by his camp-fire, or perhaps overseeing the
+preparation of supper. Dol had a vague impression that the individual
+was not a forest-guide like Uncle Eb, nor a rough lumberman such as he
+had heard of. He would have taken him for a pioneer farmer,—not having
+yet encountered such a character,—but there could be no farm on this
+little bit of clearing. And he was too dazed to see that there were
+signs of a cultivated intelligence in the tanned, beaming face under
+the horn-blower’s broad-brimmed hat. Indeed, the hat itself, its
+wearer, log huts, canoes, and trees seemed to have a strange propensity
+to waltz before the lad’s eyes, and there was a queer waving sensation
+in his own legs, as if they, too, would join in the spinning movement.
+For as he advanced into the light out of the sombre shadows, a
+dizziness from long tramping in the woods, and from a hunger such as he
+had never before experienced, overcame him. He reeled against an
+outstanding tree, troubled by an affliction which Uncle Eb had called
+“wheels in his head.”
+
+“Ho! you boys. Where in thunder are you? Come to supper, or the venison
+will be spoiled!” shouted the possessor of the horn again, shutting one
+eye into which a crimson ray was pouring, while he swept the skirts of
+the woods with the other; and there was music as well as bluster in his
+shout.
+
+Lo! the first to answer this fetching invitation was the foot-sore,
+leg-weary boy, pale from exhaustion, with his strange equipment of
+powder-horn, coon-skin pouch, and ancient shot-gun, who, getting partly
+the better of his giddiness, crossed the clearing slowly, as if he was
+groping his way. Within a few feet of the horn-blower he halted; for
+the man had lowered his horn, and was gazing at him with keen,
+questioning eyes. Dol tried to find suitable speech to express his
+need; but though words came with considerable effort, his voice sounded
+hoarse and creaky in his own ears, and threatened to crack off
+altogether.
+
+He was doing his best to brace up and speak plainly, when his sentence
+was stopped by a noise of pounding footsteps. The next moment he saw
+himself surrounded by three well-grown, daring-looking lads, one about
+his own age, one older, one younger, who were gazing at him with
+critical curiosity. All the pluck in Dol Farrar rose to meet this
+emergency. He felt as if his legs were threatening to smash under him
+like pipe-stems. There was a whirling and buzzing in his head. It
+seemed as if his words had such a long way to travel from his brain to
+his tongue that they got confused and changed before he uttered them.
+
+But through it all he was conscious of one clear thought: that he was
+an Old-World boy on parade before these strapping New-World lads. He
+set his teeth, drove his gun hard against the ground, and, as it were,
+anchored himself to it, while strange, doubting lights came into his
+eyes as he tried to get a grip of his senses.
+
+
+Illustration: Dol Sights A Friendly Camp.
+
+
+He succeeded. At last he addressed the gentleman with the horn, knowing
+that he was speaking to the point,—
+
+“Good-evening, sir,” he said. “I—I—we’re camping out somewhere in the
+woods. I—I got lost to-day. I’ve walked an awful distance. Perhaps you
+could tell me”—
+
+But the man stepped suddenly forward, with a blaze of welcome in his
+eyes; for he saw the brave effort which the lad was making, and that
+his strength was giving out. He put a kindly arm through Dol’s, as if
+to warmly greet a fellow-camper, but really to support him.
+
+“I’ll not tell you about anything until you’ve had a good, square
+meal,” he said. “That’s our way in woodland quarters,—to eat first, and
+talk afterwards. If you’re lost, you’ve struck a friend’s camp, and at
+the right time too, son; so cheer up! After supper you can tell us your
+yarn, and I guess we can set you right.”
+
+Here at last was a surprise of unmixed blessedness for poor Dol;
+namely, the brotherly hospitality which is always extended to a
+stranger in a Maine camp, whether that be the temporary home of a
+millionnaire or the shanty of a poor logger.
+
+His new friend led him into the largest of the cabins, which contained
+a fireplace built of huge stones, where red flames frisked around
+fragrant birch logs, a camp-bed of evergreen boughs about ten feet
+wide, a rude table, a bench, and a few stools of pine-wood.
+
+Over the camp-fire was stooping a bright-eyed, muscular fellow, whose
+dress somewhat resembled Uncle Eb’s, but who had no negro blood in his
+veins. He was frying meat; and such tempting whiffs mingled with the
+steam which floated up from his pan, that Dol’s nostrils twitched, and
+his hungry longing grew almost unbearable as he inhaled them.
+
+“I guess this chunk of ven’zon is about cooked, Doc,” said this
+personage, as Dol’s kindly host entered the hut, with him in tow,
+followed closely by the boys of his own camp.
+
+“All right, then! Let’s have it!” was the reply. “I’m pretty glad our
+camp-fare is decent to-night, Joe, for we’ve a visitor here; a hungry
+bird who has strayed from his own camp, and has wandered through the
+forest until he looks like a death’s head. But we’ll soon fix him up;
+won’t we, Joe? Give him a mug of hot tea right away. Hot tea is worth a
+dozen of any other drink in the woods for a pick-me-up.”
+
+A spark of fun kindled in Dol’s eyes when he heard himself described as
+“a hungry bird.” It brightened into an appreciative beam as the
+reviving tea trickled down his throat.
+
+“Eatin’s wot he wants, I guess,” said Joe, the camp guide and cook,
+placing some meat and a slab of bread of his own baking on a tin plate
+for the guest.
+
+Dol began on them greedily; and though the first mouthful or two
+threatened to sicken him, his squeamishness wore off, and he gained
+strength with every morsel.
+
+“How do you like Maine venison, my boy? Like it well enough to have
+another piece, eh?” asked his host, when he saw that the haggard, gray
+look was leaving the wanderer’s face, and that the appalled, dazed
+expression, the result of being lost in the woods, had disappeared from
+his eyes.
+
+“I think it’s the best meat I ever tasted,” answered Dol heartily.
+“It’s so tender, and has a splendid taste.”
+
+“Ha! ha! It ought to be prime,” chuckled the owner of the camp. “It was
+cut from the quarters of a buck which my nephew here, Royal Sinclair,”
+pointing out the tallest of three lads, “shot four days ago. He was a
+regular crackerjack—that buck! I mean, he was as fine a deer as ever I
+saw; weighed over two hundred pounds, had seven prongs to his horns on
+one side and six on the other. Royal is going to take the antlers home
+with him to Philadelphia. We were mighty glad to get him, too; for we
+have been camping here for five weeks, and were running short of
+provisions. Roy had quite an attack of buck-fever over it, though he
+didn’t think he was killing the ‘fatted calf’, to entertain a visitor;
+did you, Roy?”
+
+“I guess not, Uncle! But I’m pretty glad, all the same,” answered
+Royal, with a smiling glance at Dol.
+
+Young Farrar found himself in very pleasant quarters; and, now that he
+was recovering, his laugh rang from one log wall to the other.
+
+“What’s ‘buck-fever’?” he questioned, while Joe filled his plate with
+more venison.
+
+“A sort of disease of which you’ll learn the meaning before you leave
+these woods,” answered his host merrily. “It attacks a man when he’s
+out after a deer, and makes him feel as if one leg stands firm under
+him, while the other shakes as if it had the palsy.
+
+“Now I guess you’d like to know whose
+camp you’re in, my boy, and then you can tell your story. Well, to
+begin with the most useful member of the party. That knowing-looking
+fellow over there, who cooked your supper, is Joe Flint, the best guide
+that ever pulled a trigger or handled a frying-pan in this
+region—barring one. These three rascals,” here the speaker beamed upon
+the strapping lads, with whom Dol had been exchanging sympathetic
+glances of curiosity, “are my nephews, Royal, Will, and Martin
+Sinclair. And I—I—
+
+“Good gracious! Listen to that, Joe! What’s up now? Another fellow lost
+in the woods? Somebody is firing a round with his rifle! Perhaps he
+wants help. Those are signal shots, anyhow!”
+
+The camper whose horn had been Dol’s signal of deliverance, broke off
+abruptly in his introductions, just as he had arrived at the most
+interesting point, and was proclaiming his own identity. He rattled off
+his short exclamations in excitement, and dashed out of the cabin,
+followed by Joe, his nephews, and Dol, the latter limping painfully,
+for his feet now felt like hot-water bags.
+
+“That Winchester has spoken eight or ten times,” said the leader,
+counting the shots fired by somebody away in the dark recesses of the
+forest from a powerful repeating-rifle. “Let’s give the fellow, whoever
+he is, an answer, Joe!”
+
+He seized his own rifle hastily, loaded the magazine with blank
+cartridges, and fired a noisy salute.
+
+In the pause which followed, while all strained their ears to listen,
+the sound of a shrill, distant “Coo-hoo!” the woodsman’s hail, reached
+them from the forest.
+
+Joe instantly responded with a vehement “Coo-hoo! Coo-hoo-oo!” the
+first call being short and brisk, the second prolonged into a roar
+which showed the strength of the guide’s lungs,—a roar that might carry
+for miles.
+
+Shortly afterwards there was a crashing and tearing amid some
+undergrowth near the edge of the forest. A man bounded forth from the
+pitch-black shadows into the clearing, where a little daylight still
+lingered. As he approached the group, Dol, who was in the background,
+gave a startled, yearning cry; but it was drowned in a loud burst from
+his host.
+
+“Why, Cyrus Garst!” exclaimed the latter, peering into the new-comer’s
+face. “How goes it, man? I never expected to see you
+here. Surely you haven’t come to grief in the woods? You look scared to
+death!”
+
+Cyrus—for it was he—grasped the welcoming hand which the owner of this
+camp extended to him. But his dark eyes did not linger a moment meeting
+the other’s. They turned hither and thither, flashing in all directions
+restlessly, like search-lights.
+
+“I’m glad to see you, Doc,” he said. “I didn’t know you were anywhere
+near. But I’m half distracted just now. A youngster belonging to our
+camp is missing. I’ve been scouring the forest for hours, and firing
+signals, hoping he might hear them. But”—
+
+Here Cyrus caught sight of Dol, who with a cry which in its changing
+inflections was longing, penitent, joyful, was making towards him. The
+Harvard student strode forward, and gripped the boy by his elbows. In
+the dusk their eyes were near together; Garst’s were stern, Dol’s
+blinking and unsteady.
+
+“Adolphus Farrar,” began Cyrus in a voice as if he was making an
+arrest, “have you been here in this camp, or where have you been, while
+your brother and I were searching the woods like maniacs? What
+unheard-of folly possessed you to go off by yourself?”
+
+Dol made a gurgling attempt to answer, but his voice rattled and died
+away in his throat. His eyes grew decidedly leaky.
+
+“Say, Cyrus!” interrupted the man who had befriended him and now proved
+his champion, “let the youngster get breath and tell his story from
+start to finish before you blow him up. I guess he wasn’t much to
+blame; and if he was, he has suffered for it. He found his way here not
+quite half an hour ago, so played out from wandering through the forest
+that he was ready to drop in his tracks. And I tell you he showed his
+grit too; for he managed to brace up and keep on his feet, though he
+was as exhausted a kid as ever I saw.”
+
+The “kid,” forgiving this objectionable term because of the soothing
+allusion to a trying time when he had behaved like a man, winked and
+gulped to get rid of his emotion, and twisted his elbows out of Cyrus’s
+hold. The latter lost his angry look, and released them.
+
+“I must fire three shots to let Neal and Uncle Eb know I’ve found you,”
+he said. “We parted company a while ago, and they’re beating about the
+woods in another direction. Whoever first came upon any trace of you
+was to fire his rifle three times.”
+
+The signal was instantly given.
+
+More far-reaching “Coo-hoos!” were exchanged. Ere long Neal was beside
+his brother, looking at him with eyes which showed the same tendency to
+leak that Dol’s had done a while ago, and battling with a desire to
+squeeze the wanderer in a breathless hug. He relieved his feelings
+instead by “blowing up” Dol with withering fire and a rough choke in
+his voice.
+
+But when, in response to an invitation from the genial camper whom
+Cyrus and Joe called “Doc,” the whole party, guides included, had
+gathered around the camp-fire in the big log hut, and Dol told his
+story from start to finish, he became the hero of the evening.
+
+His only fault had been a rash venturing into the unknown; and well it
+was that he had not followed the unknown to his death.
+
+“Why, boy!” exclaimed Cyrus, with a strong shudder, when Dol had
+described the false trail which led him to the foot of the crag, “that
+wasn’t a human trail at all. It was a deer-road. The deer spend their
+day up in the mountains, and come down to the ponds at evening to feed
+and drink. Now, a buck or doe in its regular journeys to and fro will
+follow one line, to which it becomes accustomed. Perhaps fifty others,
+seeing the ground trodden, will run in the same track. And there you
+have your well-used path, which looks as if it was made by men’s feet!
+
+“You may thank your lucky star, Dol, every hour of this night, that the
+false trail didn’t lead you away—away—higher—higher—up the mountain,
+until you dropped in your tracks, and died there alone, as others have
+done before.”
+
+A shocked hush fell upon the group around the camp-fire. Even the
+guides were silent. But the fragrant birchen logs sputtered and glowed,
+darting out playful tongues of flame. They seemed to call upon
+everybody to dismiss gloomy thoughts of what might have been; to crack
+jokes, sing songs, tell yarns, and be as merry as befitted men who had
+a log hut for a shelter, fresh whiffs of forest air stealing to them
+through an open doorway, and such a camp-fire.
+
+Joe began to prepare supper for the three who had searched so long and
+distractedly for Dol that they confessed to not having eaten for hours.
+While more venison was being cooked, the juveniles, American and
+English, who had been secretly taking stock of each other, cast aside
+restraint, and became as “chummy” as if they had been acquainted for
+years instead of hours.
+
+Such a carnival of fun and noise was started through their combined
+efforts in the old log camp, that its owner declared he “couldn’t hear
+himself think.” Seizing his horn, he blew a blast which called for
+order.
+
+“Say, my boy, let me have a look at your feet,” he said, cornering Dol.
+“A deer-road isn’t a king’s highway, as I dare say you’ve found out to
+your cost. Pull off your moccasins and socks, and let me doctor your
+poor trotters.”
+
+Young Farrar very gladly did as he was bidden.
+
+“Humph!” said his friend. “I thought so. They’re a mass of bruises and
+blisters. You’ve been pretty well branded, son. Moccasins aren’t much
+use to protect the feet from roots and sharp stones, if you happen to
+strike a bad place in forest travelling, unless you have taken the
+precaution to put double soles in them; didn’t you know that? Now,
+Cyrus Garst,” turning to the student, “you’re all going to camp with us
+to-night. This lad can’t tramp any more. As a doctor I forbid it.”
+
+“Are you a doctor, sir?” questioned Dol, with a thrill of surprise,
+which he managed to conceal.
+
+“Something of the kind, boy,” answered his host, smiling. “I don’t look
+much like a city physician, do I? I graduated from a medical college in
+Philadelphia, and took my degree. But I had an enthusiasm for the
+woods. One hour of forest life in dear old Maine was to me worth a year
+spent amid streets, alleys, and sky-scraping buildings; so I fixed my
+headquarters at Greenville, and have spent most of my time in the
+wilderness.”
+
+“Where every trapper, guide, and lumberman knows Dr. Phil Buck, whom
+they disrespectfully and affectionately call ‘Doc,’” put in Cyrus. “And
+many a poor fellow owes his life or limbs to Doc’s knowledge and
+nursing in some hard time of sickness, or after one of the dreadful
+accidents common in the forests.”
+
+Dol could well understand this; for he now was benefiting by Dr. Phil’s
+lively desire to relieve suffering, and was silently breathing
+blessings on his head. The doctor had bathed his puffy feet in warm
+water taken from Joe’s camp-kettle, and was anointing them with a
+healing salve, after which he tucked them into a loose pair of slippers
+of his own. Meanwhile, he chatted pleasantly.
+
+“This isn’t the first time that your friend Cyrus and I have run
+against each other in the wilds,” he said, “nor the first time that
+we’ve camped together, either. Bless you! we could make you jump with
+some of our stories. Do you remember that night in ’89, Cy, when you,
+with your guide, came upon me lying under a rough shelter of bark and
+spruce boughs, which I had rigged up for myself near Roaring Brook, on
+the side of Mount Katahdin?”
+
+“I guess I do remember it,” answered Cyrus, laughing.
+
+“A mighty hungry man I was, too, that evening,” went on Doc; “for I had
+no food left but one little package of soup-powder and a few beans. I
+had been trying all day to get a successful shot at a moose or deer,
+and muffed it every time. It wasn’t the lucky side of the moon for me.
+Well, you behaved like the Good Samaritan to me, then, Cy; shared your
+meat and all your stuff, and we slept like twin brothers under my
+shelter.”
+
+“Yes; and a bear visited our temporary camp in the night!” exclaimed
+Cyrus, bursting into uproarious mirth over some over-poweringly funny
+recollection; “he made off with my knapsack, which I had left lying by
+the camp-fire. I suppose old Bruin thought he’d find something good in
+it to eat; but he didn’t. So he tore my one extra shirt and every
+article in the pack to shreds, and chewed up the handle of my razor, so
+that I couldn’t shave again until I got back to civilization, when I
+was as bristly as a porcupine.”
+
+“Perhaps Bruin tried to shave himself,” suggested Dol.
+
+“At all events, he had wisdom enough not to cut his throat,” answered
+the story-teller. “We three—Doc, my guide, and myself—were stupidly
+tired, and slept so soundly that we did not discover the theft nor who
+the marauder was until the following morning. Then we found my knapsack
+gone, and the tracks of a huge bear in some soft earth near our
+shelter. We traced his footprints through a bog until we found the
+spot, not far off, where, overcome by greed or curiosity, he ripped up
+that strong leather knapsack as if it was _papier maché_ and made hay
+of its contents.”
+
+The boys had all crowded near to listen. It was now the social hour for
+campers. By the camp-fire more reminiscences followed; and the two
+guides chimed in it with moose stories, bear stories, panther stories,
+wild tales of every imaginable and unimaginable kind of adventure,
+until the lads thought no mythology which they had ever learned could
+rival in marvels the forest lore.
+
+At this opportune time, Neal suddenly thought of describing, or
+attempting to describe, that strangest of strange calls which he had
+heard, after the capsizing of the canoe, on the preceding night, when
+Cyrus and he were jacking for deer on Squaw Pond.
+
+Joe grunted expressively. “So help me! it was the moose call!” he
+ejaculated. “What say, Doc?”
+
+“I guess it was,” answered Dr. Phil. “It was either the cow-moose
+herself calling, or some hunter imitating her with his birch-bark
+trumpet. It’s a weird sort of experience, to hear that call for the
+first time; I shouldn’t wonder if your heart went whack-whack, lad?”
+
+“I only hope he’ll get a chance to hear it again before he goes back to
+England,” said Cyrus.
+
+Forthwith, the Harvard man proceeded to explain that he was bent on
+pressing forward for a distance of sixty miles or so, to the heart of
+the wilderness, to search for moose, but that he intended to do the
+journey in a leisurely, zigzag fashion, camping for a couple of nights
+at various points, in order to do the honors of the forest to his
+English comrades.
+
+“So you’re English, are you! Ha! Ha! Ho! Ho!” exclaimed the doctor,
+looking at the young Farrars. “Well, I suppose we’ll have to put our
+best foot foremost to give you a good time in American woods.”
+
+“I think that’s what we’re having, sir—such a jolly good time that
+we’ll never forget it,” answered Neal courteously.
+
+“Yes, it’s jolly enough now; but I tell you I didn’t find it so
+to-day,” grumbled Dol, while his eyes gleamed like polished steel with
+the light of present fun. “But as long as I live I’ll remember the
+sound of your horn, Doctor, when I was dead-beat.”
+
+“Is that so? Well, I guess I’ll have to make you a present of that
+horn, boy, when we part company, and you go back to civilization, and
+of the piece of birch-bark, too, which led you to our camp. ’Twas Joe
+who fixed that to the pine near the swamp; for my lads had a habit of
+following the trail to the alders, looking for moose or deer signs. He
+scrawled his sentence on it with the end of a cartridge. I guess it
+would be a sort of curiosity in England.”
+
+Dol whooped his delight.
+
+“I’ll put it under a glass shade! I’ll”—
+
+While he was casting about in his mind for some way of immortalizing
+that bit of white bark, Doc’s genial bluster was heard again,—
+
+“Come! come! you fellows! No more skylarking in this camp to-night!
+It’s high time for all campers to be snoring. Turn in! Turn in!”
+
+But nobody was in a hurry to obey the summons to bed. While hands and
+feet were being stretched out to the sizzling birch logs for a final
+toast, Royal Sinclair, who had a trick of speaking very quickly, with a
+slight click in his utterance, as if his tongue struck his teeth, began
+to pour some communications into Neal’s ear in rapid dashes of talk,—
+
+“This is just about the jolliest night we ever had in the forest, and
+we’ve had a staving time all through. We live in Philadelphia, and
+Uncle Phil—we call him ‘Doc’ like everybody else—brought us out here
+for our summer vacation. This old log camp was built several years ago
+by a hunting-party, of whom he was one. The walls were getting mouldy;
+but he cleaned up the largest of the huts, with Joe’s help, and made it
+our headquarters. He never needs a guide himself; not a bit of it! He
+can find his way anywhere through the woods with his compass. But he is
+a good deal away, so he engaged Joe to go out with us.
+
+“He often starts off at a moment’s notice, and travels dozens of miles
+on foot, or in a birch canoe, if he hears of a bad accident far away in
+the forest. Sometimes a lumberman or trapper cuts his foot in two, or
+nearly chops off his leg with his axe; and these poor fellows would
+probably die while their comrades were lugging them through the woods
+on a litter, trying to reach a settlement, if it weren’t for our Doc.
+
+“Once in a while, when he comes to visit us in Philadelphia, a few
+people call him a crank, because he lives out here and dresses like a
+settler; but I call him a regular brick.”
+
+“So do I,” said Neal with spirit.
+
+“You’re awfully lucky to be able to camp out during October,” rattled
+on Roy. “That’s the month for moose-hunting, jacking, and all the most
+exciting sort of fun. We have
+to go home in a day or two, for our school has reopened, unless”—
+
+“When Royal Sinclair gets a streak of talking, you might as well try to
+bottle up the Mississippi as to stop him,” said Dr. Phil, laughing. “I
+can’t hear what he’s saying, but I know that his tongue is clicking
+like a telegraph instrument. But I hope it has given its last message
+for to-night. You really must turn in, boys. I let you have an extra
+social hour, because to-morrow will be Sunday, a day of rest after the
+travels and excitements of the week. Think of it, lads! A Sunday in the
+woods—God’s first cathedral! May it do us all good!”
+
+The guide, Joe, built up the fire. Fresh birch logs blistered and
+sputtered as creeping curls of bluish flame enwrapped them. Kindling
+rapidly, they threw out fantastic lights, which danced like a regiment
+of red elves around the old log walls of the cabin.
+
+“If a fellow could only drop off to sleep every night in the year
+seeing and smelling such a fire as that!” breathed Neal, as, accepting
+a share of Royal’s blankets, he stretched his tired limbs on the
+evergreen mattress.
+
+“Then life would be too jolly for anything,” answered Roy.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IX. A Sunday Among the Pines
+
+
+“Men and boys learn a good many wholesome lessons in the forest, one of
+which is that it pays better to take a day of rest in seven if they
+want to make the most of themselves and their opportunities. Therefore,
+lads, we’ll do no tramping to-day. And we’ll have a bit of a service by
+and by over there under the pines.”
+
+So spoke Doctor Phil on the following morning, when the two sets of
+campers, now one joyous, brotherly crowd, were sitting or lounging
+about the pine-wood table, leisurely emptying tin mugs of tea or
+coffee, and eating porridge and rolls of Joe’s baking.
+
+“You haven’t told us yet, Cyrus,” he went on, “what point you’re bound
+for. I know you’re level-headed, and plan every forest trip beforehand,
+to economize time.”
+
+“Yes, a fellow likes to do that; it adds to the pleasures of
+anticipation,” Garst answered. “But it’s precious little use, after
+all, when you’re visiting a region which is as full of surprises as an
+egg is full of meat. However, I have arranged to meet Herb Heal, the
+guide whom I generally employ, at a hunting-camp near Millinokett
+Lake.”
+
+“A good moose country,” put in Doc.
+
+“I know it. At all events, it is a good place for a home-camp; one can
+make excursions into the dense forests at the foot of Katahdin, which
+are unrivalled for big game—so Herb says, and he’s an authority. These
+English fellows may expect to have an attack of buck-fever, or
+_moose-fever_ rather, which will set their blood on fire. Not that
+we’re out chiefly for killing; we’re willing to let his mooseship keep
+a whole skin, and go in peace to replenish the forests, unless he grows
+cantankerous and charges us.”
+
+“If he happens to be an old bull, and gits his mad up, he may do that;
+it’s as likely as not,” chimed in Joe Flint, who was listening.
+
+“Well, it there’s a man in Maine who can be warranted to start a moose,
+and to follow up his trail until he gets a sight of him, living or
+dead, that man is Herb Heal,” said the doctor. “And his adventures go
+ahead of those of any woodsman up to date. You must get him to tell you
+how he swam across a pond at the tail of a bull-moose, holding with his
+fingers and teeth to the creature’s long hair, then got astraddle of
+its back, and severed its jugular vein with his hunting-knife. How’s
+that! It was the liveliest swim I ever heard of. But I mustn’t spoil
+his yarns. He must tell them himself.
+
+“A fine son of the woods is Herb Heal!” went on the speaker, with
+enthusiasm. “I ran across him first five years ago, when he was
+trapping for fur-bearing animals in the dense forests you mentioned
+near the foot of Mount Katahdin. He had a partner with him then, a
+half-breed Indian, whom woodsmen called ‘Cross-eyed Chris,’ a willing,
+plucky, honest fellow when he was sober. But he loved fire-water. Let
+him once taste spirits, or smell them, and he went clean crazy. He did
+a dog’s trick to Herb,—stole all his furs and savings, with a splendid
+pair of moose antlers, while he was away from camp one day, and skipped
+out of the State. Herb swore he’d shoot him. But I don’t think he has
+ever come across him since. And if he should, he wouldn’t stick to his
+threat. He’s not built that way.”
+
+There was a general hum of interest over this story, which even Cyrus
+had not heard before.
+
+“Now, how are you going to reach your camp on Millinokett Lake?” asked
+Dr. Phil, when the buzz had subsided. “That’s the next question.”
+
+“We intend to tramp the entire distance by easy stages, and get there
+about the middle of October,” answered young Garst for himself and his
+comrades. “Uncle Eb will go along with us as guide; and he’ll supply a
+tent, so that we can rest for two or three nights at a time if we
+choose.”
+
+“Hum!” said the doctor doubtfully, laying his hand on Dol’s shoulder.
+“This youngster oughtn’t to do much tramping for a few days, Cyrus.
+That deer-road did up his feet pretty badly. I’ll be travelling in your
+direction myself the day after to-morrow. I want to visit a
+farm-settlement within a dozen miles of the lake, where the farmer has
+a sickly child, the only treasure in his log shanty. The mite frets if
+Doc doesn’t come to see her once in a while.
+
+“Therefore, I propose that we join forces, and press forward together.
+I guess I’ll keep my nephews out here for a week longer, and take the
+responsibility of their missing that time at school. Now that they have
+fallen in with your friends, it would be a shame to separate Young
+England and Young America without giving them a chance to get
+friendly.”
+
+Here Dr. Phil beamed upon the five boys, who, after one night in the
+forest, sleeping in a light-hearted row on the evergreen boughs, with
+their feet to the fire, had reached a brotherly intimacy which years of
+city life might not have bred.
+
+“I further propose,” he went on, “that we hire a roomy wagon and a pair
+of strong horses from a settler who has a clearing about two miles from
+here. There is an old logging-road which runs through the woods towards
+the point for which we’re heading. We could follow that for the first
+half of our journey. It isn’t a turnpike, you know. In fact, it’s only
+a broad track where the underbrush has been cleared away, and the trees
+cut down, with strips of corduroy road sandwiched in. But the lumbermen
+still haul supplies over it to their camps, and I propose that we
+follow their example. We can pile our tent, camp duffle [stores], and
+all our packs into the wagon, together with the hero of the
+deer-road,”—winking at Dol,—“and the rest of us can take turns in
+riding. It will be a big lark for these youngsters to travel over a
+corduroy road. A very bracing ride they’ll have in more senses than
+one; but they can spin plenty of yarns about it when they get home.”
+
+The “youngsters,” one and all, signified their approval of the
+suggestion. Cyrus, who, as a college man, was above this category, was
+pleased to acquiesce too.
+
+“When can we get the wagon, Doctor?” asked Neal, burning to press
+onward.
+
+“Oh! the day after to-morrow, I guess. And now, lads!” Dr. Phil’s voice
+was serious, but exultant, “we’re a thoroughly happy set of fellows, in
+accord with each other and our surroundings. We feel our brains clear,
+our gladness springing up, and our lungs swelling to double their size
+with the whiffs which reach us from those sky-piercing pines yonder. So
+we will remember that ‘the wide earth is our Father’s temple.’ Over
+there in the woods we will worship him, while millions of forest
+creatures about us, flying, bounding, or building, in obedience to his
+laws, simply worship too.”
+
+A music soft, deep, sighing, like the murmur of an organ under the
+fingers of a master musician, rolled through the pine-tops as the band
+of campers, guides included, followed Doc into the forest. They passed
+the clumps of slender trees near the camp, and reached a dimly-lit
+green aisle.
+
+Towering pines, so tall and erect that they seemed shooting upward to
+kiss the clouds, were the pillars of their cathedral. Its roof of
+tasselled boughs was stabbed by flashing needles of sunlight, which let
+in a flickering, mellow radiance, and traced a pattern on the woodland
+carpet. Every whiff of forest air was natural incense.
+
+Dr. Phil stood as if in the audience-chamber of the King, and removed
+his wide-brimmed hat.
+
+“Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be
+honor and glory, for ever and ever. Amen!” he said.
+
+Then Cyrus’s voice led the worship.
+
+“Praise God, from whom all blessings flow!”
+
+
+he sang, in a strong, glad outburst.
+
+Boys and guides, in a great chorus, swelled the familiar words. Each
+sweetly chirping woodland bird, after its own manner, echoed them. The
+music among the pine-tops mingled with them. The forest fairly rang
+with a magnificent, adoring Doxology.
+
+“We ought to be decent kind of fellows after this,” said Cyrus, when
+the little service was over.
+
+And the doctor answered,—
+
+“I tell you, boy, the church was never built where a man feels so ready
+to worship the God-Father in spirit and in truth as he does in the wild
+woods.”
+
+And looking on the six fresh, manly faces before him, Dr. Phil saw that
+this happy woodland trip would have grander results than adding to the
+campers’ inches and to the breadth of their shoulders. For each one of
+them had realized this morning that behind all strength and beauties of
+forest growth, behind their own souls’ gladness, was a Presence which
+they could “almost palpably feel.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter X. Forward All!
+
+
+Speculations about the journey, and in especial about the corduroy
+road, were rife in the boys’ minds during the forty and odd hours which
+elapsed between the Sunday service and the time of their start.
+
+The travellers met at the settler’s cabin early on Tuesday morning,
+having broken camp shortly after daybreak. On Monday evening Cyrus and
+Neal, with Uncle Eb, had returned to the bark hut to pack their
+knapsacks, and make ready for a forward march. On the way thither, it
+being just the hour for the deer to be running,—that is, descending
+from the hills for an evening meal,—Neal got a successful shot at a
+small two-year-old buck. This was a stroke of luck for the campers, and
+a necessary deed of death. It supplied them with venison for their
+journey; and, as Cyrus said, “they had already put a shamefully big
+hole in Dr. Phil’s stores, and must procure a respectable supply of
+meat to make up for it.”
+
+It also provided Tiger with plenty of bones to crunch during his
+master’s absence; for the dog was left behind in charge of the hut, as
+indeed he often was for a week or more while Uncle Eb was away guiding.
+The sportsmen who engaged the latter’s services were generally averse
+to the creature’s presence with the party, lest he should scare their
+game.
+
+Cyrus and Neal bade him a pathetic farewell, remembering the exciting
+fun he had given them with the raccoon. Dol sent him lots of approving
+messages, which were duly delivered, with rough pats and shakes, by
+Uncle Eb, who fully believed that the brute understood every word of
+them. Indeed, the sign language of Tiger’s expressive tail confirmed
+this opinion.
+
+Dol had remained at the log camp with his new friends, Dr. Phil
+thinking it well that he should rest his feet until the morning of the
+start. His brother promised to bring his knapsack and rifle to the
+settler’s cabin. Uncle Eb repossessed himself of his shot-gun, pouch,
+and powder-horn, which he carried back to his hut, and left under
+Tiger’s protection, telling Dol that “if he wanted to bag any more
+black ducks he’d have to give ’em a dose wid de rifle, for he warn’t
+a-goin’ to lug dat ole fuzzee t’rough de woods.”
+
+It was the perfection of an October morning, sunshiny and pleasant,
+with a mellow freshness in the air which matched the mellow tints of
+the forest, when the travellers joined forces at the farm-settlement.
+
+Engaged in the thrilling work of felling a pine-tree to extend his
+father’s clearing, they found the settler’s son, a brawny fellow about
+Cyrus’s age, in buckskin leggings and coon-skin cap, who wielded his
+axe with arms which were tough and knotted as pine limbs. He bawled to
+them in the forceful language of the backwoods, which to unaccustomed
+ears sounded a trifle barbaric, to keep out of the way until his tree
+had fallen.
+
+When the pine at last tumbled earthward with a thud which reverberated
+for miles through the forest, he gave a mighty yell, waved his skin
+cap, and came towards the visitors.
+
+“Hulloa, Lin!” boomed the doctor, greeting this native as an old
+acquaintance.
+
+“Hello, Doc!” answered Lin. “By the great horn spoon! I didn’t expect
+to see you here. Who are these fellers?”
+
+The doctor introduced his comrades. Lin greeted them with bluff
+simplicity, and called them one and all by their Christian names as
+soon as these could be found out. Doc alone came in for his short
+title—if such it could be called. Luckily the campers of both
+nationalities, from Cyrus downward, were without any element of
+snobbery in their dispositions. It seemed to them only a jolly part of
+the untrammelled forest life that man should go back to his primitive
+relations with his brother man; that in the woods, as Doc said,
+“manhood should be the only passport,” and that titles and distinctions
+should never be thought of by guides or anybody else. They were
+well-pleased to be taken simply for what they were,—jolly,
+companionable fellows,—and to be valued according to the amount of grit
+and good-temper they showed.
+
+And they learned this morning to appreciate the pioneer courage and
+resolute spirit of the rugged settlers who had cleared a home for
+themselves amid the surrounding wilderness of forest and stream. Their
+roughness of speech was as nothing in comparison with their brave
+endurance of hardships, their deeds of heroism, and their free-handed
+hospitality.
+
+Lin led his visitors straight to a log cabin, before which his father,
+a veteran woodsman, who bore the scars of bears’ teeth upon his body,
+was digging and planting. This old farmer, too, greeted Doc as a
+friend, and when the wagon was talked about, was quite willing to do
+anything to serve him.
+
+“But ye must have a square meal afore ye travel,” he said. “Jerusha! I
+couldn’t let ye go without eatin’. Mother!” shouting to his wife, who
+was inside the cabin. “Say, Mother! Ha’n’t ye got somethin’ fer these
+fellers to munch?”
+
+Forthwith a big, rosy woman, who had herself fought a bear in her time,
+and had shot him, too, before he attacked her farmyard, hustled round,
+and got up such a meal as the travellers had not tasted since they
+entered the woods. They had a splendid “tuck-in,” consisting of fried
+ham, boiled eggs, potatoes, hot bread, yellow butter, and coffee. And
+the meal was accompanied with thrilling stories from the lips of the
+old settler about the hardships and desperate scenes of earlier
+pioneering days. Doc coaxed him to relate these for the boys’ benefit.
+And many eyes dilated as he told of blood-curdling adventures with the
+“lunk soos,” or “Indian devil,” the dreadful catamount or panther,
+which was once the terror of Maine woodsmen.
+
+“So help me! I’d a heap sooner meet a ragin’ lion than a panther,” said
+the old man. “My own father came near to bein’ eaten alive by one when
+I was a kid. He was workin’ with a gang o’ lumbermen in these forests
+at timber-makin’, and was returnin’ to their camp, when the beast
+bounced out of a thicket all of a suddint. Poor dad was skeered stiff.
+The thing screeched,—a screech so turrible that it was enough to turn a
+man’s sweat to ice-water, an’ a’most set him crazy. Dad hadn’t no gun
+with him; so he shinned up the nighest tree like mad, an’ hollered fit
+to bust his windpipe, hopin’ t’other fellers at the camp ’ud hear him.
+
+“But the panther made up another tree hard by, an’ sprang ’pon him.
+Fust it grabbed dad by the heel. Then it tore a big piece out o’ the
+calf of his leg, an’ devoured it. Think of it, boys! Them’s the sort o’
+dangers that the fust settlers an’ lumbermen in these woods had to
+face.
+
+“Wal, dad reckoned he was a goner, sure. But he managed to cut a limb
+from the tree with his huntin’-knife, an’ tied the knife to the end of
+it. With that he fought the beast while his comrades, who had heard his
+mad yells, were gittin’ to him. With the fust shot that one of ’em
+fired the catamount made off.
+
+“Dad was the sickest man ye ever saw fer a spell. His wound healed
+after a bit, under the care of an Injun doctor; but his hair, which had
+been soot-black on that evenin’ when he was returnin’ to camp, was as
+white as milk afore he got about again; an’ he was notional and
+narvous-like as long as he lived.
+
+“He said the animal was like a tremenjous big cat, about four feet high
+an’ five or six feet in length. It was a sort o’ bluish-gray color. An’
+it had a very long tail curled up at the end, which it moved like a
+cat’s.
+
+“Boys, that catamount is the only animal that an Indian is skeered of.
+Ask a red man to hunt a moose, a bear, or a wolf, an’ he’s ready to
+follow it through forest an’ swamp till he downs it or drops. But ask
+him to chase a panther, an’ he’ll shake his head an’ say, ‘He all one
+big debil!’ He calls the beast, in his own lingo, ‘lunk soos,’ which
+means ’Injun devil;’ an’ so we woodsmen call it too.”
+
+It was at this moment that Lin put his head in at the cabin-door, and
+announced that “the wagon an’ hosses war a’ ready.”
+
+“Wal, boys, I swan! it’s many a long year since a panther was seen in
+these forests, so ye needn’t feel skeery about meetin’ one,” said the
+old settler, as he stood outside his log home, and watched his guests
+start. “I’ll ’low ye won’t find travellin’ too easy ’long the ole
+corduroy road. Come again!”
+
+There was much waving of hats as the wagon, a roomy, four-wheeled
+vehicle, moved off, with a creaking in its joints as if it were
+squealing a protest against its load, which consisted of the five lads,
+together with knapsacks, guns, tents, and the camp duffle.
+
+“Forward, all!” shouted Dr. Phil, who had been chosen to act as captain
+of the two companies during the few days while they journeyed together.
+
+Lin, who was charioteer, cracked a long whip above his horses. The boys
+cheered, while Doc, Cyrus, and the two guides fell behind, choosing to
+follow the wagon on foot for the first few miles of the journey.
+
+“Where did you buy that, Lin?” asked Neal, climbing over to a perch
+beside the driver, and pointing to a heavy Colt’s revolver which the
+young settler was buckling round his waist.
+
+“Didn’t buy it. I traded a calf for it at Greenville more’n a year
+ago,” was the reply. “Fust-rate gun it is, too, I vum! I’ve stood at
+our cabin-door, and killed many a buck with it. On’y ’tain’t much good
+for tackling a bear. Wish’t the bears ud get as scarce as the panthers!
+Then we’d be rid o’ two master pests. Hello! Don’t y’u git to tumbling
+out jist yet! That’s on’y a circumstance to the jolts there’ll be when
+we strike a bit o’ corduroy road.”
+
+Lin Hathaway grabbed young Farrar by the elbow while he spoke, and held
+him steady with the horny hand which had swung the axe against the
+doomed pine-tree. For Neal had shown a sudden inclination to pitch
+headlong out of the wagon, as its right wheels were hoisted a foot or
+more above the left ones by rolling over a mossy bump in the ground.
+
+For the first five miles the forest road had been simply constructed
+thus: First, the bushy undergrowth had been cut away and thrown to one
+side, the space cleared being about eight feet wide; then all trees
+growing in the range of this track had been sawn off close to the
+ground, and windfalls which barred the way were removed. It was a rude
+highway, with plenty of deformities, such as ends of rotting stumps,
+twisted roots, ridges and bumps which had never been levelled; yet it
+was beautiful beyond any smooth, well-graded road which the travellers
+had ever seen. As it wound along in graceful curves through the woods,
+it was shaded now by an emerald arch of evergreens, now by a royal
+crimson canopy of maple branches, while patches of buff, orange, and
+dull red commingled where other trees interlaced with these to whisper
+woodland secrets.
+
+But the boys soon understood what Doc meant when he spoke of their
+having “a bracing ride in more senses than one;” for the motion of the
+wagon was a giddy series of jolts and bounces, with just sufficient
+interval between each shock for them to brace themselves, with
+stiffened backbones, for the next upheaval. They had already begun, as
+Royal said, “to have kinks in all their limbs,” when Lin suddenly
+announced,—
+
+“Yon’s a bit o’ corduroy road, I declar’!”
+
+He pointed with his whip ahead, and the travellers shot out their necks
+to see this novel highway. It extended for about a quarter of a mile
+over a swamp, and spoke volumes for the energy and ingenuity of the
+hardy lumbermen who constructed it.
+
+These brawny heroes, who are fine types of American grit and manhood,
+when clearing a broad track over which their great timber logs could be
+hauled from the depths of the forest to the landing on some big river,
+had found the swampy tracts an impassable obstacle for animals
+trammelled with harness and a heavy load.
+
+They bridged them by laying down logs cut to even lengths in a slightly
+slanting position across the way for the entire extent of miry ground.
+Each piece of timber was tightly wedged in by its fellow; nevertheless,
+there was a space of several inches between their rounded tops. Hence
+the track presented a striped appearance, which suggested to some
+spirited genius among woodsmen its name of “corduroy road.”
+
+“Well, Neal, do you think you can tell your folks a thing or two about
+forest travelling when you get back to England?” asked Doc, when the
+order of march was changed, young Farrar and the Sinclairs turning out
+to do their share of tramping, while the doctor, Cyrus, and the guides
+benefited by “a lift.”
+
+“I rather think I can,” answered Neal; “but goodness! I feel as if
+there were aches and bruises all over me. Once or twice my head seemed
+jumping straight off my shoulders. No more going in a wagon over
+corduroy roads for me! I’d rather be leg-weary any day.”
+
+The travellers halted that evening about five o’clock on the banks of a
+lonely stream. The guides pitched the two tents—Joe had provided one
+for his party—facing each other on a patch of clearing, with a space of
+about fifteen feet between them, in the centre of which blazed a
+roaring camp-fire. Now all the axes and knifes among the band were in
+demand for cutting and sharpening stakes and ridge-poles on which to
+stretch their canvas.
+
+Moreover, no evergreen boughs could be procured for beds; and the boys
+had to work with a will, helping Uncle Eb and Joe to cut bundles of the
+long, rank grass that grew by the water to form a bed for their tired
+bodies.
+
+Every one was camp-hungry, as they had not halted for a meal since
+leaving the settlement. After a splendid supper of venison, broiled
+over sizzling logs, bread, and fried potatoes,—for they had added to
+their stores at the farm,—they had a glorious social hour by the
+camp-fire. Joe got off any amount of “ripping” stories; and the sound
+of many a jolly chorus, led by Cyrus, and swelled by the musical
+efforts of the entire crew, mingled with the lonely rustle of the night
+wind among faded and drifting leaves.
+
+When Doc’s summons came to turn in, they stretched themselves upon the
+grassy beds, not undressing, as the night was chilly and the temporary
+quarters were not so snug as their previous ones. Still in their warm
+jerseys, trousers, woollen stockings, and knitted caps, with the heat
+from the piled-up camp-fire streaming under the raised flaps of the
+tents, they slept as cosily as if they lay on spring mattresses,
+surrounded by pictured walls.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XI. Beaver Works
+
+
+About noon on the following day they were obliged to bid farewell to
+Lin Hathaway, his wagon and horses, as the logging-road went no
+farther. The young settler turned homeward rather regretfully. It might
+be many months again before he got a chance of talking to anybody
+beyond his father and mother, and the boys had brought a dash of
+outside life into his woodland solitude.
+
+The travellers proceeded on foot through a dense forest, which, luckily
+for Dol, had little undergrowth and mostly a soft carpet of moss or dry
+pine needles. Still they had plenty of climbing over windfalls, with
+many rough pokes and jibes from forward boughs and rotten limbs, to rob
+the way of sameness. Through this labyrinth they were safely piloted by
+Uncle Eb and Joe, the latter with his compass in his hand, and the
+former simply studying the “Indian’s compass,” which is observing how
+the moss grows upon the tree-trunks, there being always a greater
+quantity on the side which faces north.
+
+Before nightfall they reached another log cabin, tenanted by a man who
+had just settled down for the purpose of clearing up a farm. Here they
+were lodged for the night, without trouble of making camp.
+
+The third day of their journey was marked by two sensations. They
+halted for a short rest at a point where there was an extensive break
+in the forest. Scarcely had they emerged from the gloom of a dense
+growth of cedars, when Dol exclaimed.—
+
+“Good gracious! That looks as if people had been building a jolly high
+railroad out here.”
+
+On the right rose a bare, steep ridge of sand and gravel, nearly ninety
+feet in height, and closely resembling a railway embankment.
+
+“Well, boy,” laughed Dr. Phil, “if that’s a railroad, Nature built it,
+and by a mighty curious process too. The sand, rocks, and
+gravel of which it is mostly formed must have been swept here by a
+great rush of waters that once prevailed over this land. We call the
+ridge a ‘Horseback.’ If you like, we’ll climb to the top of it, after
+we’ve had our snack [lunch], and you can get a peep at the surrounding
+country.”
+
+So they did. The top was level, and wide enough for two carriages to
+drive abreast; and the view from it was one which could never be
+forgotten. Around them were millions of acres of forest land, beautiful
+with the contrasts of October; here dipping into a cedar valley, in the
+midst of which they saw the silver smile of a woodland lake, there
+rising into a hill crowned with towering pines, some of them over a
+hundred feet in height.
+
+But, most thrilling sight of all, they beheld, only half a dozen miles
+away, rising in sublime grandeur against the sky, the mountain of
+mountains in Maine,—great Katahdin. They had caught glimpses of its
+curved line of peaks before. Now they saw its forests, and the rugged
+slides where avalanches of bowlders and earth from the top had ploughed
+heavily downward, sweeping away all growth.
+
+Cyrus lifted his hat, and waved it at the distant mass.
+
+“Hurrah!” he cried. “There’s the home of storms! There’s old Katahdin!
+The Indians named it Ktaadn ‘the biggest mountain.’”
+
+“Want to hear the Indian legend about it, lads?” asked Dr. Phil.
+
+A general chirp of assent was his reply, and the doctor began:—
+
+“Well, when the redskins owned these forests, they believed that the
+summit of Katahdin was the home of their evil spirit, or, as they call
+him, ‘The Big Devil.’ He was named Pamolah. And he was a mighty
+unpleasant sort of neighbor. Once, so tradition says, he ran away with
+a beautiful Indian maiden, and carried her up to his lonely lair among
+those peaks. When her tribe tried to rescue her, he let loose great
+storms upon them, his artillery being thunder, lightning, hail, and
+rain, before which they were forced to flee helter-skelter. An old red
+chief long ago told me the story, and added gravely that ‘it was sartin
+true, for han’some squaw always catch ’em debil.’
+
+“The foundation of the legend lies in the fact that there really is a
+very curious granite basin among Katahdin’s peaks, and it is the
+birthplace of most storms which sweep over our State. I myself have
+seen clouds forming in it, when I made an ascent of the mountain in my
+younger days, and whirling out in all directions. The roar of its winds
+may sometimes be heard miles away. There are several ponds in the
+basin; one of them, a tiny, clear lake, without any visible outlet, is
+Pamolah’s fishing-ground. That’s the yarn about the mountain as I heard
+it.”
+
+
+Illustration: In The Shadow Of The Katahdin.
+
+
+“Ain’t it a’most time for us to be gittin’ down from this Horseback,
+Doc?” asked Joe, who had been listening with the others. “I thought
+we’d reach the farm you’re heading for to-night, but we’re half a dozen
+miles off it yet; and we can’t do more’n another mile or two afore
+it’ll be time to halt and make camp. There’s some pretty bad travelling
+and a plaguy bit of swamp ahead.”
+
+“I guess you’re about right, Joe,” said Doc, rising with alacrity from
+the stone where he had seated himself while telling his yarn.
+
+Joe’s bad travelling meant a great deal of tripping and floundering
+through soft mud and mire, with slippery moss-stones sandwiched in, and
+dwarfed bushes which ran along the ground, and twisted themselves in an
+almost impassable tangle. These had a knack of catching a fellow’s
+feet, and causing him to sprawl forward on his face and hands,
+whereupon his knapsack would hit him an astounding thwack on the back.
+
+After three-quarters of an hour of this fun, very muddy, clammy with
+perspiration, and thoroughly winded, the party reached firmer ground,
+and the guides called a halt.
+
+“Guess we’d better rest a bit,” said Joe, “afore we go farther. There’s
+nothing in forest travelling that’ll take the breath out of a man like
+crossing a swamp,” eying compassionately the city folk; for he himself
+was as “fit” as when he started. “Then we’d better follow that stream
+till we strike a good place for a camping-ground. What say, Doc?”
+
+Dr. Phil, as captain, signified his assent. After a short
+breathing-spell he again gave the command, “Forward!” And his company
+pushed on into the woods, following the course of a dark stream which
+had gurgled through the swamp.
+
+“There used to be an old beaver-dam somewheres about here,” broke forth
+Joe presently, when they had made about a quarter of a mile, the
+younger guide taking the lead, for he was evidently more at home in
+this part of the forest land than his senior, Uncle Eb. “Hullo, now!
+there it is. Look, gentlemen!”
+
+He pointed to a curved bank of brushwood, mostly alder branches, piled
+together in curious topsyturvy fashion, which formed a dam across the
+stream. It bristled with sticks, poking out and up in every direction;
+for the bushy ends of the boughs had been heavily plastered with mud
+and stones, to keep them down.
+
+“That a beaver-dam!” gasped Neal in amazement. “Why, I always had an
+idea that beavers were half human in intelligence, and wove their
+branches in and out in a sort of neat basketwork when making dams.
+That’s a funny rough-and-tumble looking old pile.”
+
+“It’s a good water-tight dam, for all that,” answered Cyrus. “And don’t
+you begin to underrate Mr. Beaver’s intelligence until you see more of
+his works. I’ve torn the bottom out of a dam like this on a cold, rainy
+night,—beavers like rainy nights for work,—and then hidden myself in
+some bushes to watch the result. It was a trial of strength and
+patience, I assure you, to remain there for six mortal hours,—though I
+had rubber overalls on,—with wet twigs and leaves slapping my face. But
+the sight I saw was more wonderful than anything I could have imagined.
+There was a cloudy, watery moon; and shortly after it rose, five
+beavers appeared upon the dam, scrambling up and down, and examining
+the great hole through which the water was fast leaking out of their
+pond. Then, following a big fellow, who was evidently the boss beaver,
+they swam to the bank. He stationed himself near a tree about twenty
+inches in circumference, and his four boys at once started to fell it.
+I tell you they worked like hustlers, each one sawing on it in turn
+with his sharp teeth, and sometimes two of them together on different
+parts of the trunk.
+
+“At last the tree—it was an ash—fell, toppling into the water just
+where the beavers wanted it. They pushed and tugged it down-stream for
+about ten yards, to the dam, and propped it against the opening which I
+had made. I couldn’t see the rest of the operations clearly; but I
+caught glimpses of them, marching about on their hind-legs, carrying
+mud snug up to their chins like this,” here Cyrus folded his arms
+across his chest. “And before daybreak that dam was perfectly repaired,
+with never a leak in it.
+
+“You know they build the dams in very shallow water, only a few inches
+deep; and they generally roll in a couple of long logs for a solid
+foundation. It was one of these which I had torn out. Now, Neal, what
+do you say about the beaver’s intelligence?”
+
+“If I didn’t know you, Cyrus, I’d say you were making up as you went
+along,” answered Neal. “It seems one of those things which a fellow can
+scarcely believe in. Hulloa! What’s that?”
+
+A loud report, like the bang of a gun, made all the boys, who had been
+standing very quietly, gazing at the dam, suddenly jump.
+
+“It’s only a beaver striking the water with his tail,” laughed Cyrus.
+“He has been swimming about somewhere up-stream, and has scented us,
+and dived. I have heard one do that a dozen times in the night, if he
+detected the presence of man; but it’s very unusual in the daytime, for
+they rarely venture out in broad light. In diving, if suddenly alarmed,
+they strike the surface of the water a tremendous whack with their
+tails, as a signal of alarm, making this report, which in still weather
+resounds for a great distance.
+
+“I’m very glad you heard it, boys; for your chances of seeing the
+master beaver or any of his colony are mighty slim. But we’ll probably
+come on their lodge a little higher up.”
+
+Above the shallow water where the dam was built, the stream widened
+into a broad, deep pool. About fifty yards ahead, in the centre of
+this, was a tiny island. On its extreme edge Joe pointed out the beaver
+lodge. It was shaped something like a huge beehive, being about a dozen
+feet in diameter and five feet high. The outside seemed to be entirely
+covered with mud and fibrous roots, through which the sticks which
+formed its framework poked out here and there.
+
+“The doors are all underwater,” said Cyrus, “and so far down that
+they’ll be beneath the ice when the stream freezes in winter. Otherwise
+the beavers could not reach their pile of food-wood, which they keep at
+the bottom, and would starve to death. They are clerks of the weather,
+if you like. They seem to know when the first hard frost is coming, and
+sink their stores a day or two before. Man has not yet discovered their
+mysterious knack of sinking wood, and keeping it stationary through
+many months.
+
+“They feed on the inner bark of poplar, white birch, and willow trees.
+In autumn they fell these along the banks, generally so that they will
+fall into the water, tug and push them down-stream, and float them near
+to their lodges. If the trees are too big to be easily handled, they
+saw them into convenient lengths.”
+
+“I call it tough luck, not being able to get a sight of the animals,
+after seeing so much of their works,” grumbled Royal.
+
+“Ye might wait here till midnight, and not have any better,” said Joe.
+“That fellow’s tail was like a fire-alarm to them. They ain’t to home
+now, you bet! They’ve dusted out of their house as if it was on fire;
+and they’ve either dived to the bottom, or hidden themselves in holes
+along the bank. Guess we’d better be moving on. It’s a’most time to
+think about making camp.”
+
+“The beavers have been working here!” exclaimed the guide a few minutes
+later, as he strode ahead. “These white birches were felled by ’em; and
+a dandy job they did too.”
+
+He pointed to two slim birches which lay prone with their tops in the
+water, and to a third, the trunk of which was partly sawn through in
+more than one place. The ground was strewn with little clippings of
+timber, bearing the saw-marks of the beavers’ teeth. The boys gathered
+them up as curiosities.
+
+“Oh, the skilful little animals can beat this work by long odds!”
+exclaimed Doc. “These trunks only measure from eight to twelve inches
+in circumference. I’ve seen a tree fully two feet round which was
+felled by them. Say, Joe! don’t you think we’d better camp to-night
+somewhere on the _brûlée?_”
+
+“Just what I’m planning, Doc,” answered Joe. “We must be pretty near it
+now.”
+
+A few minutes afterwards the party filed out of the dense woods, passed
+through a grove of young spruces, forded a brook which emptied itself
+into the stream they were following, and came upon a scene blasted,
+barren, and unutterably dreary.
+
+The band of boys, who, in spite of swamps and jungles, had learned to
+love the forest dearly, for its many beauties, and for the wild
+offspring with which it teemed, sorrowfully gasped, as if they saw the
+skeleton of a friend.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XII. “Go It, Old Bruin!”
+
+
+Before them lay a ruined tract of country, extending northward farther
+than eye could reach. It is called by Maine woodsmen a _brûlée_, name
+borrowed from their French-Canadian neighbors, who dwell across the
+boundary line which separates the Dominion from the United States.
+
+The word signifies “burnt tract;” but it gives a feeble idea of the
+fire-smitten, blackened region on which the lads looked.
+
+The forest until now had been a wilderness truly, but a wilderness
+where every kind and size of growth, from the giant pine to the
+creeping wintergreen and shaded mosses, mingled in beautiful confusion.
+Here it became a desert. For the terrible forest fires, the woodsman’s
+tragic enemy, had swept over it not long before, devastating an area of
+many square miles. Millions of dollars worth of valuable timber had
+been reduced to rotting embers. Storm-defying pines had crashed to the
+earth, and were overridden by the flames in their wild rush onward.
+Sometimes only a smutty stump showed where they had stood; sometimes,
+robbed of life and every limb, portions of the fire-eaten trunks still
+remained erect,—bare, blackened poles. All smaller growth, and even the
+surface of the ground, parched by summer heats, had burned like tinder.
+Rocks and stones were baked and crumbling.
+
+“Boys, that’s the most mournful sight a woodsman can see,” said Doc,
+looking away over the wrecked region, touched with golden lights from
+an October sunset. “It makes one who loves the woods feel as if he had
+lost a living friend.”
+
+“Well, ’tain’t no manner o’ use to fret over it,” declared Joe
+energetically. “Nature don’t waste time in fretting, you bet! She
+starts in and tries to cover the stripped ground, as if she was sort of
+ashamed to have it seen.”
+
+The guide pointed earthward. At his feet a dwarfed growth of blueberry
+bushes and tiny trees was already springing up to screen the unsightly,
+ash-strewn land.
+
+“True enough, Joe! Nature is a grand one for remedies,” answered the
+doctor. “Still, it will be half a century or more before she can raise
+a timber growth here again. Hulloa! Dol, what are you fellows up to?”
+
+While his elders were studying the _brûlée_, Dol, who objected to
+dreary sights, had marched down to the brink of the stream, accompanied
+by Royal’s young brothers, Will and Martin Sinclair. The little river
+gurgled and frisked along beside the burnt tract, like a line of life
+bordering death. It seemed to the boys to prattle about its victory
+over the flames when it stopped their sweeping course, so that the
+woods on its opposite bank were uninjured, as were those beyond the
+brook in the rear.
+
+“We’re studying the ways of the great sea-serpent!” shouted back Dol,
+who was splashing about in a sedgy pool.
+
+By and by when the guides had finished their work of making camp, when
+they had pitched the tents, cut boughs for beds and fuel in the spruce
+grove behind, and were cooking an odorous supper, the three juveniles
+came slowly towards the camp-fire from the water.
+
+“What on earth have you got there, young one?” asked Dr. Phil; for
+Adolphus Farrar was bareheaded, and carried his hat very gingerly, with
+its corners clutched together to form a bag.
+
+“The big sea-serpent himself,” answered Dol mysteriously.
+
+Of a sudden he opened his dripping hat, and spilled out a small
+water-snake, about ten inches long, upon the doctor’s lap.
+
+There was a great roar of laughter, in which Dol’s abettors, Will and
+Martin, joined with cheerful shouts. The little joke had the effect of
+winning everybody’s thoughts from roaring flames, wrecked forests, and
+the dreary _brûlée_. Uncle Eb killed the snake, maintaining that
+water-snakes were “plaguy p’isonous,” while Cyrus scouted the idea. The
+supper that evening was a merry enough meal. The camp, lit by the ruddy
+glow from its great fire, looked an oasis of light, warmth, and jollity
+in the black and burnt desert.
+
+The darky, hearing Cyrus declare that he was fearfully hungry, mixed
+some flapjacks to form a second course, after the venison steaks and
+potatoes. He had exhausted his stock of maple sugar, but he produced a
+small wooden keg of the apparently inexhaustible molasses.
+
+“He! he! he! Dat jest touches de spot, don’t it?” he chuckled, when,
+having carefully served each member of the party, he seated himself
+about three feet from the camp-fire, with a round dozen of the thin
+cakes for his own eating.
+
+He coated them with the thick molasses, and set the keg down side by
+side with a bag of potatoes which had been brought from the settlement.
+
+There these provisions remained when, earlier than usual, the party
+turned in, and stretched their tired limbs to rest, lying down, as they
+had done before when sleeping under canvas, with all their garments on
+save coats and moccasins. Whether Uncle Eb forgot his “m’lasses,” or
+whether he purposely left it without, there not being a spare inch of
+room in the small tents, no one then or afterwards inquired.
+
+As a result of the jolly intimacy that had sprung up between the two
+companies during the few days when they had all things in common, the
+boys disposed of themselves for the night as they pleased. Neal turned
+in with the doctor, Royal, and Joe, the four stretching themselves on
+the evergreen boughs, with their feet to the opening of the tent, and
+their rifles and ammunition within reach. Of course the Winchesters
+were empty, it being a strict rule that firearms should not be brought
+into camp loaded.
+
+The younger Sinclairs, with Cyrus, Dol, and Uncle Eb, occupied the
+other tent.
+
+It seemed to Neal that he had hardly slept one hour,—probably it was
+nearer to three,—during which time he had been dreaming with vague
+foreshadowings of the final and crowning sport of the trip, the grand
+moose-stalking, and of Herb Heal, the mighty hunter, when he was
+awakened by a shrill scream just outside the canvas. He started, with
+his heart going whackety-whack. The cry was sudden and intensely
+startling, appearing twice as loud as it really was when it broke the
+pathetic stillness of the _brûlée_, where not a tree rustled or twig
+snapped, and the night wind only sighed faintly and fitfully through
+the newly springing growth.
+
+Again sounded that startling screech; and yet again, making a dreary,
+piercing din.
+
+“By all that’s funny! it’s another coon,” gasped Neal; and he gently
+pinched the shoulder of Joe, who lay on his left.
+
+“Joe!” he whispered. “Wake up! There’s a raccoon just outside the tent.
+I heard his cry.”
+
+The guide was awake and alert in an instant. So, too, was Dr. Phil.
+
+“What’s up, boys?” asked the latter, hearing a murmur.
+
+“There’s a coon close by,” said Neal again. “Listen to him!”
+
+Even while he spoke, young Farrar caught sight of two feathered things
+hopping along the avenue of light which lay between him and the
+camp-fire, the red flare of the flames mingling with the white radiance
+of a cloudless moon. At the same time the screech sounded and
+resounded.
+
+“Coon!” exclaimed Joe derisively. “That’s no coon. It’s only a little
+owl. Bless ye! I’ve had five or six of ’em come right into this tent of
+a night, and ding away at me till I had to talk to ’em with the rifle
+to scare ’em off. I’ll give ’em a dose o’ lead now if they don’t scoot
+mighty quick; that’ll stop their song an’ dance.”
+
+“Their cry is pretty much like a raccoon’s, Neal,” said Doc. “Only it’s
+a great deal weaker. Lie down, boy. Go to sleep, and don’t mind them.”
+
+The owls perhaps apprehended danger. At all events, they were silent
+for a while; and in three minutes each occupant of the tent was fast
+asleep again, with the exception of Neal. The sharp awakening had upset
+his nerves a bit. He obeyed the doctor, and hugged his blankets round
+him, hoping sleep would return; but he lay with eyes narrowed into two
+slits, peeping at the ruddy camp-fire, involuntarily listening for the
+screeching of the birds, and wishing that he had not been such a
+greenhorn as to disturb his comrades for nothing. Royal, who lay on his
+right, was of a less excitable temperament. Although he had been
+awakened, he was now snoring lustily, insomnia being a rare affliction
+in camps.
+
+“What’s that?”
+
+About half an hour had passed when Neal Farrar suddenly and sharply
+rapped out these words close to Joe’s ear. He felt certain that he
+would not now bring upon him the woodsman’s good-natured scorn for
+making a disturbance about nothing. A heavy, stealthy tread, as of some
+big animal, was crushing the pygmy bushes near the tent. Immediately
+afterwards he saw an uncouth black shape in the lane of light between
+himself and the fire. It disappeared while his heart was giving one
+jump, and he heard a dull, mumbling noise, such as a pig might make
+when rooting amid rubbish, varied with an occasional low growl.
+
+Joe was already awake. His hunter’s instinct told him that something
+truly exciting was on now.
+
+“My cracky! I b’lieve it’s a bear!” he muttered, forming his words away
+down in his throat, so that Neal only caught the last one. “Keep still
+as death!”
+
+The guide reached out a long arm, and clutched his rifle. Hurriedly he
+jammed half a dozen cartridges into its magazine. Then lightly and
+silently, as if he was made of cork, he got upon his feet, and bounded
+out of the tent, Neal copying his actions nimbly and noiselessly as he
+could; though, in his excitement, he only succeeded in getting two
+cartridges into his Winchester.
+
+Royal’s snoring ceased. Doc’s eager question, “What’s up now, boys?”
+reached the two just as they quitted shelter, and passed into the broad
+moonlight, crossed with red gleams from their fire.
+
+“A bear!” yelled Joe in answer, his rifle and he breaking silence
+together.
+
+Three times the Winchester sharply cracked.
+
+Then with a mad “Halloo!” the guide seized a flaming stick from the
+fire, and, swinging it above his head, started after the big black
+animal of which Neal had caught a glimpse before. He now saw it plainly
+as, already fifty yards ahead, it made off at a plunging gallop across
+the moonlit _brûlée_.
+
+Young Farrar had been the champion runner of his school, and he blessed
+his trained legs for giving him a prominent part in the wild chase that
+followed. Still imitating the woodsman, he pulled another half-lighted
+stick from the camp-fire, and waved it in a frenzy of excitement, while
+he ran like a buck at Joe’s side.
+
+“Tumble out! Tumble out, boys! A bear! A bear!” now rang from one tent
+to another.
+
+In two minutes every camper, in his stocking feet, just as he had risen
+from his bed, was tearing across the _brûlée_ in the wake of Bruin,
+yelling, leaping, and swinging smouldering firebrands.
+
+It was a scene and a chase such as the boys, in their most far-fetched
+dreams, had never pictured,—the white moonlight glimmering on the black
+stumps and tottering trunks of the ruined tract, the hunted bear
+plunging off among them, frightened by the shouting and the lights, the
+heavy, lumbering gallop enabling it at first to distance its pursuers.
+
+Owing to their fleetness and the odds they had at the start, the guide
+and Neal kept far ahead of their comrades. The noise which Bruin made
+as he lumbered over the pygmy growth, and the charred, rotting timber
+that littered the ground beneath it, were quiet enough to guide Joe
+unerringly in the bear’s wake, even when that bulky shape was not
+distinguishable.
+
+“What’s this?” screeched the woodsman suddenly, as he stumbled upon
+something at his feet. “By gracious! it’s our keg of m’lasses. He made
+off with that, and has dropped it out o’ sheer fright, or because he’s
+weakening. I know I hit him twice when I fired; but he’s not hurt too
+badly to run, or to fight like a fiend if we come to close quarters.
+Like as not ’twill be a narrow squeak with us if we tackle him. If
+you’re scared a little bit, Neal, let up, an’ I’ll finish him alone.”
+
+“Scared!” Neal flung the word back with scorn, as if he was returning a
+blow. For the life of him he could not bring out another syllable,
+going at a faster rate than ever he had done in the most stubbornly
+contested handicap. The strong-winded guide rapped out his sentences as
+he ran, apparently without waste of breath.
+
+The feverish enthusiasm of the hunter, which he had never felt before,
+was now alive in Neal. His blood raced through his veins like liquid
+fire. He had been long enough in Maine to know that in wreaking
+vengeance on Bruin for many misdeeds he would be acting in the
+interests of justice. For the black bear is still such a master pest to
+the settlers who are trying to establish their farms amid the forests
+where it roams, that the State has outlawed the beast, and pays a
+bounty for its skin.
+
+Joe thought little about this; for a gentleman whom he had guided early
+in the summer had lately written to him, offering a price of fifteen
+dollars for a good bearskin.
+
+Here was the woodsman’s golden opportunity—an opportunity for which he
+had been thirsting since the receipt of that letter.
+
+
+Illustration: “Go It, Old Bruin! Go It While You Can!”
+
+
+He already regarded his triumph over the bear as secure, and its hide
+as forfeited. He nearly caused Neal Farrar to burst a blood-vessel from
+the combined effects of struggling laughter and running, when he began
+to apostrophize the flying foe with grim humor, thus:—
+
+“Go it, old Bruin! Go it while ye can! There ain’t a hair on yer back
+that b’longs to ye!”
+
+But it soon became evident that the bear couldn’t go on much longer at
+this breakneck pace. Its pursuers heard its steps with increasing
+distinctness, and then its labored breathing. They were gaining on it
+fast.
+
+The brute came into full view about forty yards ahead, as it ascended a
+slight elevation, crowned with blasted tree trunks.
+
+“I’ll draw bead on him from here,” said Joe, stopping short. “Get ready
+to fire, lad, if he turns. It’ll take lots o’ lead to finish that
+fellow.”
+
+Twice Joe’s rifle spoke again. One shot took effect. There was a
+fearful growl from the beast, but it was not yet mortally wounded.
+
+Maddened and desperate, it wheeled about, and came straight for its
+pursuers. Again the guide fired. Still the bear advanced, gnashing its
+teeth and mumbling horribly; Neal saw its black shape not thirty yards
+from him.
+
+“Shoot! shoot, boy!” screamed Joe. “Or give me your rifle. I haven’t
+got a charge left!”
+
+For half a minute Farrar shook all over as with ague. His nostrils felt
+choked. His mouth was wide open in his efforts to breathe. His heart
+pounded like a sledge-hammer. With that mumbling brute advancing upon
+him, he felt as if he couldn’t fire so as to hit a haystack or a flock
+of hens at a barn-door.
+
+Then, suddenly, he was cool again, seeing and hearing with
+extraordinary clearness. The ignominious alternative of giving his
+rifle to Joe produced a revulsion. His fingers were on the trigger, his
+left hand firmly gripped the barrel of his Winchester; he brought it to
+his shoulder.
+
+“Aim low! Try to hit him in the front of the neck where it joins the
+body,” said Joe, in tones sharp as a razor, which cut his meaning into
+Neal’s brain.
+
+Bruin was only fifteen yards away when Farrar’s rifle cracked
+once—twice—sending out its messengers of death.
+
+There was a last terrible growl, a plunge, and a thud which seemed to
+shake the ground under Neal’s feet. As the smoke of his shots cleared
+away, Joe beheld him leaning on his
+rifle, with a face which in the moonlight looked white as chalk, and
+the bear lying where it had fallen headlong towards him. It made a
+desperate struggle to regain its feet, then rolled on its side, dead.
+
+One bullet had pierced the spot which Joe mentioned, and had passed
+through the region of the heart.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIII. “The Skin Is Yours.”
+
+
+A regular war-dance was performed about the slain marauder by the young
+Sinclairs and Dol Farrar, when these laggards in the chase reached the
+spot where he fell. The firebrands had all died out before the enemy
+turned; but in the white moon-radiance the bear was seen to be a big
+one, with an uncommonly fine skin.
+
+Neal took no part in the triumphal capers. He still leaned upon his
+rifle, his breath coming in gusty puffs through his nostrils and mouth.
+Not alone the desperate sensations of those moments when he had faced
+the gnashing, mumbling brute, but the unexpected success of his first
+shot at big game, had unhinged him. By his endurance in the chase, by
+the pluck with which he stood up to the bear, above all, by his being
+able, as Joe phrased it, to “take a sure pull on the beast at a
+paralyzing moment,” he had eternally justified his right to the title
+of sportsman in the eyes of the natives. The guides, Joe and Eb, were
+not slow in telling him that he had behaved from start to finish like
+no “greenhorn,” but a regular “old sport.”
+
+“My cracky! ’twas lucky for me that you had game blood in you, which
+showed up,” exclaimed Joe, catching the boy’s arm in a friendly grip,
+with an odd respect in his touch, which marked the admission of young
+Farrar into the brotherhood of hunters. “I hadn’t a charge left, an’
+not even my hunting-knife. Lots o’ city swells ’u’d have been plumb
+scared before a growler like that,”—touching Bruin’s carcass with his
+foot,—“even if they had a small arsenal to back ’em up. They’d have
+dropped rifle and cartridges, and hugged the nearest trunk. I’ve seen
+fellers do it scores o’ times, bless ye! after they came out here
+rigged up in sporting-book style, talking fire about hunting bears and
+moose. But that was all the fire there was to ’em.”
+
+Yet Neal’s triumph over the poor brute, which had raced well for its
+life, was not without a faint twinge of pain; and he was too manly to
+look on this as a weakness. A sportsman he might be, of the sort who
+can shoot straight when necessity demands it, but never of that class
+who prowl through the forests with fingers tingling to pull the
+trigger, dreading to lose a chance of “letting blood” from any
+slim-legged moose or velvet-nosed buck which may run their way. It
+needed Doc’s praise to make him feel fully satisfied with his deed.
+
+“It was a crack shot, boy,” said the doctor proudly. “And I guess the
+farmer at the next settlement will feel like giving you a medal for it.
+Old Bruin has only got what he gave to every creature he could master.”
+
+There being no tree conveniently near to which they could string up the
+dead bear, the guides decided to leave the ugly matter of skinning and
+dissecting him for morning light. The excited party returned to camp,
+but not to sleep. They built up their scattered fire, squatted round
+it, and discoursed of the night’s adventure until a clear dawn-gleam
+brightened the eastern sky. Then Uncle Eb and Joe started out again
+across the _brûlée_. They reappeared before breakfast-time, bringing
+Bruin’s skin and a goodly portion of his meat.
+
+Joe laid the hide at Neal’s feet.
+
+“There, boy,” he said, “the skin is yours. It belongs rightly to the
+man who killed the bear; and I guess the brute wasn’t mortally hurt at
+all till your bullet nipped him in the neck.”
+
+“But what about the fifteen dollars from that New York man, Joe? You’ll
+lose it,” faltered young Farrar, with a triumphant heart-leap at the
+thought of taking this trophy back to England, but loath to profit by
+the woodsman’s generosity.
+
+“Don’t you bother about that; let it go,” answered Joe, whose business
+of guiding was profitable enough for him. “’Tain’t enough for the skin,
+anyhow. Nary a finer one has been taken out o’ Maine in the last five
+years; and mighty lucky you Britishers were to git a chance of a
+bear-hunt at all. Old Bruin must have been powerful hungry to come
+around our camp.”
+
+There was a grand breakfast before the travellers broke camp that
+morning. The guides and Doc—who had got accustomed to the luxury during
+visits to settlers and lumber-camps—feasted off bear-steaks. Cyrus and
+the boys, American and English, declined to touch it. The whole
+appearance of Bruin as he lay stretched on the ground the night before
+made their “department of the interior” revolt against it.
+
+When a start was made for the settlement, Joe bundled up the skin, and,
+as a tribute of respect to Neal’s “game blood,” carried it, in addition
+to his heavy pack, for a distance of four miles over the desolate
+_brûlée_ and across a soft, miry bog. On reaching the farm clearing, he
+cut the stem of a tall cedar bush, which he bent into the shape of a
+hoop, binding the ends together with cedar bark. He then pricked holes
+all around the edges of the hide with the sharp point of his
+hunting-knife, stretched it to its full extent, and fastened it to the
+hoop, which he hung up to a tree near the settler’s cabin, telling Neal
+that in a few days it would be dry enough to pack away in a bag.
+
+But as it was a cumbersome article to carry while tramping a dozen
+miles farther to the camp on Millinokett Lake, the farmer offered to
+take charge of it for its owner until he passed that way again on his
+return journey; an offer which Neal thankfully accepted. The old
+backwoodsman was, truth to tell, delighted to see hanging up near his
+cabin door the skin of an enemy who had ofttimes plundered him so
+unmercifully.
+
+He made the travellers royally welcome, let them have the roomy kitchen
+of his log shanty to sleep in, with a soft bed of hay. Here he lay with
+them, while his wife and sickly little girl occupied an adjoining space
+about twelve feet square, which had been boarded off. This was all the
+accommodation the log home afforded.
+
+The forest child was a puzzle to the lads. To them she looked as if the
+soul of a grandmother had taken possession of a thin, long-limbed body
+which ought to belong to a girl of ten. Her pinched features and
+over-wise eyes told a tale of suffering, and so did her high-pitched,
+quivering voice, as it made elfishly sharp remarks about the boys until
+they blenched before her.
+
+This was the little one of whom the doctor had said “that she fretted
+if he did not come to see her once in a while.” And with Doc she was a
+different being. Her voice softened, her eyes became childlike, and
+thin tinkles of laughter broke from her as she clung to him, and
+received certain presents of medicines and picture-books which he had
+brought for her in a corner of his knapsack.
+
+For two nights the travellers slept in a row on their hay bed; for two
+long-remembered days the five boys roamed the country round the
+clearing, starting deer, catching glimpses of a wildcat, a marten or
+two, and of another coon. Then came, to use Dol’s expression, “the
+beastly nuisance of saying good-by.”
+
+Dr. Phil was obliged to return to Greenville; and he declared that now
+he must surely start his nephews homeward, for Royal expected to
+graduate from the High School during the following year, and to let him
+waste more time from study would be questionable kindness. Joe Flint of
+course would go back with his party. And here Cyrus paid Uncle Eb’s
+fees for guiding, and dismissed him too.
+
+Only a dozen miles of tolerably easy travelling now separated Garst and
+his English comrades from the camp on Millinokett Lake, where they were
+to meet the redoubtable Herb Heal. The settler, knowing this tract of
+country as thoroughly as he knew his own few fields, offered to lead
+our trio for the first half of their onward march; and as they could
+follow a plain trail for the remainder of the
+way, they had no further need of their guide’s services. They promised
+to visit Eb at his bark hut on their return journey, to bid him a final
+farewell, and hear one more stave of:—
+
+“Ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!”
+
+
+“Good-by, you lucky fellows!” said Royal Sinclair huskily, as he
+gripped Neal’s hand, then Dol’s, in a brotherly squeeze when the hour
+of parting came. “I wish I was going on with you. We’ve had a stunning
+good time together, haven’t we? And we’ll run across each other in
+these woods some time or other again, I know! You’ll never feel
+satisfied to stay in England, where there’s nothing to hunt but hares
+and foxes, after chasing bears and moose.”
+
+“Oh! we’ll come out here again, depend upon it,” answered Neal. “Drop
+me a line occasionally, won’t you, Roy? Here’s our Manchester address.”
+
+“I will, if you’ll do the same.”
+
+“Agreed. Good-by again, old fellow!”
+
+“I’ve got the slip of birch-bark and the horn safe in my knapsack,
+Doc,” Dol was saying meanwhile, feeling his eyes getting leaky as he
+bade farewell to the doctor. “I—I’ll keep them as long as I live.”
+
+Doctor Phil had been as good as his word. He had made Joe rip the slip
+of white bark, with the rude writing on it, off the pine-tree near the
+swamp, and had presented it to Dol ere the boy quitted his camp.
+
+“Well, confusion to partings anyhow!” broke in Joe. “Don’t like ’em a
+bit. Hope you’ll get that bear-skin safe to England, Neal. When you
+show it to your folks at home, tell ’em Joe Flint said he knew one
+Britisher who would make a woodsman if he got a chance. Don’t you
+forgit it.”
+
+“Good-by,” said the doctor, as he clasped in turn the hands of the
+departing three. “Good luck to you, boys! Keep your souls as straight
+as your bodies, and you’ll be a trio worth knowing. We’ll meet again
+some day; I’m sure of it.”
+
+Martin and Will were chirping farewells, and lamenting that they would
+have no more chances of studying water-snakes in sedgy pools with Dol.
+Amid cheers and waving of hats the campers separated.
+
+“Forward, Company Three!” cried Cyrus encouragingly, stepping briskly
+ahead, his comrades following. “Now for a sight of the ‘Jabberwock’ of
+the forest, the mighty moose. Hurrah for the wild woods and all
+woodsmen!”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIV. A Lucky Hunter
+
+
+Amid cracking of jokes, and noise which would have disgraced a squad of
+Indians, “Company Three,” as Cyrus dubbed his reduced band, reached the
+crowning-point of their journey, the log camp on the shore of
+Millinokett Lake.
+
+During the first half-dozen miles of the way, though each one manfully
+did his best to be lively, a sense of loss made their fun flat and
+pointless. Royal’s tear-away tongue, his brothers’ racket, Joe’s racy
+talk, Uncle Eb’s kind, dark face, and more than all, Doc’s
+companionship, which was as tonic to the hearts of those who travelled
+with him, were missed.
+
+But spirits must be elastic in forest air. When they halted at noon to
+eat their “snack” on the side of a breezy knoll, with a tiny brook
+purling through a pine grove beneath them, with Katahdin’s rugged sides
+and cloud-veiled peaks looming in majesty to the north, the thought of
+what lay behind was inevitably lost in what lay before. Enthusiasm
+replaced depression.
+
+“It’s no use grizzling because we can’t have those fellows with us all
+the time,” remarked Neal philosophically. “’Twas a big piece of luck
+our running against them at all. And I’ve a sort of feeling that this
+won’t be the end of it; we’ll come across them again some day or
+other.”
+
+“And at all events we’ll probably get a sight of Doc at Greenville as
+we go back,” said Dol, to whom this was no small comfort.
+
+“Well, needless to say, I’d have been glad of their company for the
+rest of the trip. But still, if they had taken a notion to come on with
+us, it would have reduced to nothing our chances of seeing a moose.
+We’re a big party already for moose-calling or stalking—three of us,
+with Herb;” this from Cyrus.
+
+“Now, fellows, don’t you think we’d better get a move on us?” added the
+leader. “We’ve half a dozen miles to do yet; but the trail begins right
+here, and is clearly blazed all the way to our camp. Let’s keep a stiff
+upper lip, and the journey will soon be over.”
+
+It was very delightful to sit there in the crisp October air, with the
+brook seemingly humming tender legends of the woods, which witless men
+could not translate, with an uncertain breeze playing through the newly
+fallen maple-leaves, now turning them one by one in lazy curiosity,
+then of a sudden making them caper and swirl in a scarlet
+merry-go-round. Still, the young Farrars were not loath to move on. Now
+that they were nearing the climax of their journey, their minds were
+full of Herb Heal. Their longing to meet this lucky hunter grew with
+each mile which drew them nearer to him.
+
+They pressed hard after their leader, looking neither right nor left,
+while he carefully followed the trail; and one hour’s tramping brought
+them to the shores of Millinokett Lake.
+
+Here, despite their eagerness to reach their new camp, they were forced
+to stop and admire the great sheet of forest-bound water, smiling back
+the sky in tints of turquoise and pearl, dotted with apparently
+countless islets, like specks upon the face of a mirror.
+
+The irregular shores of the lake were broken by “logons,” narrow little
+bays curving into the land, shining arms of water, sometimes bordered
+by evergreens, sometimes by graceful poplars and birches. From the
+opposite bank the woods stretched away in undulating waves of ridge and
+valley to the foot of Mount Katahdin, which still showed grandly to the
+northward.
+
+“Millinokett Lake,” said Cyrus, prolonging the syllables with a soft,
+liquid sound. “It’s an Indian name, boys; it signifies ‘Lake of
+Islands.’ Whatever else the red men can boast of, the music of their
+names is unequalled. I don’t know exactly how many of those islets
+there are, but I believe Millinokett has over two hundred of them
+anyhow. Our camp is on the western shore. Shall we be moving?”
+
+After skirting the water for another mile or two, the travellers
+reached a broad, open tract, bare of timber. At the farther end of this
+clearing were two log cabins, low, but very roomy, situated at a
+distance of a few hundred yards from the lake, with a background of
+splendid firs and spruces, the lively green of the latter making the
+former look black in contrast.
+
+“Is that our camp? How perfectly glorious!” boomed Neal and Dol
+together.
+
+“It’s our camp, sure enough,” answered Garst, with no less enthusiasm.
+“At least the first cabin will be ours. I don’t know whether there are
+any hunters in the other one just now.”
+
+The log shanties had been put up by an enterprising settler to
+accommodate sportsmen who might penetrate to this far part of the wilds
+in search of moose or caribou. Cyrus had arranged for the use of one
+during the months of October and November. Here it was that Herb Heal
+had engaged to await him. And as he had commissioned this famous guide
+to stock the camp with all such provisions as could be procured from
+neighboring settlements, such as flour, potatoes, pork, etc., he
+expected to slide into the lap of luxury.
+
+In one sense he did. When the trio, their hearts thumping with
+anticipation, reached the low door of the first cabin, they found it
+securely fastened on the outside, so that no burglar-beast could force
+an entrance, but easily opened by man. Cyrus hurriedly undid the bolts,
+and stepped under the log roof, followed by his comrades. The camp was
+in beautiful order, clean, well-stocked, and provided with primitive
+comforts. An enticing-looking bed of fresh fir-boughs was arranged in a
+sort of rude bunk which extended along one side of the cabin, having a
+head-board and foot-board. The latter was fitted to form a bench as
+well. A man might perch on it, and stretch his toes to the fire in the
+great stone fireplace only two feet distant.
+
+The boys could well imagine that this would make an ideal seat for a
+hunter at night, where he might lazily fill his pipe and tell big
+yarns, while the winter storm howled outside, and snow-flurries drifted
+against his log walls. But they looked at it wistfully now, for it was
+empty. There was no figure of a moccasined forest hero on bench or in
+bunk. There was no Herb Heal.
+
+“Bless the fellow! Where on earth is he?” Garst exclaimed. “He’s been
+here, you see, and has the camp provisioned and ready. Perhaps he’s
+only prowling about in the woods near. I’ll give him a ‘Coo-hoo!’”
+
+
+Illustration: “Herb Heal.”
+
+
+He stepped forth from the cabin to the middle of the clearing, and sent
+his voice ringing out in a distance-piercing hail. He loaded his rifle
+and blazed away with it, firing a volley of signal-shots.
+
+Neither shout nor shots brought him any answer.
+
+The second cabin was likewise empty, and, judging from the withered
+remains of a bed, had evidently been long unused.
+
+“Well, fellows!” said the leader, with manifest chagrin, “we’ll only
+have to fix up something to eat, make ourselves comfortable, and wait
+patiently until our guide puts in an appearance. Herb Heal never broke
+an engagement yet. He’s as faithful a fellow as ever made camp or
+spotted a trail in these forests. And he promised to wait for me here
+from the first of October, as it was uncertain when I might arrive. I’m
+mighty hungry. Who’ll go and fetch some water from the lake while I
+turn cook?”
+
+Dol volunteered for this business, and brought a kettle from the cabin.
+He found it near the hearth, on which a fire still flickered, side by
+side with a frying-pan and various articles of tinware. Cyrus rolled up
+his sleeves, took the canisters of tea and coffee with other small
+stores from his knapsack, proceeded to mix a batter for flapjacks, and
+showed himself to be a genius with the pan.
+
+The meal was soon ready. The food might be a little salt and greasy;
+but camp-hunger, after a tramp of a dozen miles, is not dulled by such
+trifles. The trio ate joyously, washing the fare down with big draughts
+of tea, rather fussily prepared by Neal, which might have “done credit
+to many a Boston woman’s afternoon tea-table”—so young Garst said.
+
+Yet from time to time longing looks were cast at the low camp-door. And
+when daylight waned, when stars began to glint in a sky which was a
+mixture of soft grays and downy whites like a dove’s plumage, when the
+islets on Millinokett’s bosom became black dots on a slate-gray sheet,
+and no laden hunter with rifle and game put in an appearance, even
+Cyrus became fidgety and anxious.
+
+“I hope the fellow hasn’t come to grief somewhere in the woods,” he
+said, while a shiver of apprehension shot down his back. “But Herb has
+had so many hairbreadth escapes that I believe the animal has yet to be
+born which could get the better of him. And he can find his way
+anywhere without a compass. Every handful of moss on a trunk or stone,
+every turn of a woodland stream, every sun-ray which strikes him
+through the trees, every glimpse of the stars at night, has a meaning
+for him. He reads the forest like a book. No fear of his getting lost
+anyhow. Come, boys, I guess we’d better build up our fire, make things
+snug for the night, and turn in.”
+
+Rather dejectedly the trio set about these preparations. In twenty
+minutes’ time they were stretched side by side in the wide bunk, with
+their blankets cuddled round them, already venting random snores.
+
+“Hello! So you’ve got here at last, have you?”
+
+The exclamations were loud and snappy, and awoke the sleeping campers
+like the banging of rifle-shots. With jumping pulses they sprang up,
+feeling a wave of cold air sweep their faces; for the cabin-door, which
+they had closed ere lying down, was now ajar.
+
+The camp was almost in darkness. Only one dull, red ray stole out from
+the fire, on which fresh logs had been piled. But while the young
+Farrars rubbed their sleep-dimmed eyes, and slowly realized that the
+woodsman whom they had been expecting had at last arrived, a strangely
+brilliant illumination lit up the log walls.
+
+This sudden and bewildering light showed them the figure of a hunter in
+mud-spattered gray trousers, with coarse woollen stockings of lighter
+hue drawn over them above his buckskin moccasins. His battered felt hat
+was pushed back from his forehead, a guide’s leathern wallet was slung
+round him, and the rough, clinging jersey he wore, being stretched so
+tightly over his swelling muscles that its yarn could not hold
+together, had a rent on one shoulder.
+
+His slate-gray eyes with jetty pupils, which were miniatures of
+Millinokett Lake at this hour, gazed at the awakened trio in the bunk,
+with a gleam of light shooting athwart them, like a moonbeam crossing
+the face of the lake.
+
+The hunter held in his hand a big roll of the inflammable paper-like
+bark of the white birch-tree, which he had brought in with him to
+kindle his fire, expecting that it had gone out during his absence.
+Seeing a glow still on the hearth, and feeling instantly that the cabin
+was tenanted, he had applied a match to his bark, causing the vivid
+flare which revealed him to the eyes of those who had longed for his
+presence.
+
+“Herb Heal, man, is it you?” shouted Cyrus, his voice like a midnight
+joy-chime, as he sprang from the fir-boughs and gripped the woodsman’s
+arm. “I’m delighted to see you, though I was ready to swear you
+wouldn’t disappoint us! I didn’t fasten the cabin-door, for I thought
+you might possibly get back to camp during the night.”
+
+“Cyrus, old fellow, how goes it?” was Herb’s greeting. “I had a’most
+given up looking for you. But I’m powerful glad you’ve got here at
+last.”
+
+The hunter’s voice had still the quick snap and force which made it
+startling as a rifleshot when he entered the cabin.
+
+“These are my friends, Neal and Adolphus Farrar,” said Cyrus,
+introducing the blanketed youths, who had now risen to their feet.
+“Boys, this is Herb Heal, our new guide, christened Herbert Healy—isn’t
+that so, Herb?”
+
+“I reckon it is;” answered the young hunter, laughing. “But no woodsman
+could spring a sugary, city-sounding name like that on me. I’ve been
+Herb Heal from the day I could handle a rifle.”
+
+He nodded pleasantly as he spoke to the strange lads, and began to chat
+with them in prompt familiarity, looking straight and strong as a young
+pine-tree in the halo of his birch torch. Garst, whose inches his
+juniors had hitherto coveted, was but a stripling beside Herb Heal.
+
+“Is this your first trip into Maine woods, younkers?” he asked. “Well,
+I guess you’ve come to the right place for sport. I’m sorry I wasn’t on
+hand to welcome you when you arrived. A pretty forest guide you must
+have thought me. But I guess I’ll show you a sight to-morrow that’ll
+wipe out all scores.”
+
+There was such triumph in the hunter’s eye that the voices of the trio
+blended into one as they breathlessly asked,—
+
+“What sight is it?”
+
+“A dead king o’ the woods, boys,” answered Herb Heal, his voice
+vibrating. “A fine young bull-moose, as sure as this is a land of
+liberty. I dropped him by a logon on the east bank of Fir Pond, about
+four miles from here. I started out early, hoping to nab a deer; for I
+had no fresh meat left, and I didn’t want to have a bare larder when
+you fellows came along. But the woods were awful still. There didn’t
+seem to be anything bigger than a field-mouse travelling. Then all of a
+sudden I heard a tormented grunting, and the moose came tearing right
+onto me. I was to leeward of him, so he couldn’t get my scent. A man’s
+gun doesn’t take long to fly into position at such times, and I dropped
+him with two shots. There he lies now by the water, for I couldn’t get
+him back to camp till morning. He’s not full-grown; but he’s a fine
+fellow for all that, and has a dandy pair of antlers. By George! I’d
+give the biggest guide’s fees I ever got if you fellows had been there
+to hear him striking the trees with ’em as he tore along. He was a
+buster.
+
+“But you’ll see him to-morrow anyhow, and have a taste of moose-meat
+for the first time in your lives, I guess.”
+
+Here Herb waved the fag-end of his bark roll, threw it down as it
+scorched his horny fingers, and stamped upon it.
+
+The interior of the log cabin, ere it was extinguished, was a scene for
+a painter,—the lithe, muscular figure, tanned face, and gleaming eyes
+of the lucky hunter shown by the flare of his birch torch, and the
+three staring listeners, with blankets draped about them, who feared to
+miss one point of his story.
+
+Cyrus was grinding his teeth in vexation that he had narrowly missed
+seeing the moose alive. The two Farrars were burning with excitement at
+the thought of beholding the monarch of the forest at all, even in
+death. For they had heard enough wood-lore to know that the bull-moose,
+with his extreme caution, is like a tantalizing phantom to hunters.
+Continually he lures them to disappointment by his uncouth noises, or
+by a sight of his freshly made tracks, while his sensitive ears and
+super-sensitive nose, which can discriminate between the smell of man
+and every other smell on earth, will generally lead him off like a
+wind-gust before man gets a sight of him.
+
+“I’m sorry to keep you awake, boys,” said Herb Heal, making for the
+fire, after he had finished his story; “but I haven’t had a bite since
+morning, and I’m that hungry I could chaw my moccasins. I’ll get
+something to eat, and then we’ll turn in. We’ll have mighty hard work
+to-morrow, getting the moose to camp.”
+
+Herb was not long in making ready the stereotyped camp-fare of
+flapjacks and pork. To light his preparations, he took a candle out of
+a precious bundle which he had brought from a town a hundred miles
+distant, and set it in a primitive candlestick. This was simply a long
+stick of white spruce wood, one end of which was pointed, and stuck
+into the ground; the other was split, and into it the candle was
+inserted, the elasticity of the fresh wood keeping the light in place.
+
+The tired hunter did not dawdle over his supper. In a quarter of an
+hour he had finished it, and was building up the fire again. Then he
+stretched himself beside the trio in the rude bunk, drawing one thin
+blanket over him. Neal, who lay on his right, was conscious of some
+prickings of excitement at having such a bedfellow on the
+fir-boughs,—the camper’s couch which levels all. There flashed upon the
+fair-haired English boy a remembrance of how Cyrus had once said that
+“in the woods manhood is the only passport.” He thought that, measured
+by this standard, Herb Heal had truly a royal charter, and might be a
+president of the forest land; for he looked as free, strong, and
+unconquerable as the forest wind.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XV. A Fallen King
+
+
+The hunter was the only one who slept soundly that night on the
+fragrant boughs. Nevertheless, the moose was on his mind. Again in his
+dreams he imagined himself back by the quiet, shining logon, listening
+to the ring of the antlers as they struck the trees, and to the heaving
+snorts and deep grunts of the noble game as it tore through the forest
+to its death.
+
+The moose was on the minds of his companions too. Again and again they
+awoke, and pictured him lying by the pond, where he had fallen,—a dead
+monarch. They tossed and grumbled, longing for day.
+
+Neal and Dol surprised themselves and their elders by being up and
+dressed shortly after five, before a streak of light had entered the
+cabin. But their guide was not much behind them. Herb had the camp-fire
+going well, and was preparing breakfast before six o’clock. The campers
+tucked away a substantial meal of fried pork, potatoes, and coffee. The
+first glories of the young sun fell on their way as they started across
+the clearing and away through the woods beyond, towards the distant
+pond where the hunter had got his moose.
+
+Lying amid the small growth and grasses, by a lonely, glinting logon,
+they found the conquered king, sleeping that sleep from which never sun
+again would wake him. A bullet-hole, crusted with dark blood, showed in
+his side. The slim legs were bent and stiff, and the mighty forefeet
+could no more strike a ripping blow which would end a man’s hunting
+forever. The antlers which had made the forest ring were powerless
+horn.
+
+“Do you know, boys,” said Herb, as he stooped and touched them,
+fingering each prong, “I’ve hunted moose in fall and winter since I was
+first introduced to a rifle. I’ve still-hunted ’em, called ’em, and
+followed ’em on snowshoes; but I never felt so thundering mean about
+killing an animal as I did about dropping this fellow. After his antics
+in the woods, when he tramped out onto the open patch where I was
+waiting under cover of those shrubs, I popped up and covered him with
+my Winchester. He just raised the hair on his back and looked at me,
+with a way wild animals sometimes have, as if I was a bad riddle. Like
+as not he’d never seen a human being before, and a moose’s eyes ain’t
+good for much as danger-signals. It’s only when he hears or smells
+mischief that he gets mad scared.
+
+
+Illustration: A Fallen King.
+
+
+“Well, I was out for meat, and bound to have it; so I pulled the
+trigger, and killed him with two shots. When the first bullet stung him
+he reared up, making a sharp noise like a wounded horse. Then he swung
+round as if to bolt; but the second went straight through his heart,
+and he fell where you see him now. I made sure that he was past
+kicking, and crept close to his head, thinking he was dead. He wasn’t
+quite gone, though; for he saw me, and laid back his ears, the last
+pitiful sign a moose makes when a hunter gets the better of him. I tell
+you it made me feel bad—just for a minute. I’ve got my moose for this
+season, and I’m sort o’ glad that the law won’t let me kill another
+unless it’s a life-saving matter.”
+
+“How tall should you say this fellow was when alive?” asked Cyrus,
+stroking the creature’s shaggy hair, which was a rusty black in color.
+
+“Oh! I guess he stood about as high as a good-sized pony. But I’ve shot
+moose which were taller than any horse. The biggest one I ever killed
+measured between seven and eight feet from the points of his hoofs to
+his shoulders, and the antlers were four feet and nine inches from tip
+to tip. He was a monster—a regular jing-swizzler! A mighty queer way I
+got him too! I’ll tell you all about it some other time.”
+
+“Oh! you must,” answered Garst. “You’ll have to give us no end of
+moose-talk by the camp-fire of evenings. These English fellows want to
+learn all they can about the finest game on our continent before they
+go home.”
+
+“Why, for evermore!” gasped Herb, in broad amazement. “Are you
+Britishers? And have you crossed the ocean to chase moose in Maine
+woods? My word! You’re a gamy pair of kids. We’ll have to try to
+accommodate you with a sight of a moose at any rate—a live one.”
+
+Though they would gladly have appropriated the compliment, the “gamy
+kids” were obliged to acknowledge that hunting had not been in their
+thoughts when they traversed the Atlantic. But they avowed that they
+were the luckiest fellows alive, and that the American forest-land,
+with its camps and trails and wild offspring, was such a glorious old
+playground that they would never stop singing its praises until a swarm
+of boys from English soil had tasted the novel pleasures which they
+enjoyed.
+
+“Now, then, gentlemen!” said the guide, “I haven’t much idea that we’ll
+be able to haul this moose along to camp whole. If I skin and dress him
+here, are you all ready to help in carrying home the meat?”
+
+The trio briskly expressed their willingness, and Herb began the
+dissecting business; while from a tree near by that strange bird which
+hunters call the “moose-bird” screamed its shrill “What cheer? What
+cheer?” with ceaseless persistence.
+
+“Oh, hold your noise, you squalling thing!” said the guide, answering
+it back. “It’s good cheer this time. We’ll have a feast of moose-meat
+to-night, and there’ll be pickings for you.”
+
+He then explained, for the benefit of the English lads, that this bird,
+whose cry is startlingly like the hunters’ translation of it, haunts
+the spot where a moose has been killed, waiting greedily for its meal
+off the creature after men have taken their share of the meat. Herb
+declared that it had often followed him for hours while he was
+stealthily tracking a moose, to be in at the death. And now it kept up
+the din of its unceasing question until he had finished his
+disagreeable work.
+
+As the party started back to camp, each one weighted with forty pounds
+or more of meat, Herb carrying a double portion, with the antlers
+hooked upon his shoulders, they heard the moose-bird still insatiably
+shrieking “What cheer?” over its meal.
+
+“Say, boys,” said the guide, as he stalked along with his heavy load,
+never blenching, “if you want to get a pair o’ moose-antlers, now’s
+your time. I ain’t a-going to sell these, but I’ll give ’em outright to
+the first fellow who can learn to call a moose successfully while he’s
+hunting with me. I know what sort of sportsman Cyrus Garst is. He’ll go
+prowling through the woods, starting moose and coolly letting ’em get
+off without spilling a drop of blood, while he’s watching the length of
+their steps. I b’lieve he’d be a sight prouder of seeing one crunch a
+root than if he got the finest head in Maine. So here’s your chance for
+a trophy, boys. I guess ’twill be your only one.”
+
+“Hurrah! I’m in for this game!” cried Neal.
+
+“I too,” said Cyrus.
+
+“I’m in for it with a vengeance!” whooped Dol. “Though I’m blessed if
+I’ve a notion what ‘calling a moose’ means.”
+
+“How much have you larned, anyhow, Kid, in the bit o’ time you’ve been
+alive?” asked the woodsman, with good-humored sarcasm.
+
+“Enough to make my fists talk to anybody who thinks I’m a duffer,”
+answered Dol, squaring his shoulders as if to make the most of himself.
+
+“Good for you, young England!” laughed Cyrus.
+
+Herb turned his eyes, and regarded the juvenile Adolphus with amused
+criticism.
+
+“Britisher or no Britisher, I’ll allow you’re a little man,” he
+muttered. “Keep a stiff upper lip, boys; we’re not far from camp now.”
+
+A word of cheer was needed. Not one of the trio had growled at their
+load, but the flannel shirts of the two Farrars clung wetly to their
+bodies. Their breath was coming in hard puffs through spread nostrils.
+A four-mile tramp through the woods, heavily laden with raw meat, was a
+novel but not an altogether delightful experience.
+
+However, the smell of moose-steak frying over their camp-fire later on
+fully compensated them for acting as butcher’s boys. When the taste as
+well as the smell had been enjoyed, the rest which followed by the
+blazing birch-logs that evening was so full of bliss that each camper
+felt as if existence had at last drifted to a point of superb content.
+
+Their camp-door stood open for ventilation; and a keen touch of frost,
+mingling with the night air which entered, made the fragrant warmth
+delightful.
+
+When supper was ended, and the tin vessels from which it had been
+eaten, together with all camp utensils, were duly cleaned, Herb seated
+himself on the middle of the bench, which he called “the deacon’s
+seat,” and luxuriously lit his oldest pipe. His brawny hands had
+performed every duty connected with the meal as deftly and neatly as
+those of a delicate-fingered woman.
+
+“Well, for downright solid comfort, boys, give me a cosey camp-fire in
+the wilderness, when a fellow is tired out after a good day’s outing.
+City life can offer nothing to touch it,” said Cyrus, as he spread his
+blankets near the cheerful blaze, and sprawled himself upon them.
+
+Neal and Dol followed his example. The three looked up at their guide,
+on whose weather-tanned face the fire shed wavering lights, in lazy
+expectation.
+
+“Now, Herb,” said Garst, “we want to think of nothing but moose for the
+remainder of this trip; so go ahead, and give us some moose-talk
+to-night. Begin at the beginning, as the children say, and tell us
+everything you know about the animal.”
+
+Herb Heal swung himself to and fro upon his plank seat, drawing his
+pipe reflectively, and letting its smoke filter through his nostrils,
+while he prepared to answer.
+
+“Well,” he said at last, slowly, “it seems to me that a moose is a
+troublesome brute to tackle, however you take him. It’s plaguy hard for
+a hunter to get the better of him, and if it’s only knowledge you’re
+after, he’ll dodge you like a will-o’-the-wisp till you get pretty
+mixed in your notions about his habits. I guess these English fellows
+know already that he’s the largest animal of the deer tribe, or any
+other tribe, to be seen on this continent, and as grand game as can be
+found on any spot of this here earth. I hain’t had a chance to chase
+lions an’ tigers; but I’ve shot grizzlies over in Canada,—and that’s
+scarey work, you better b’lieve!—and I tell you there’s no sport
+that’ll bring out the grit and ingenuity that’s in a man like
+moose-hunting. Now, boys, ask me any questions you like, an’ I’ll try
+to answer ’em.”
+
+“You said something to-day about moose ‘crunching twigs,’” began Neal
+eagerly. “Why, I always had a hazy idea that they fed on moss
+altogether, which they dug up in the winter with their broad antlers.”
+
+“Land o’ liberty!” ejaculated the woodsman. “Where on earth do you city
+men pick up your notions about forest creatures—that’s what I’d like to
+know? A moose can’t get its horns to the ground without dropping on its
+knees; and it can’t nibble grass from the ground neither without
+sprawling out its long legs,—which for an animal of its size are as
+thin as pipe-stems,—and tumbling in a heap. So I don’t credit that yarn
+about their digging up the moss, even when there’s no other food to be
+had; though I can’t say for sure it’s not true. In summer moose feed
+about the ponds and streams, on the long grasses and lily-pads. They’re
+at home in the water, and mighty fine swimmers; so the red men say that
+they came first from the sea.
+
+“In the fall, and through the winter too, so far as I can make out,
+they eat the twigs and bark of different trees, such as white birches
+and poplars. They’re powerful fond of moose-wood—that’s what you call
+mountain ash. I guess it tastes to them like pie does to us.”
+
+“Well, Dol, I feel that you’re twitching all over with some question,”
+said Cyrus, detecting uneasy movements on the part of the younger boy
+who lay next to him. “What is it, Chick? Out with it!”
+
+“I want to hear about moose-calling,” so spoke Dol in heart-eager
+tones.
+
+The guide swung his body to the music of a jingling laugh.
+
+“Oh; that’s it; is it?” he said. “You’re stuck on winning those
+antlers; ain’t you, Dol? Well, calling is the ‘moose-hunter’s secret,’
+and it’s a secret that he don’t want to give away to every one. When a
+man is a good caller he’s kind o’ jealous about keeping the trick to
+himself. But I’ll tell you how it’s done, anyhow, and give you a lesson
+sometime. Sakes alive! if you Britishers could only take over a
+birch-bark trumpet, and give that call in England, you’d make nearly as
+much fuss as Buffalo Bill did with his cowboys and Injuns. Only ’twould
+be a onesided game, for there’d be no moose to answer.”
+
+The young Farrars were silent, breathlessly waiting for more. The
+camp-firelight showed their absorbed faces; it played upon bronzed
+cheeks, where the ruddy tints of English boyhood had been replaced by a
+duller, hardier hue. On Neal’s upper lip a fine, fair growth had
+sprouted, which looked white against his sun-tinged skin. As for Cyrus,
+he had never brought a razor into the woods since that memorable trip
+when the bear had overhauled his knapsack; so the Bostonian’s chin was
+covered with a thick black stubble.
+
+Neither of the youths, however, was at present giving a thought to his
+hirsute adornment, about which questionable compliments were frequently
+bandied. Their minds were full of moose, and their ears alert for the
+guide’s next words.
+
+“P’raps you folks don’t know,” went on the woodsman, “that there are
+four ways o’ hunting moose. The first and fairest is still-hunting ’em
+in the woods, which means following their signs, and getting a shot in
+any way you can, _if_ you can. But that’s a stiff ‘if’ to a hunter.
+Nine times out o’ ten a moose will baffle him and get off unhurt, even
+when a man has tracked him for days, camping on his trail o’ nights.
+The snapping of a twig not the size of my little finger, or one
+tramping step, and the moose’ll take warning. He’ll light out o’ the
+way as silently as a red man in moccasins, and the hunter won’t even
+know he’s gone.
+
+“The second way is night-hunting, going after ’em in a canoe with a
+jack-light; same thing as jacking for deer. I guess you’ve tried that,
+so you’ll know what it’s like—skeery kind o’ work.”
+
+Neal nodded an eloquent assent, and Herb went on:—
+
+“The third method is a dog’s trick. It’s following ’em on snowshoes
+over deep snow. I’ve tried that once, and I’m blamed if I’ll ever try
+it again. It’s butchery, not sport. The crust of snow will be strong
+enough for a man to run on, but it can’t support the heavy moose. The
+creature’ll go smashing through it and struggling out, until its slim
+legs are a sight to see for cuts and blood. Soon it gets blowed, and
+can stumble no farther. Then the hunter finishes it with an axe.”
+
+Disgust thickened the voices of the listening three, as with one accord
+they raised an outcry against this cruel way of butchering a game
+animal, without giving it a single chance for its life. When their
+indignation had subsided, the hunter went on to describe the fourth and
+last method of entrapping moose—the calling in which Dol was so
+interested.
+
+“P’raps you won’t think this is fair hunting either,” he said; “for
+it’s a trick, and I’ll allow that there’s times when it seems a pretty
+mean game. Anyhow, I’d rather kill one moose by still-hunting than six
+by calling. But if you want to try work that’ll make your blood race
+through your body like a torrent one minute, and turn you as cold as if
+your sweat was ice-water the next, you go in for moose-calling. I guess
+you know all about the matter, Cyrus; but as these Britishers do not,
+I’ll try and explain it to’ em.
+
+“Early in September the moose come up from the low, swampy lands where
+they have spent the summer alone, and begin to pair. Then the
+bull-moose, as we call the male, which is generally the most wide-awake
+of forest creatures, loses some of his big caution, an’ goes roaming
+through the woods, looking for a mate. This is the time for fooling
+him. The hunter makes a horn out o’ birch-bark, somewheres about
+eighteen inches long, through which he mimics the call of the
+cow-moose, to coax the bull within reach of his rifle-shots.”
+
+“What is the call like?” asked Neal, his heart thumping while he
+remembered that strange noise which had marked a new era in his
+experience of sounds, as he listened to it at midnight by Squaw Pond.
+
+“Sho! a man might keep jawing till crack o’ doom, and not give you any
+idea of it without you heard it,” answered Herb Heal, the dare-all
+moose-hunter. “The noise begins sort o’ gently, like the lowing of a
+tame cow. It seems, if you’re listening to it, to come
+rolling—rolling—along the ground. Then it rises in pitch, and gets
+impatient and lonely and wild-like, till you think it fills the air
+above you, when it sinks again and dies away in a queer, quavery sound
+that ain’t a sigh, nor a groan, nor a grunt, but all three together.
+
+“The call is mostly repeated three times; and the third time it ends
+with a mad roar as if the lady-moose was saying to her mate, ‘_Come_
+now, or stay away altogether!’”
+
+“Joe Flint was right, then!” exclaimed Neal, in high excitement.
+“That’s the very noise I heard in the woods near Squaw Pond, on the
+night when we were jacking for deer, and our canoe capsized.”
+
+“P’raps it was,” answered Herb, “though the woods near Squaw Pond ain’t
+much good for moose now. They’re too full of hunters. Still, you might
+have heard the cow-moose herself calling, or some man who had come
+across the tracks of a bull imitating her.”
+
+“But if the bull has such sharp ears, can’t he tell the real call from
+the sham one?” asked Dol.
+
+“Lots of times he can. But if the hunter is an old woodsman and a
+clever caller, he’ll generally fool the animal, unless he makes some
+awkward noise that isn’t in the game, or else the moose gets his scent
+on the breeze. One whiff of a man will send the creature off like a
+wind-gust, and earthquakes wouldn’t stop him. And though he sneaks away
+so silently when he _hears_ anything suspicious, yet when he _smells_
+danger he’ll go through the forest at a thundering rush, making as much
+noise as a demented fire-brigade.”
+
+“Good gracious!” ejaculated Neal and Dol together.
+
+“Is the moose ever dangerous, Herb?” asked the former.
+
+“I guess he is pretty often. Sometimes a bull-moose will turn on a
+hunter, and make at him full tilt, if he’s in danger or finds himself
+tricked. And he’ll always fight like fury to protect his mate from any
+enemy. The bulls have awful big duels between themselves occasionally.
+When they’re real mad, they don’t stop for a few wounds. They prod each
+other with their terrible brow antlers till one or the other of ’em is
+stretched dead. If a moose ever charges you, boys, take my advice, and
+don’t try to face him with your rifles. Half a dozen shots mightn’t
+stop him. Make for the nearest tree, and climb for your lives. Fire
+down on him then, if you can. But once let him get a kick at you with
+his forefeet, and one thing is sure—_you’ll_ never kick again. Are you
+tired of moose-talk yet?”
+
+“Not by a jugful!” answered Cyrus, laughing. “But tell us, Herb, how
+are we to proceed to get a sight of this ‘Jabberwock’ alive?”
+
+“If to-morrow night happens to be dead calm, I might try to call one
+up,” answered the guide. “There’s a pretty good calling-place near the
+south end of the lake. As this is the height of the season, we might
+get an answer there. We’ll try it, anyhow, if you’re willing.”
+
+“Willing! I should say we are!” answered Garst. “You’re our captain
+now, Herb, and it’s a case of ‘Follow my leader!’ Take us anywhere you
+like, through jungles or mud-swamps. We won’t kick at hardships if we
+can only get a good look at his mooseship. Up to the present, except
+for that one moonlight peep, he has always dodged me like a phantom.”
+
+“Are you going to be satisfied with a look?” The guide’s eyes narrowed
+into two long slits, on which the firelight quivered, as he gazed
+quizzically down upon Cyrus. “If the moose comes within reach of our
+shots, ain’t anybody going to pump lead into him? Or is he to get off
+again scot-free? I’ve got my moose for this season, and I darsn’t send
+my bullets through the law by dropping another, so I can’t do the
+shooting.”
+
+“My friends can please themselves,” said the Bostonian, glancing at the
+English lads. “For my own part I’ll be better pleased if Mr. Moose
+manages to keep a whole skin. Our grand game is getting scarce enough;
+I don’t want to lessen it. I once saw the last persecuted deer in a
+county, after it had been badgered and wounded by men and dogs, limp
+off to die alone in its native haunts. The sight cured me of
+bloodthirst.”
+
+“I guess ’twould be enough to cure any man,” responded Herb. “And we
+don’t want meat, so this time we won’t shoot our moose after we’ve
+tricked him. Good land! I wouldn’t like any fellow to imitate the call
+of my best girl, that he might put a bullet through me. Come, boys,
+it’s pretty late; let’s fix our fire, and turn in.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVI. Moose-Calling
+
+
+Nothing was talked about among the campers on the following day but the
+forthcoming sport of the evening—moose-calling.
+
+Herb Heal had decided that his call should be given from the water, his
+“good calling-place” being an alder-fringed logon at the loneliest
+extremity of the lake.
+
+During the afternoon he took Neal and Dol with him into a grove of
+poplars and birches which bordered one end of the clearing, leaving
+Cyrus lounging by the camp-fire. Here the woodsman began the exciting
+work of preparing his birch-bark horn, that primitive but potent
+trumpet through which he would sigh, groan, grunt, and roar, imitating
+each varying mood of the cow-moose. To her call he had often listened
+as he lay for hours on a mossy bed in the far depths of the forest,
+learning to interpret the language of every woodland creature.
+
+Unsheathing his hunting-knife, and selecting a sound white-birch tree,
+Herb carefully removed from it a piece of bark about eighteen inches in
+length and six in width. This he carefully trimmed, and rolled into a
+horn as a child would twist paper into a cornucopia package for sweets,
+tying it with the twine-like roots of the ground juniper. The tapering
+end of the trumpet, which would be applied to the caller’s lips,
+measured about one inch across; its mouth measured five.
+
+Returning to camp, Herb dipped the horn in warm water and then let it
+dry, saying that this would produce a mellow ring. He stoutly refused
+all appeals from the boys to give them a few illustrations of
+moose-calling there and then, with a lesson in the art, declaring that
+it would spoil the night’s sport, and that they must first hear the
+call amid proper surroundings. From time to time he impressed upon them
+that they were going to engage in an expedition which required absolute
+silence and clever stratagem to make it successful. He vowed to wreak a
+woodsman’s vengeance on any fellow who balked it by shaking the boat,
+or by moving body or rifle so as to make a noise.
+
+A light, humming breeze had been blowing all day; but as the afternoon
+waned, it died down. The evening proved clear, chilly, and still.
+
+“Is this a likely night for calling, Herb?” asked Cyrus anxiously,
+taking a survey of sky and lake from the camp-door about an hour before
+the start.
+
+“Fine,” answered Herb with satisfaction. “Guess we’ll get an answer
+sure, if there’s a moose within hearing. There ain’t a puff of wind to
+carry our scent, and give the trick away. But rig yourselves up in all
+the clothing you’ve got, boys; the cold, while we’re waiting, may be
+more than you bargain for.”
+
+The guide had a light boat on the lake, moored below the camp. At six
+o’clock he seated himself therein, taking the oars in his brawny hands.
+Cyrus and Neal took their places in the stern; while Dol disposed of
+himself snugly in the bow, right under a jack-lamp which Herb had
+carefully trimmed and lit. But he had closed its sliding door, which,
+being padded with buckskin, could be opened and shut without a sound,
+so that not a ray of light at present escaped.
+
+“Moose won’t stand to watch a jack as deer do,” he said. “Twill only
+scare ’em off. They’re a heap too cute to be taken in by an onnatural
+big star floating over the water. But ’taint the lucky side of the moon
+for us. She’ll rise late, and her light’ll be so feeble that it
+wouldn’t show us an elephant clearly if he was under our noses. So if I
+succeed in coaxing a bull to the brink of the water, I’ll open the
+jack, and flash our light on him. He’ll bolt the next minute as quick
+as greased lightning on skates; but if you only get a short sight of
+him, I promise that ’twill be one you’ll remember.”
+
+“And if he should take a notion to come for us?” said Cyrus.
+
+“He won’t, if we don’t fire. The boat will be lying among the black
+shadows, snug in by the bank, and he’ll see nothing but the dazzling
+light. But you fellows must keep still as death. Off we go now, boys,
+and mum’s the word!”
+
+This was almost the last sentence spoken. Not a syllable moved the lips
+of any one of the four, as the boat glided away from camp towards the
+south end of the lake, the oars making scarcely a sound as Herb handled
+them. By and by he ceased rowing for an instant, took his pipe from his
+mouth, knocked out its ashes, and put it in his pocket with a wise look
+at his companions, murmuring, “Don’t want no tobacco incense floating
+around!”
+
+At the same time, from a distant ridge upon the eastern shore, covered
+with evergreens which stood out like dark steeples against the evening
+sky, came a faint, dull noise, as if some belated woodsman was driving
+a blunt axe against a tree. The sound itself would scarcely have
+awakened a hope of anything unusual in the minds of the inexperienced;
+but, combined with the guide’s aspect as he pocketed his pipe, it made
+Cyrus and his comrades sit suddenly erect, listening as if ears were
+the only organs they possessed.
+
+The queer, dull noise was once repeated. Then again there was silence
+almost absolute, Herb’s oars moving with the softest swish imaginable,
+as the boat skimmed along the lonely, curved bay which he had chosen
+for a calling-place. It came to a stop amid shadows so dense and black
+that they seemed almost tangible, close to a bank fringed with
+overhanging bushes, having a background of evergreens. These last, in
+the fast-gathering darkness, looked like a sable array of mourners in
+whose ranks a pale ghost or two mingled, the spectres being slim
+white-birch trees.
+
+The opposite bank presented a similar scene.
+
+It was amid such surroundings that Neal Farrar heard for the second
+time in his life the weird sound of the moose-hunter’s call. He was a
+strong, well-balanced young fellow; yet here again he knew the
+sensation as if needles were pricking him all over, which he had felt
+once before in these wilds, while his heart seemed to be performing
+athletic sports in his body.
+
+Cyrus and Dol confessed afterwards that they were “all shivers and
+goose-flesh” as the call rose upon the night air.
+
+After he had shipped his oars, and laid them down, Herb Heal
+noiselessly turned his body to face the bow, and took up the birch-bark
+horn which lay beside him. He breathed into it anxiously once or twice,
+then paused, drew in all the air which his big lungs could contain, put
+the trumpet again to his lips with its mouth pointing downward, and
+began his summons.
+
+The first part of the call lasted half a minute, or so, without a
+break. During its execution the hunter moved his neck and shoulders
+first to the left, then to the right, and slowly raised the horn above
+his head, the rolling, plaintive sounds with which he commenced
+gathering power and pitch with the ascending motion. As the birch
+trumpet pointed straight upward, they seemed to sweep aloft in a
+surging crescendo, and boom among the tree-tops.
+
+Carrying his head again to the left and right, Herb gradually lowered
+the horn until it was once more pointed towards the bottom of the boat,
+having in its movements described in the air a big figure of eight. The
+call sank with it, and died away in a lonely, sighing, quavering grunt.
+
+Two seconds’ pause, two slow, great throbs of the boys’ hearts, so loud
+that they threatened to burst the stillness.
+
+Then the call began again, low and grumbling. Again it rose, swelled,
+quavered, and sank, full of lonely longing.
+
+A third time it surged up, and ended abruptly in a wild, ear-splitting
+roar, which struck the tops of distant hills, and rolled off in
+thunder-like echoes among them.
+
+Silence followed. Not a gasp came from Herb after his efforts. Cyrus
+and the Farrars tried to still their heaving chests, while each quick
+breath was an expectation.
+
+An answer! Surely it was an answer! The boys never doubted it; though
+the responding sound they caught was only a repetition of that far-away
+chopping noise, which resembled the heavy thud of an axe against wood.
+This came nearer—nearer. It was followed once by a sort of short, sharp
+bark.
+
+Then the motionless occupants of the boat heard random, guttural
+grunts, a smashing of dead branches, crashing of undergrowth, and the
+proud ring of mighty antlers against the trees. The lord of the forest,
+a big bull-moose, was tearing recklessly through the woods towards the
+lake, in answer to the call of his imaginary mate.
+
+To say that the hearts of our trio were performing gymnastic feats
+during these awfully silent minutes of waiting, is to say little. All
+the repressed motion of their bodies seemed concentrated in these
+organs, which raced, leaped, stopped short, and pounded, vibrating to
+such questions as:—
+
+“Will he come? Where shall we first see him? How near is he now? Does
+he suspect the trick? Will he give us the slip after all?—_Has he
+gone_?”
+
+For of a sudden dead stillness reigned in the forest. No more
+trampling, grunting, and knocking of antlers. The spirits of the three
+sank to zero. Their breathing became thick. The blood, which a moment
+before had played like wildfire in their veins, now stirred sluggishly
+as if it was freezing. Disappointment, blank and bitter, shivered
+through them from neck to foot.
+
+So passed quarter of an hour. A filmy mist rose from the surface of the
+water, and drifted by their faces like the brushing of cold wings. For
+lack of motion hand and feet felt numb. Mid the pitch-black shadows,
+snug in by the bank, no man could see the face of his fellow, though
+the trio would have given a fortune to read their guide’s. Not a word
+was spoken. Once, when a deep breath of impatience escaped him, Neal
+heard the folds of his coat rub each other, and clenched his teeth to
+stop an exclamation at the sound, which he had never noticed before.
+
+Nearly twenty minutes had elapsed since the last noise had been heard
+in the woods, when Herb took up the horn which he had laid down, and
+put it to his mouth. Again the call rolled up. It was neither loud nor
+long this time, ending with a quick, short roar.
+
+As it ceased the guide plunged his arm into the water and slowly
+withdrew it, letting drops dribble from his fingers.
+
+The novices could only suspect that this manoeuvre was another lure for
+the bull-moose, if he chanced to be still within hearing. Its success
+took their breath away.
+
+The wary bull which had answered, having doubtless harbored a suspicion
+that all was not exactly right with the first call, had halted in his
+on-coming rush, with head upreared, and nostrils spread, trying to
+catch any taint in the air which might warn him of danger. But in the
+dead calm the heavy evergreens stirred not; no whiff reached him. The
+second call upset his prudence. Then he heard that splash and dribble
+in the water, and imagined that his impatient mate was dipping her nose
+into the lake for a cool drink.
+
+A snort! A bellowing challenge quite indescribable! On he came again
+with a thundering rush!
+
+Bushes were thrashed and spurned by his sharp hoofs. Branches snapped.
+Trees echoed as his antlers struck them.
+
+A musk-rat leaped from the bank ahead, and dived to reach his hole in
+the bank. Under cover of the noisy splash which the little creature
+made, one whisper was hissed by Herb’s tongue into the ears of his
+comrades. It was:—
+
+“Gee whittaker! he’s a big one! Listen to them shovels against the
+trees!”
+
+A minute later, with a deep gulp of intense excitement, and a general
+racket as if an engine had broken loose from brakes and checks, and was
+carrying all before it, the monarch of the woods crashed through the
+alders and halted, with his hoofs in the water, scarcely thirty yards
+from where the boat lay in shadow.
+
+This was a supreme moment for our travellers. Leaning forward, fearful
+lest their heart-beats should betray them, they could barely
+distinguish the outlines of the moose, as he stood with his enormous
+nose high in air, giving vent to deep gulps and grunts, and looking to
+right and left in bewilderment for that cow which he had heard calling.
+
+For fully five minutes he stood thus, badly puzzled, now and again
+stamping a hoof, and scattering spray in rising wrath. Then Herb bent
+forward, shot out a long arm, and silently opened the jack.
+
+Meteor-like its silver light flashed forth, to reveal a sight which
+could never be wiped from the memories of the beholders, though it
+affected each of them differently.
+
+Herb Heal involuntarily gripped the loaded rifle which lay beside
+him,—he was too wary a woodsman to be unprepared for emergencies; but
+he did not cock it, for he remembered the law, and the bargain which he
+had made about to-night.
+
+Cyrus’s eyes gleamed like fires in a face pale from eagerness, as he
+strove in a minute of time to take in every feature of the monster
+before him, from hoof to horn.
+
+Neal sat as if paralyzed.
+
+Dol—well, Dol lost his head a bit. A deep, throaty gulp, which was a
+weak reproduction of the sound made by the moose, as if the boy and the
+animal were sharing the same throes of excitement, burst from him.
+There was a rattle and struggle of his vocal organs, which in another
+second would have become a shout, had not Herb’s masterful left hand
+gripped him. Its touch held in check the speech which Dol could no
+longer control.
+
+The moose was a big one, “about as big as they grow,” as the guide
+afterwards declared. Under the jack-light he looked a regular behemoth.
+He must have been over seven feet high at the shoulders, for he was
+taller than the tallest horse the boys had ever seen. His black mane
+bristled. His antlers were thrown back. His great nose, with its
+dilated nostrils, looked as if it were drinking in every scent of the
+night world. His eyes had a green glare in them, as for ten seconds he
+gazed at the strange light which had suddenly burst into view, its
+silver radiance so dazzling him that he saw not the screened boat
+beneath.
+
+At the rash noise which Dol made his ears twitched. He splashed a step
+forward as if to investigate matters, seeing which, Herb held his
+Winchester in readiness to fly to his shoulder at a moment’s notice.
+But the moose evidently regarded the jack-lamp as a supernatural,
+terrible phenomenon. He shrank from it as man might shrink beneath a
+flaming heaven.
+
+With one more despairing look right and left for that phantom cow which
+had deluded him, he wheeled around, and crashed back into the forest,
+tearing away more rapidly than he came.
+
+“He’s off now, and Heaven knows when he’ll stop!” said Herb, breaking
+the weird spell of silence. “Not till he reaches some lair where nary a
+creature could follow him. Well, boys, you’ve seen the grandest game on
+this continent, the king o’ the woods. What do you think of him?”
+
+All tongues were loosened together. There was a general shifting of
+cramped bodies, accompanied by a gust of exclamations.
+
+“He was a monster!”
+
+“He was a behemoth!”
+
+“Oh! but you’re a conjurer, Herb. How on earth did you give such a
+fetching call?”
+
+“I could never have believed that those sounds came from a human throat
+and a birch-bark horn, if I hadn’t been sitting in the boat with you!”
+
+When there was a break in the excited chorus, Herb, without answering
+the compliments to his calling powers, asked quietly,—
+
+“Didn’t you think we’d lost him, boys, when he stopped short in the
+middle of his rush, and you heard nothing?”
+
+“We just did,” answered Cyrus. “That was the longes half-hour I ever
+put in. What made him do it?”
+
+“I guess he was kind o’ criticising my music,” said the guide,
+laughing. “Mebbe I got in a grunt or two that wasn’t natural, and the
+old boy wasn’t satisfied with his sweetheart’s voice. He was sniffing
+the air, and waiting to hear more. But ’twasn’t more ’n twenty minutes
+before I gave the second call, though no doubt it seemed longer to you.
+A man must be in good training to get the better of a moose’s ears and
+nose.”
+
+“I’m going to get the better of them before I leave these woods!” cried
+Dol, who was still puffing and gasping with intense excitement. “I’ll
+learn to call up a moose, if I crack my windpipe in doing it.”
+
+“Hurrah for the Boy Moose-Caller!” jeered Cyrus, with a teasing laugh,
+which Neal echoed.
+
+But Herb Heal, who had from the beginning regarded “the kid of the
+camp” with favor, suddenly became his champion.
+
+“Don’t let ’em down you, Dol,” he said. “I hate to hear a youngster, or
+a man, ‘talk fire,’ as the Injuns say, which means _brag_, if he’s a
+coward or a chump; but I guess you ain’t either. Here we are at camp,
+boys! I
+tell you the home-camp is a pleasant sort of place, after you’ve been
+out moose-calling!”
+
+Thereupon ensued loud cheers for the home-camp, the boys feeling that
+they were letting off steam, and atoning for that long spell of
+silence, which had been a positive hardship. In the midst of an echoing
+hubbub the boat was hauled up and moored, and the party reached their
+log shelter.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVII. Herb’s Yarns
+
+
+The following day was spent by our trio in exploring the woods near
+Millinokett Lake, in listening to more moose-talk, and in attempting
+the trick of calling. Herb gave them many persistent lessons, making
+the sounds which he had made on the preceding night, with and without
+the horn, and patiently explaining the varied language of grunts,
+groans, sighs, and roars in which the cow-moose indulges.
+
+Perhaps the woodsman expended extra pains on the teaching of his
+youngest pupil, whom he had championed. And certainly Dol’s own talent
+for mimicry came to his aid. No matter to what cause the success was
+due, each one allowed that Dol made a brilliant attempt to get hold of
+“the moose-hunter’s secret,” and give a natural call.
+
+The boy had been a genius at imitating the voices of English birds and
+animals; many a trick had he played on his schoolfellows with his
+carols and howls. And his proficiency in this line was a good
+foundation on which to work.
+
+“You’ll get there, boy,” said Herb, surveying him with approval, as he
+stood outside the camp-door with the moose-horn to his lips. “Make
+believe that there’s a moose on the opposite shore of the lake now, and
+give the whole call, from start to finish.”
+
+Whereupon Dol slowly carried his head to left and right, as he had seen
+the guide do on the previous night, raising and lowering the horn until
+it had described an enormous figure of eight in the air, while he
+groaned, sighed, rasped, and bellowed with a plaintive intensity of
+expression, which caused his brother and his friend to shriek with
+laughter.
+
+“You’ll get there, Kid,” repeated the woodsman, with a great triumphant
+guffaw. “You’ll be able to give a fetching call sooner than either of
+the others. But be careful how you use the trick, or you’ll be having
+the breath kicked out of you some day by a moose’s forefeet.”
+
+For days afterwards, the birch-bark horn was rarely out of Dol Farrar’s
+hands. The boy was so entranced with the new musical art he was
+mastering, which would be a means of communication between him and the
+behemoth of the woods, that he haunted the edges of the forest about
+the clearing, keeping aloof from his brother and friend, practising
+unceasingly, sometimes under Herb’s supervision, sometimes alone. He
+learned to imitate every sound which the guide made, working in
+touching quavers and inflections that must tug at the heart-strings of
+any listening moose. He learned to give the call, squatting Indian
+fashion, in a very uncomfortable position, behind a screen of bushes.
+He learned to copy, not the cow’s summons alone, but the bull’s short
+challenge too; and to rasp his horn against a tree, in imitation of a
+moose polishing its antlers for battle.
+
+And now, for the first time, Dol Farrar of Manchester regarded his
+education as complete. He was prouder of this forest accomplishment,
+picked up in the wilds, than of all triumphs over problems and ’ologies
+at his English school. He had not been a laggard in study, either.
+
+But the finishing of Dol’s education had one bad result. If there
+happened to be another moose travelling through the adjacent forests,
+he evidently thought that all this random calling was too much of a
+good thing, had his suspicions aroused, and took himself oft to wilder
+solitudes. Though the guide tried his powers in persuasive summons
+every night at various calling-places, he could not again succeed in
+getting an answer.
+
+At last, on a certain evening, after supper, a solemn camp-council was
+held around an inspiring fire, and Herb Heal suggested that if his
+party were really bent on seeing a moose again, before they turned
+their faces homeward, they had better rise early the following morning,
+shoulder their knapsacks, and set out to do a few days’ hunting amid
+the dense woods near the base of Katahdin.
+
+“I killed the biggest bull-moose I ever saw, on Togue Ponds, in that
+region,” said the guide meditatively; “and I got him in a queer way. I
+b’lieve I promised to tell you that yarn.”
+
+“Of course you did!”
+
+“Let’s have it!”
+
+“Go ahead, Herb! Don’t shorten it!”
+
+Thus encouraged by the eager three, the woodsman began:—
+
+“It is five years now, boys, since I spent a fall and winter trapping
+in them woods we were speaking of—I and another fellow. We had two
+home-camps, which were our headquarters, snug log shelters, one on
+Togue Ponds, the other on the side of Katahdin. As sure as ever the sun
+went down on a Saturday night, we two trappers met at one or other of
+these home-camps; though during the week we were mostly apart. For we
+had several lines of traps, which covered big distances in various
+directions; and on Monday morning I used to start one way, and my chum
+another, to visit these. Generally it took us five or six days to make
+the rounds of them. While we were on our travels we’d sleep with a
+blanket round us, under any shelter we could rig up,—a few
+spruce-boughs or a bark hut. When the snow came, we were forced to
+shorten our trips, so as to reach one of the home-camps each night.
+
+“Well, it was early in the season, one fine fall evening, that I was
+crossing Togue Ponds in a canoe. I had been away on the tramp for
+a’most a week; and though I had a rifle and axe with me, I had nary an
+ounce of ammunition left. All of a sudden I caught sight of a moose,
+feeding on some lily-roots in deep water. Jest at first I was a bit
+doubtful whether it was a moose or not; for the creature’s head was
+under, and I could only see his shoulders. I stopped paddling. I tried
+to stop breathing. Next, I felt like jumping out of my skin; for, with
+a big splash, up come a pair of antlers a good five feet across,
+dripping with water, and a’most covered with green roots and stems,
+which dangled from ’em.
+
+“Good land! ’twas a queer sight. ‘Herb Heal,’ thinks I, ‘now’s your
+chance! If you can only manage to nab that moose-head, you’ll get two
+hundred dollars for it at Greenville, sure!’ And mighty few cents I had
+jest then.
+
+“I could a’most have cried over my tough luck in not having one dose of
+lead left. But the bull’s back was towards me. The water filled his
+ears and nose, so that he couldn’t hear or smell. And he was having a
+splendid tuck-in. It was big sport to hear him crunch those
+lily-roots.”
+
+“I should think it was!” burst out Cyrus enviously. “But did you have
+the heart to kill him in cold blood, in the middle of his meal?”
+
+“I did. I guess I wouldn’t do it now; anyhow, not unless I was very
+badly off for food. But I had an old mother living at Greenville that
+time,”—here there was the least possible tremble in the woodsman’s
+voice,—“and while I paddled alongside the moose, without making a
+sound, I was thinking that the price I’d be sure to get from some city
+swell for the head would come in handy to make her comfortable. The
+creature never suspicioned danger till I was close to him, and had my
+axe lifted, ready to strike. Then up came his head. Out went his
+forefeet. Over spun the canoe. There was as big a commotion as if a
+whale was there.
+
+“I managed to keep behind the brute so as to dodge his kicks; and
+gripping the axe in one hand, I dug the other into his long hair. He
+was mad scared. He started to swim for the opposite shore, which was
+about half a mile distant, with me in tow, snorting like a locomotive.
+As his feet touched ground near the bank, I jumped upon his back. With
+one blow of the axe I split his spine. Perhaps you’ll think that was
+awful cruel, but it wasn’t done for the glory of killing.”
+
+“And what became of the head? Did you sell it?” asked Dol, who was, as
+usual, the first to break a breathless silence.
+
+There was no reply. Herb feigned not to hear.
+
+“Did you get two hundred dollars for the head?” questioned the
+impetuous youngster again, in a higher key, his curiosity swelling.
+
+“I didn’t. It was stole.”
+
+The answer was a growl, like the growl of a hurt animal whose sore has
+been touched. The tone of it was so different from the woodsman’s
+generally strong, happy-go-lucky manner of speech, that Dol blenched as
+if he had been struck.
+
+“Who stole it?” he gasped, after a minute, scarcely knowing that he
+spoke aloud.
+
+Unnoticed in the firelight, Cyrus clapped a strong hand over the boy’s
+mouth, to stifle further questions.
+
+“Keep still!” he whispered.
+
+But Herb, who was, as usual, perched upon the “deacon’s seat,” leaned
+forward, with a laugh which was more than half a snarl.
+
+“Who stole it?” he echoed. “Why, the other fellow—my chum; the man whom
+I carried for a mile on my back, through a snow-heaped forest, the
+first time I saw him,
+when I had lugged him out of a heavy drift. _He_ stole it, Kid, and
+a’most everything I owned with it.”
+
+
+Illustration: The Camp On Millinokett Lake.
+
+
+With a savage kick of his moccasined foot, the woodsman suddenly
+assaulted a blazing log. It sent a shower of sparks aloft, and caused a
+bright flame to shoot, rocket-like, from the heart of the fire, which
+showed the guide’s face. His fine eyes reminded Cyrus of Millinokett
+Lake when a thunder-storm broke over it. Their gray was dark and
+troubled; the black pupils seemed to shrink, as if a tempest beat on
+them; fierce flashes of light played through them.
+
+Muttering a half-smothered oath, Herb flung himself off his bench,
+stamped across the cabin to the open camp-door, and passed into the
+darkness outside.
+
+The boys, who had been stretched out in comfortable positions, drew
+themselves bolt upright, and sat aghast. They stared towards the
+camp-door, murmuring disjointedly. Into the mind of each flashed a
+remembrance of some story which Doctor Phil had told about a thieving
+partner who once robbed Herb Heal.
+
+“You’ve stirred up more than you bargained for, Dol,” said Cyrus. “I
+wish to goodness you hadn’t been so smart with your questions.”
+
+But the words were scarcely spoken when the guide was again in their
+midst, with a smile on his lips.
+
+“It’s best to let sleeping dogs lie, young one,” he said, looking down
+reassuringly on Dol, who was feeling dumfounded. “I guess you all think
+I’m an awful bearish fellow. But if you had lived the lonely life of a
+trapper, tramping each day through the dark woods till you were
+leg-weary, visiting your steel traps and deadfalls, all to get a few
+furs and make a few dollars; and turned up at camp one evening to find
+that your partner had skipped with every skin you had procured, I
+reckon ’twould take you a plaguy long time to get over it.”
+
+“I’m pretty sure it would, old man,” said Cyrus.
+
+“And I minded the loss of the furs a sight less than I minded losing
+that moose-head,” continued Herb, taking his perch again upon the
+“deacon’s seat.” “The hound took ’em all. Every woodsman in Maine was
+riled about it at the time, and turned out to ketch him; but he gave
+’em the slip. Now, boys, I’ve got to feeling pretty chummy with you.
+Cyrus is an old friend; and, to speak plain, I like you Britishers. I
+don’t want you to think that I bust up your fun to-night for nothing.
+I’ll tell you the whole yarn if you want to hear it.”
+
+The looks of the trio were sufficient assent.
+
+“All right, boys. Here goes! Since I was a kid in Maine woods I’ve
+worked at a’most everything that a woodsman can do. Six year ago I was
+a ‘barker’ in a lumber-camp on the Kennebec River. A ‘barker’ is a man
+who jumps onto a big tree after a chopper has felled it, and strips the
+bark off with his axe, so that the trunk can be easily hauled over the
+snow. Well, it’s pretty hard labor, is lumbering. But our camp always
+got Sunday for rest.
+
+“Well, I was prowling about in the woods by myself one Sunday
+afternoon, when an awful snow-storm come on, a big blizzard which
+staggered the stripped trees like as if ’twould tumble ’em all down,
+and end our work for us. I was bolting for camp as fast as I was able,
+when I tripped over something which was a’most covered over in a heavy
+drift. ‘Great Scott!’ says I, ‘it’s a man!’ And ’twas too. He was near
+dead. I hauled him out, and set him on his legs; but he couldn’t walk.
+So I threw him across my shoulders, same way as I carry a deer. He
+didn’t weigh near as much as a good buck, for he was little more’n a
+kid and awful lean. But ’twas dreadful travelling, with the snow half
+blinding and burying you. I was plumb blowed when I struck the camp,
+and pitched in head foremost.
+
+“For an hour we worked over that stranger to bring him round, and we
+succeeded. We saw at once that he was a half-breed. When he could use
+his tongue, he told us that his father was a settler, and his mother a
+Penobscot Indian. He was sick for a spell and wild-like, then he talked
+a lot of Indian jargon; but when he got back his senses, he spoke
+English fust-rate. Chris Kemp he said was his name. And from the start
+the lumbermen nicknamed him ‘Cross-eyed Chris; for his eyes, which were
+black as blackberries, had a queer squint in ’em.
+
+“Well, in spite of the squint, I took to Chris, and he to me. And the
+following year, when I decided to give up lumbering, and take to
+trapping fur-bearing animals in the woods near Katahdin, he joined me.
+We swore to be chums, to stick to each other through thick and thin, to
+share all we got;
+and he made one of his outlandish Indian signs to strengthen the oath.
+A fine way he kept it too!
+
+“Now, if I’m too long-winded, boys, say so; and I’ll hurry up.”
+
+“No, no! Tell us everything.”
+
+“Spin it out as long as you can.”
+
+“We don’t mind listening half the night. Go ahead!”
+
+At this gust of protest Herb smiled, though rather soberly, and went
+ahead as he was bidden.
+
+“We made camp together—him and me. We had two home-camps where I told
+you, and met at the end of each week, bringing the skins we had taken,
+which we stored in one of ’em. We got along together swimmingly for a
+bit. But Chris had a weakness which I had found out long before. I
+guess he took it from his mother’s people. Give him one drink of
+whiskey, and it stirred up all the mud that was in him. There’s mud in
+every man, I s’pose; and there’s nothing like liquor for bringing it to
+the surface. A gulp of fire-water changed Chris from an honest,
+right-hearted fellow to a crazy devil. This had set the lumbermen
+against him. But I hoped that in the lonely woods where we trapped he
+wouldn’t get a chance to see the stuff. He did, though, and when I
+wasn’t there to make a fight against his swallowing it.
+
+“It happened that one week he got back to our camp on Togue
+Ponds,—where most of our stuff was stored, and where I kept that
+moose-head, waiting for a chance to take it down to Greenville,—a day
+or two sooner’n me. And the worst luck that ever attended either of us
+brought a stranger to the camp at the same time, to shelter for a
+night. He was an explorer, a city swell; and I guess he didn’t know
+much about Injuns or half-breeds, for he gave Chris a little bottle of
+fiery whiskey as a parting present. The man told me about it
+afterwards, and that he was kind o’ scared when the boy—for he wasn’t
+much more—swallowed it with two gulps, and then followed him into the
+woods, howling, capering, and offering to sell him my grand moose-head,
+and all the furs we had, for another drink of the burning stuff. I
+guess that stranger felt pretty sick over the mischief he had done. He
+refused to buy ’em. But when I got back to camp next day, to find the
+skins gone, antlers gone, Chris gone; when I ran across the traveller
+and ferreted out his story,—I knew, as well as if I seen it, that my
+partner had skipped with all my belongings, to sell ’em or trade ’em at
+some settlement for more liquor. We had a couple of big birch
+canoes,—one of ’em was missing too,—and a river being near, the thing
+could be easy managed.
+
+“I’ll allow that I raged tremendous. The losses were bad; but to be
+robbed by your own chum, the man you had saved and stuck to, the only
+being you had said a word to for months, was sickening. I swore I’d
+shoot the hound if I found him. I spread the news at every camp and
+farm-settlement through the forest country, and we had a rousing hunt
+after the fellow; but he gave us the slip, though I heard of him
+afterwards at a distant town, where he sold the furs.”
+
+“I suppose he left the State,” said Cyrus.
+
+“I guess he did. But for a big while I used to think he’d come back to
+our camp some day, and let me have it out with him; for he wasn’t a
+coward, and we had been fast chums.”
+
+“And he didn’t?”
+
+“Not as I know of. The next year I gave up trapping, which was an awful
+cruel as well as a lonely business, and took to moose-hunting
+and guiding. I haven’t been anear the old camps for ages.”
+
+“Perhaps you will come across him again some day,” suggested Dol, with
+unusual timidity.
+
+“P’raps so, Kid. And, faith, when I think of that, it seems as if there
+were two creatures inside o’ me fighting tooth and claw. One is all for
+hammering him to a jelly. The other is sort o’ pitiful, and says,
+‘Mebbe ’twasn’t out-an’-out his fault.’ Which of them two’ll get the
+best of it, if ever I’m face to face with Cross-eyed Chris, I dunno.”
+
+Cyrus Garst rose suddenly. He kicked the camp-fire to make a blaze,
+then looked the woodsman fair in the eyes.
+
+“I know, Herb,” he said; “the spirit of mercy will conquer.”
+
+“Glad you think so!” answered Herb. “But I ain’t so sure. Sho! boys,
+I’ve kept you up till near midnight with my yarns. We must go to roost
+quick, or you’ll never be fit to light out for Katahdin to-morrow.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVIII. To Lonelier Wilds
+
+
+Before daybreak next morning Herb Heal was astir. Apparently even a
+short night’s sleep had driven from him all disturbing memories. He
+whistled and hummed softly, like the strong, hopeful fellow he was,
+controlling his notes so that they should not awaken his companions,
+while he hauled out and overlooked the canvas for a tent, to see if it
+was sound. Next he surveyed the camp-stores, and put up a supply of
+flour, pork, and coffee in a canvas bag, enough for four persons to
+subsist upon with economy during an excursion of six or seven days. For
+he knew that his employers would follow his suggestion, and be eager to
+start for the woods near Katahdin soon after they got their eyes open.
+
+He had been doing his work with a candle held in his brown fingers; but
+as dawn-light began to enter the cabin, he quenched its dingy, yellow
+flicker, opened the camp-door, and surveyed the morning sky.
+
+“It’ll be a good day to start out, I guess,” he muttered. “Let’s see,
+what time is it?”
+
+The stars had not yet paled, and Herb forthwith fell to studying them;
+for they were his jewelled time-piece, by which he could tell the hour
+so long as they shone. Watch he had none.
+
+While he gazed aloft at the glinting specks, he unconsciously began to
+croon, in a powerful bass voice, with deep gutturals, some words which
+certainly weren’t woodsman’s English.
+
+“_N’loan pes-saus, mok glint ont-aven,
+Glint ont-aven, nosh morgan_.”
+
+
+“What on earth is that outlandish thing you’re singing, Herb?” roared
+Neal Farrar from the bunk, awakened by the sounds. “Give us that stave
+again—do!”
+
+The guide started. He had scarcely been aware of what he was humming,
+and his laugh was a trifle disconcerted.
+
+“So you’re waking up, are ye?” he said. “Tain’t time to be stirring
+yet; I ought to be kicked for making such a row.”
+
+“But what’s that you were singing?” reiterated Neal. “The words weren’t
+English, and they had a fine sort of roll.”
+
+“They’re Injun,” was the answer. “I guess ’twas all the talking I done
+last night that brung ’em into my head. I picked ’em up from that
+fellow I was telling you about. He’d start crooning ’em whenever he
+looked at the stars to find out the hour.”
+
+“Are they about the stars?”
+
+“I guess so. A city man, who had studied the redskins’ language a lot,
+told me they meant:—
+
+‘We are the stars which sing,
+We sing with our light.’”[2]
+
+
+ [2] Mr. Leland’s translation.
+
+
+Then Herb chanted the two lines again in the original tongue.
+
+“There was quite a lot more,” he said; “but I can’t remember it. I
+learned some queer jargon from Chris, and how to make most of the signs
+belonging to the Indian sign-talk. The fellow had more of his mother
+than his father in him. I guess I’d better give over jabbering, and
+cook our breakfast.”
+
+It was evident that Herb did not want to dwell upon his reminiscences.
+And Neal had tact enough to swallow his burning curiosity about all
+things Indian. He asked no more questions, but rolled off the
+fir-boughs, and dressed himself.
+
+Cyrus and Dol sprang up too. All three were soon busy helping forward
+preparations for the start. They packed their knapsacks with a few
+necessaries; and after a hearty breakfast had been eaten,—their last
+meal off moose-steaks for a while, as Herb informed them he “could not
+carry any fresh meat along,”—the guide’s voice was heard shouting:—
+
+“Ready, are ye, boys? Got all yer traps? Here, Cyrus, jest strap this
+pack-basket on my shoulders. Now we’re off!”
+
+The pack contained the tent, the camp-kettle, and frying-pan, together
+with the aforementioned provisions, a good axe, etc. It was an
+uncomfortable load, even for a woodsman’s shoulders. But Herb strode
+ahead with it jauntily. And many times during that first day’s tramp of
+a dozen miles, his comrades—as they trudged through rugged places after
+him, spots where it was hard to keep one’s perpendicular, and feet
+sometimes showed a sudden inclination to start for the sky—threw
+envious glances at his tall figure, “straight as an Indian arrow,” his
+powerful limbs, and unerring step. Even the horny, capable hands came
+in for a share of the admiration.
+
+“I guess anything that got into your grip, Herb, would find it hard to
+get out again without your will,” said Cyrus, studying the knotted
+fists which held the straps of the pack-basket.
+
+“Mebbe so,” answered the guide frankly. “I’ve a sort of a trick of
+holding on to things once I’ve got ’em. P’raps that was why I didn’t
+let go of Chris in that big blizzard till I landed him at camp. But I
+hope”—here Herb’s shoulders shook with heaving laughter, and the
+cooking utensils in his pack jingled an accompaniment—“I hope I ain’t
+like a miserly fellow we had in our lumber-camp. He was awful pious
+about some things, and awful mean about others. So the boys said, ‘he
+kept the Sabbath and everything else he could lay his hands upon.’ He
+used to get riled at it.
+
+“Not that I’ve a word to say against keeping Sunday,” went on Herb, in
+a different key. “Tell you what, out here a fellow thinks a heap of his
+day o’ rest, when his legs can stop tramping, and his mind get a chance
+to do some tall thinking. Now, boys, we’ve covered twelve good miles
+since we left Millinokett Lake, and you needn’t go any farther to-day
+unless you’ve a mind to. We can make camp right here, near that stream.
+It will be nice, cold drinking-water, for it has meandered down from
+Katahdin.”
+
+He pointed to a brook a little way ahead, shimmering in the rays of the
+afternoon sun, of which they caught stray peeps through the gaps in an
+intervening wall of pines and hemlocks. A few minutes brought them to
+its brink. Tired and parched from their journey, each one stooped, and
+quenched his thirst with a delicious, ice-cold draught.
+
+“Was there ever a soda-fountain made that could give a drink to equal
+that?” said Cyrus, smacking his lips with content. “But listen to the
+noise this stream makes, boys. I guess if I were to lie beside it for
+an hour, I’d think, as the Greenlanders do, that I could hear the
+spirits of the world talking through it.”
+
+“That’s a mighty queer notion,” answered Herb; “and I never knew as
+other folks had got hold of it. But, sure’s you live! I’ve
+thought the same thing myself lots o’ times, when I’ve slept by a
+forest stream. Who’ll lend a helping hand in cutting down boughs for
+our fire and bed? I want to be pretty quick about making camp. Then
+we’ll be able to try some moose-calling after supper.”
+
+At this moment a peculiar gulping noise in Neal’s throat drew the eyes
+of his companions upon him. His were bright and strained, peering at
+the opposite bank.
+
+“Look! What is it?” he gasped, his low voice rattling with excitement.
+
+“A cow-moose, by thunder!” said Herb. “A cow-moose and a calf with her!
+Here’s luck for ye, boys!”
+
+One moment sooner, simultaneously with Neal’s gulp of astonishment,
+there had emerged from the thick woods on the other bank a brown,
+wild-looking, hornless creature, in size and shape resembling a big
+mule, followed by a half-grown reproduction of herself.
+
+Her shaggy mane flew erect, her nostrils quivered like those of a
+race-horse, her eyes were starting with mingled panic and defiance.
+
+A snort, sudden and loud as the report of a shot-gun, made the four
+jump. Neal, who was standing on a slippery stone by the brink, lost his
+balance and staggered forward into the water, kicking up jets of
+shining spray. The snort was followed by a grunt, plaintive,
+distracted, which sounded oddly familiar, seeing that it had been so
+well imitated on Herb’s horn.
+
+And with that grunt, the moose wheeled about and fled, making the air
+swish as she cut through it, followed by her young, her mane waving
+like a pennon.
+
+“Well, if that ain’t bang-up luck, I’d like to know what is,” said the
+guide, as he watched the departure. “I never s’posed you’d get a chance
+to see a cow-moose; she’s shyer’n shy. Say! don’t you boys think that
+I’ve done her grunt pretty well sometimes?”
+
+“That you have,” was the general response. “_We_ couldn’t tell any
+difference between your noise and the real thing.”
+
+“But she wasn’t a patch on the bull-moose in appearance,” lamented Dol.
+
+“No more she was, boy. Most female forest creatures ain’t so
+good-looking as the males! And that’s queer when you think of it, for
+the girls have the pull over us where beauty is concerned. We ain’t in
+it with ’em, so to speak.”
+
+There was a big gale of laughter over Herb Real’s gallant admiration
+for the other sex, and the sigh which accompanied his expression of it.
+He joined in the mirth himself, though he walked off to make camp,
+muttering:—
+
+“Sho! You city fellows think that because I’m a woodsman I never heard
+of love-making in my life.”
+
+“Perhaps there is a little girl at some settlement waiting for a home
+to be fixed up out of guide’s fees,” retorted Cyrus.
+
+And the three shouted again for no earthly reason, save that the
+stimulus of forest air and good circulation was driving the blood with
+fine pressure through their veins, and life seemed such a glorious,
+unfolding possession—full of a wonderful possible—that they must hold a
+sort of jubilee.
+
+Herb, who perhaps in his lonely hours in the woods did cherish some
+vision such as Cyrus suggested, was so infected with their spirit,
+that, as he swung his axe with a giant’s stroke against a hemlock
+branch, he joined in with an explosive:—
+
+“Hurrup! Hur-r-r-rup!”
+
+This startled the trio like the bursting of a bomb, and trebled their
+excitement; for their guide, when abroad, had usually the cautious,
+well-controlled manner of the still-hunter, who never knows what
+chances may be lurking round him which he would ruin by an outcry.
+
+“Quit laughing, boys,” he said, recovering prudence directly he had let
+out his yell. “Quit laughing, I say, or we may call moose here till
+crack o’ doom without getting an answer. I guess they’re all off to the
+four winds a’ready, scared by our fooling.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIX. Treed By a Moose
+
+
+“I told you so, boys,” breathed the guide two hours later, with an
+overwhelming sigh of regret, after he had given his most fetching calls
+in vain. “I told you so. There ain’t anything bigger’n a buck-rabbit
+travelling. That tormented row we made scared every moose within
+hearing.”
+
+Herb was standing on the ground, horn in hand, screened by the great
+shadows of a clump of hemlocks; the three were perched upon branches
+high above him, a safe post of observation if any moose had answered.
+
+“You may as well light down now,” he continued, turning his face up,
+though the boys were invisible; “I ain’t a-going to try any more music
+to-night. I guess we’ll stretch ourselves for sleep early, to get ready
+for a good day’s work to-morrow. An eight-mile tramp will bring us to
+the first heavy growth about the foot of Katahdin, and I’ll promise you
+a sight of a moose there.”
+
+His companions dropped to earth; and the four sought the shelter of
+their tent, which had been pitched a few hundred yards from the
+calling-place. Some dull embers smouldered before it; for Herb, even
+while preparing supper, had kept the camp-fire very low, lest any
+wandering clouds of smoke should interfere with the success of his
+calling.
+
+Now he heaped it high, throwing on without stint withered hemlock
+boughs and massive logs, which were soon wrapped in a sheet of flame,
+making an isle of light amid a surrounding sea of impenetrable
+darkness.
+
+Many times during the night the watchful fellow arose to replenish this
+fire, so that there might be no decrease in the flood of heat which
+entered the tent, and kept his charges comfortable. Once, while he was
+so engaged, the placid sleepers whom he had noiselessly quitted were
+aroused to terror—sudden, bewildering night-terror—by a gasping cry
+from his lips, followed by the leaping and rushing of some brute in
+flight, and by a screech which was one defiant note of unutterable
+savagery.
+
+“Good heavens! What’s that?” said Cyrus.
+
+“Is it—can it—could it be a panther?” stammered Dol.
+
+“Get out!” answered Neal contemptuously. “The panthers have got out
+long ago, so every one says.”
+
+“A lynx! A Canada lynx, boys, as sure as death and taxes!” panted Herb
+Heal, springing into the tent on the instant, with a burning brand in
+his hand. “’Tain’t any use your tumbling out, for you won’t see him.
+He’s away in the thick of the woods now.”
+
+Cyrus gurgled inarticulate disappointment. At the first two words he
+had sprung to his legs, having never encountered a lynx.
+
+“The brute must have been prowling round our tent,” went on Herb, his
+voice thick from excitement. “He leaped past me just as I was stooping
+to fix the fire, and startled me so that I guess I hollered. He got
+about half a dozen yards off, then turned and crouched as if he was
+going to spring back. Luckily, the axe was lying by me, just where I
+had tossed it down after chopping the last heap of logs. I caught it
+up, and flung it at him. It struck him on the side, and curled him up.
+I thought he was badly hurt; but he jumped the next moment, screeched,
+and made off. A pleasant scream he has; sounds kind o’ cheerful at
+night, don’t it?”
+
+No one answered this sarcasm; and Herb flung himself again upon his
+boughs, pulling his worn blanket round him, determined not to
+relinquish his night’s sleep because a lynx had visited his camp. The
+city fellows sensibly tried to follow his example; but again and again
+one of them would shake himself, and rise stealthily, convinced that he
+heard the blood-curdling screech ringing through the silent night.
+
+It was nearly morning before fatigue at last overmastered every
+sensation, and the three fell into an unbroken sleep, which lasted
+until the sun was high in the sky. When they awoke, their sense of
+smell was the first sense to be tickled. Fragrant odors of boiling
+coffee were floating into the tent. One after another they scrambled
+up, threw on their coats, and hurried out to find their guide kneeling
+by the camp-fire on the very spot from which he had hurled his axe at
+the lynx a few hours before. But now his right hand held a green stick,
+on which he was toasting some slices of pork into crisp, appetizing
+curls.
+
+“’Morning, boys!” he said, as the trio appeared. “Hope your early
+rising won’t opset ye! If you want to dip your faces in the stream, do
+it quick, for these dodgers are cooked.”
+
+The “dodgers” were the familiar flapjacks. Herb set down his stick as
+he spoke to turn a batch of them, which were steaming on the
+frying-pan, tossing them high in air as he did so, with a dexterous
+turn of his wrist.
+
+The boys having performed hasty ablutions in the stream, devoted
+themselves to their breakfast with a hearty will. There was little
+leisure for discussing the midnight visit of the lynx, or for anything
+but the joys of satisfying hunger, and taking in nutrition for the
+day’s tramp, as Herb was in a hurry to break camp, and start on for
+Katahdin. The morning was very calm; there seemed no chance of a wind
+springing up, so the evening would probably be a choice one for
+moose-calling.
+
+In half an hour the band was again on the march, the business of
+breaking camp being a swift one. The tent was on Herb’s shoulders; and
+naught was left to mark the visit of man to the humming stream but a
+bed of withering boughs on which the lynx might sleep to-night, and a
+few dying embers which the guide had thrashed out with his feet.
+
+No halt was made until four o’clock in the afternoon. Then Herb Heal
+came to a standstill on the edge of a wide bog. It lay between him and
+what he called the “first heavy growth;” that is, the primeval forest,
+unthinned by axe of man, which at certain points clothes the foot of
+Katahdin.
+
+The great mountain, dwelling-place of Pamolah, cradle of the flying
+Thunder and flashing Lightning, which according to one Indian legend
+are the swooping sons of the Mountain Spirit, now towered before the
+travellers, its base only a mile distant.
+
+“I’ve a good mind to make camp right here,” said Herb, surveying the
+bog and then the firm earth on which he stood. “We may travel a longish
+ways farther, and not strike such a fair camping-ground, unless we go
+on up the side of the mountain to that old home-camp I was telling you
+about, which we built when we were trapping. I guess it’s standing yet,
+and ’twould be a snug shelter; but we’d have a hard pull to reach it
+this evening. What d’ye say, boys?”
+
+“I vote for pitching the tent right here,” answered Cyrus.
+
+The English boys were of the same mind, and the guide forthwith
+unstrapped his heavy pack-basket. As he hauled forth its contents, and
+strewed them on the ground, the first article which made its appearance
+was the moose-horn; it had been carefully stowed in on top. Dol
+snatched it up as a dog might snatch a bone, and touched it with
+longing in every finger-tip.
+
+“There’s one bad thing about this place,” grumbled Herb presently,
+surveying the landscape wherever his eye could travel, “there isn’t a
+pint of drinking-water to be seen. There may be pools here and there in
+that bog; but, unless we want to keel over before morning, we’d better
+let ’em alone. Say! could a couple of you fellows take the camp-kettle,
+and cruise about a bit in search of a spring?”
+
+“I volunteer for the job!” cried Dol instantly, with the light of some
+sudden idea shining like a sunburst in his face.
+
+“You don’t budge a step, old man, unless I go with you,” said Cyrus.
+“Not much! I don’t want to patrol the forests like a lunatic for five
+mortal hours in search of you, and then find you roasting your shins by
+some other fellow’s camp-fire. One little hide-and-seek game of that
+kind was enough.”
+
+“Well! the fact that I did bring up by Doc’s camp-fire shows that I am
+able to take care of myself. If I get into scrapes, I can wriggle out
+of them again,” maintained the kid of the camp, with a brazen look,
+while his eyes showed flinty sparks, caused by the inspiring purpose
+hidden behind them, which had little to do with water-carrying.
+
+“Why can’t you both go without any more palaver?” suggested Herb, as he
+started away towards a belt of young firs to cut stakes for the tent.
+“Cruise straight across the bog, mark your track by the bushes as you
+go ’long, don’t get into the woods at all, and ’twill be plain sailing.
+I guess you’ll strike a spring before very long.”
+
+Cyrus caught up the camp-kettle, and stepped out briskly over the
+springy, spongy ground. Dol Farrar followed him. The two were half-way
+across the bog before the elder noticed that the younger was carrying
+something. It was the moose-horn.
+
+“If we run across any moose-signs, I’m going to try a call,” said Dol,
+his strike-a-light eyes fairly blazing while he disclosed
+his purpose. “You may laugh, Cy, and call me a greenhorn; but I bet you
+I’ll get an answer, at least if there’s a bull-moose within two miles.”
+
+“That’s pretty cheerful,” retorted the Boston man; “especially as
+neither of us has brought a rifle. Mr. Moose may be at home, and give
+you an answer; but there’s no telling what sort of temper he’ll be in.”
+
+“I left my Winchester leaning against a tree on the camping-ground,”
+said the would-be caller regretfully. “But you know you wouldn’t fire
+on him, Cy, unless he came near making mince-meat of us. If he should
+charge, we could make a dash for the nearest trees. Let’s risk it if we
+run across any tracks!”
+
+“And in the meantime, Herb will be wondering where we are, vowing
+vengeance on us, and waiting for the kettle while we’re waiting for the
+moose,” argued Garst. “It won’t do, Chick. Give it up until later on.
+We undertook the job of finding water, and we’re bound to finish that
+business first.”
+
+“If I wait until later on, I may wait forever,” was the boy’s gloomy
+protest. “Tonight, when Herb is there, Neal and you will just sit on
+me, and be afraid of my making a wrong sound, and spoiling the sport.
+
+“And I _know_ we’ll see moose-tracks before we get back to camp!” wound
+up the young pleader passionately. “I’ve been working up to it all day.
+I mean I’ve felt as if something—something fine—was going to happen,
+which would make a ripping story for the Manchester fellows when we go
+home. Do let me have one chance, Cy,—one fair and honest chance!”
+
+There was such a tremendous force of desire working through the English
+boy that it set his blood boiling, and every bit of him in motion. His
+eyes were afire, his eyelids shut and opened with their quick snap, his
+lips moved after he had finished speaking, his fingers twitched upon
+the moose-horn.
+
+He was a picture of heart-eagerness which Cyrus could not resist,
+though he shook with laughter.
+
+“I’ll take mighty good care that the next time I go to find water for
+the camp-supper, I don’t take a crank with me, who has gone mad on
+moose-calling,” he said. “See here! If we do come across moose-signs,
+I’ll get under cover, and give you quarter of an hour to call and
+listen for an answer—not a second longer. Now stop thinking about this
+fad, and keep your eyes open for a spring.”
+
+But, unfortunately, this seemed to be a thirsty and tantalizing land
+for travellers. The soft sod under their feet oozed moisture; slimy,
+stagnant bog-pools appeared, but not a drop of pure, gushing water, to
+which a parched man dare touch his lips.
+
+They crossed the wide extent of bog, Cyrus breaking off stunted bushes
+here and there to mark his pilgrimage; they reached the dense
+timber-growth at the base of the mountain, longing for the sight of a
+spring as eagerly as ever pilgrims yearned to behold a healing well;
+but their search was unsuccessful.
+
+Decidedly nonplussed, Dol all the time keeping one eye on the lookout
+for water and the other for moose-signs, they took counsel together,
+and determined to “cruise” to the right, skirting the foot of Katahdin,
+hoping to find a gurgling, rumbling mountain-torrent splashing down.
+Having travelled about half a mile in this new direction, with the
+giant woods which they dared not enter rising like an emerald wall on
+the one hand, and the dreary bog-land on the other, they at last, when
+patience was failing, came to a change in the landscape.
+
+The desired water was not in view yet; but the bog gave way to fairer,
+firmer ground, covered with waving grasses, studded with rising knolls,
+and having no timber growth, save stray clumps of birches and hemlocks,
+several hundred yards apart.
+
+“Now, this is jolly!” exclaimed Dol. “This looks a little bit like an
+English lawn, only I’m afraid it’s not a likely place for moose-tracks.
+But I’m glad to be out of that beastly bog.”
+
+“Confusion to your moose-tracks,” ejaculated Cyrus, half exasperated.
+“I wish we could find a well. That would be more to the purpose.
+Listen, Dol, do you hear anything?”
+
+“I hear—I hear—’pon my word! I _do_ hear the bubbling and tinkling of
+water somewhere! Where on earth is it? Oh! I know. It comes from that
+knoll over there—the one with the bushes.”
+
+Dol Farrar, as he finished his jerky sentences, pointed to an eminence
+which was two or three hundred yards from where they stood, and a like
+distance from the wall of forest.
+
+“Well! It’s about time we struck something at last,” grumbled Garst.
+“Catch me ever coming on a water pilgrimage again!
+I’ll let Herb fill his own kettle in future. Now, I believe that fellow
+could smell a spring.”
+
+“Just as I smelt this one!” exclaimed Dol triumphantly. “I told you
+’twas on the side of the knoll. And here it is!”
+
+“Bravo, Chick! You’ve got good ears, if you are crazy upon one
+subject.”
+
+And so speaking, Cyrus, with a chuckle of joy, unslung the tin
+drinking-cup which hung at his belt, filled and refilled it, drinking
+long, inspiriting draughts before he prepared to fill the camp-kettle.
+
+“The best water I ever tasted, Dol!” he exclaimed, smacking his lips.
+“It’s ice-cold. There’s not much of it, but it has quality, if not
+quantity.”
+
+The long-sought well was, in truth, a tiny one. It came bubbling up,
+clear and pellucid, from the bowels of the earth, and showed its
+laughing face amid a cluster of bushes—which all bent close to look at
+it lovingly—half-way up the knoll. A wee stream trickled down from
+it,—dribble—dribble—a rivulet that had once been twice its present
+size, judging from the wide margin of spattered clay at each side.
+
+Dol had been following his companion’s example, and drinking joyfully
+before thinking of aught else. When the moment came for him to
+straighten his back, and rise upon his legs, instead of this natural
+proceeding, he suddenly crouched close to the ground, his breath coming
+in quick puffs, his eyes dilating, a froth of excitement on his lips.
+
+“What on earth are you staring at?” asked Cyrus. “You look positively
+crazy.”
+
+For answer, the English boy shot up from his lowly posture, seized his
+companion by the arm, making him drop the camp-kettle, which he was
+just filling, and forced him to scan the soft clay by the rivulet.
+
+“Look there—and there!” gurgled Dol, his voice sounding as if he was
+being choked by suppressed hilarity. “I told you we’d find them, and
+you didn’t believe me! Aren’t those moose-tracks? They’re not
+deer-tracks, anyhow; they’re too big. I may be a greenhorn, but I know
+that much.”
+
+“They _are_ moose-tracks,” Cyrus answered slowly, almost unbelievingly,
+though the evidence was before him. “They certainly are moose-tracks,”
+he repeated, “and very recent ones too. A moose has been drinking here,
+perhaps not half an hour ago. He can’t be far away.”
+
+Garst was now warming into excitement himself. His bass tones became
+guttural and almost inarticulate, while he lowered them to prevent
+their travelling. On the reddish clay at his feet were foot-marks very
+like the prints of a large mastiff. He studied them one by one, even
+tracing the outline with his forefinger.
+
+“Then I’m going to call,” whispered Dol, his words tremulous and
+stifled. “Lie low, Cy! You promised you’d give me a fair chance; you’ll
+have to keep your word.”
+
+“I’ll do it too,” was the answering whisper. “But let’s get higher up
+on the knoll, behind those big bushes at the top. And listen, Dol, if a
+moose makes a noise anywhere near, we must scoot for the trees before
+he comes out from cover. I’ve got to answer to your father for you.”
+
+It was an intense moment in Dol Farrar’s life; sensation reached its
+highest pitch, as he crouched low behind a prickly screen, put the
+birch-bark horn to his mouth, and slowly breathed through it with the
+full power of his young lungs, marvellously strengthened by the forest
+life of past weeks.
+
+There was a minute’s interval while he removed it again, and drew in
+all the air he could contain. Then a call rose upon the evening air, so
+touching, so plaintive, with such a rising, quavering impatience as it
+surged out towards the woods,—whither the boy-caller’s face was
+turned,—that Cyrus could scarcely suppress a “Bravo!”
+
+The summons died away in a piteous grunt. A second time the call rose
+and fell. On the third repetition it broke off, as usual, in an abrupt
+roar, which seemed to strike the tops of the giant trees, and boom
+among them.
+
+A froth was on Dol Farrar’s lips, his eyes were reddened, he puffed
+hard through spread nostrils, like a young horse which has been trying
+its mettle for the first time, as he lowered that moose-horn, lifted
+his head, and cocked his ears to listen.
+
+Two soundless minutes passed. Dol, who, if he had mastered the hunter’s
+call, had certainly not mastered his patience, put the bark-trumpet
+again to his lips, determined to try the effect of a surpassingly
+expressive grunt.
+
+But he never executed this false movement, which would have given away
+the trick at once.
+
+A bellow—a short, snorting, challenging bellow—burst the silence,
+coming from the very edge of the woods. It brought Cyrus to his feet
+with a jump. It so startled the ambitious moose-caller, that, in rising
+hurriedly from his squatting position, he lost his balance, and rolled
+over and over to the bottom of the knoll, smashing the horn into a
+hundred pieces.
+
+He picked himself up unhurt, but with a sensation as if all the bells
+in Christendom were doing a jumbled ringing in his head. And loud above
+this inward din he heard the sound, so well remembered, as of an axe
+striking repeatedly against a tree, the terrible chopping noises of a
+bull-moose, not two hundred yards away.
+
+No sooner had he scrambled to his legs, than Garst was at his side,
+gripping his arm, and forcing him forward at a headlong run.
+
+“You’ve done it this time with a vengeance!” bawled the Bostonian.
+“He’s coming for us straight! And we without our rifles! The trees! The
+trees! It’s our only chance!”
+
+With the belling still in his head, and so bewildered by his terrible
+success that he felt as if his senses were shooting off hither and
+thither like rockets, leaving him mad, Dol nevertheless ran as he had
+never run before, shoulder to shoulder with his comrade, dashing
+wildly for a clump of hemlocks over a hundred yards distant. Yet, for
+the life of him, he could not help glancing back once over his
+shoulder, to see the creature which he had humbugged, luring it from
+its forest shelter, and which now pursued him.
+
+The moose was charging after them full tilt, gaining rapidly too, his
+long thin legs, enormous antlers, broad, upreared nose, and the green
+glare in his starting eyes, making him look like some strange animal of
+a former earth. Dol at last trembled with actual fear. He gave a
+shuddering leap, and forced his legs, which seemed threatened with
+paralysis, to wilder speed.
+
+“Climb up that hemlock! Get as high as you can!” shrieked Cyrus,
+stopping to give him an upward shove as they reached the first friendly
+trunk.
+
+Dol obeyed. Gasping and wild-eyed, he dug his nails into the bark,
+clambering up somehow until he reached a forked branch about eight feet
+from the ground. Here strength failed. He could only cling dizzily,
+feeling that he hung between life and death.
+
+The moose was now snorting like a war-horse beneath. The brute stood
+off for a minute, then charged the hemlock furiously, and butted it
+with his antlers till it shook to its roots, the sharp prongs of those
+terrible horns coming within half an inch of Dol’s feet.
+
+With a gurgle of horror the boy tried to reach a higher limb, and
+succeeded; for at the same moment a timely shout encouraged him. Cyrus
+was bawling at the top of his voice from a tree ten feet distant:—
+
+“Are you all right, Dol? Don’t be scared. Hold on like grim death, and
+we can laugh at the old termagant now.”
+
+“I’m—I’m all right,” sang out Dol, though his voice shook, as did every
+twig of his hemlock, which the moose was assaulting again. “But he’s
+frantic to get at me.”
+
+“Never mind. He can’t do it, you know. Only don’t you go turning dizzy
+or losing your balance. Ha! you old spindle-legged monster, stand off
+from that tree. Take a turn at mine now, for a change. You can’t shake
+me down, if you butt till midnight.”
+
+Garst’s last sentences were hurled at the moose. The Bostonian, having
+reached a safe height, thrust his face out from his screen of branches,
+waving first an arm, and then a leg, at the besieging foe, hoping that
+the force of those battering antlers would be directed against his
+hemlock, so that his friend’s nerves might get a chance to recover.
+
+The ruse succeeded. The moose, reminded that there was a second enemy,
+charged the other tree; stood off for a minute to get breath, then
+charged it again, snorting, bellowing, and knocking his jaws together
+with a crunching, chopping noise.
+
+“Ha! that’s how he makes the row like a man with an axe—by hammering
+his jaws on each other. Well, well! but this is a regular picnic, Dol,”
+sang out Cyrus jubilantly, caring nothing for the shocks, and
+forgetting camp, water, peril, everything, in his joy at getting a
+chance to leisurely study the creature he had come so far to visit.
+
+“I owe you something for this, little man!” he carolled on in triumph,
+as he watched every wild movement of the moose. “This is a show we’ll
+only see once in our lives. It’s worth a hundred dollars a performance.
+Butt and snort till you’re tired, you ‘Awful Jabberwock!’”—this to the
+bull-moose. “We’ve come hundreds of miles to see you, and the more you
+carry on the better we’ll be pleased.”
+
+Indeed, the wrathful king of forests seemed in no hurry to cut short
+his pantomime. He ramped and raged, tearing from one tree to another,
+expending paroxysms of force in vain attempts to overturn one or the
+other of them. The ground seemed to shake under his thundering hoofs.
+His eyes were full of green fire; his nostrils twitched; the black
+tassel or “bell” hanging from his shaggy throat shook with every angry
+movement; his muffle, the big overhanging upper lip, was spotted with
+foam.
+
+As he gulped, grunted, snorted, and roared, his uncouth, guttural
+noises made him seem more than ever like a curious creature of earth’s
+earliest ages.
+
+“We came pretty near to being goners, Dol, I tell you!” carolled Cyrus
+again from his high perch in the hemlock, carrying on a by-play with
+the enemy between each sentence. “How in the name of wonder did you
+manage such a call? It would have moved the heart-strings of any moose.
+I was lying flat, you know, peeping through a little gap in the bushes,
+and you had scarcely taken the horn from your mouth when I saw the old
+fellow come stamping out of the woods. My! wasn’t he a sight? He stood
+for a minute looking about for the fancied cow; then he bellowed, and
+started towards the knoll. I knew we had better run for our lives. As
+soon as he saw us he gave chase.”
+
+“And ‘the fancied cow’ should go tumbling down the knoll like a rolling
+jackass, and smash that grand horn to bits!” lamented Dol, who now sat
+serenely on his bough, with a firm clasp of the hemlock trunk, and a
+reckless enjoyment of the situation which far surpassed his
+companion’s.
+
+Cyrus began to have an occasional twinge of uneasiness about the
+possible length of the siege, after his first exuberance subsided; but
+the younger boy, his short terror overcome, had no misgivings. He
+coquetted with the moose through a thick screen of foliage, shook the
+branches at him, gibed and taunted him, enjoying the extra fury he
+aroused.
+
+But suddenly the old bull, having kept up his wild movements for nearly
+an hour, resolved on a change of tactics. He stood stock-still and
+lowered his head.
+
+“Goodness! He has made up his mind to ‘stick us out!’” gasped Cyrus.
+
+“What’s that?” said Dol.
+
+“Don’t you see? He’s going to lay siege in good earnest—wait till we’re
+forced to come down. Here’s a state of things! We can’t roost in these
+trees all night.”
+
+The hemlocks were throwing ever-lengthening shadows on the grass. A
+slow eclipse was stealing over everything. The motionless moose became
+an uncouth black shape. Garst muttered uneasily. His fingers tingled
+for his rifle—a very unusual thing with him. His eyes peered through
+the creeping darkness in puzzled search for some suggestion, some
+possibility of escape.
+
+“If it were only myself!” he whispered, as if talking to his hemlock.
+“If it were only myself, I wouldn’t care a pin. ’Twould do me no great
+harm to perch here for hours. But an English youngster, on his first
+camping-trip! Why, the chill of a forest night might ruin him. He
+wouldn’t howl or make a fuss, for both those Farrar boys have lots of
+grit, but he’d never get over it. Dol!” he wound up, raising his voice
+to a sharp pitch. “Say, Dol, I’m going to try a shout for help. Herb
+must be getting anxious about us by this time. If we could once make
+him hear, he could try some trick to lure this old curmudgeon away, or
+creep up and shoot him. Something must be done.”
+
+Fetching a deep breath, Cyrus sent a distance-piercing “Coo-hoo!”
+ringing through the night-air. He followed it with another.
+
+But, so far as he could hear, the hails fetched no answer, save from
+the moose-jailer. The brute was stirred into a fresh tantrum by the
+noise. He charged the hemlocks once more, butted and shook them like a
+veritable demon.
+
+When his paroxysm had subsided, and he stood off to get breath, Garst
+hailed again.
+
+Glad sound! An answer this time! First, a shrill, long “Coo-hoo!” Next,
+Herb’s voice was heard pealing from far away in the bog: “What’s up,
+boys? Where in the world are you?”
+
+“Here in the trees—treed by a bull-moose!” yelled Cyrus. “He’s the
+maddest old monster you ever saw. Could you coax him off, or sneak up
+and shoot him? He means to keep us prisoners all night.”
+
+There was no wordy answer. But presently the treed heroes heard an odd,
+bird-like whistle. Dol thought it came from a feathered creature; his
+more experienced companion guessed that the guide’s lips gave it as a
+signal that he was coming, but that he didn’t want to draw the moose’s
+attention in his direction just yet.
+
+Such a quarter of an hour followed! With the fresh spurt of anger the
+bull-moose became more savage than ever. He grunted, tramped, and
+hooked the trees with his horns, so that the pair who were perched like
+night-birds on the branches had to hold on for dear life, lest a
+surprising shock should dislodge them. Whenever the creature stood off,
+to gather more fury, they could have counted their heart-beats while
+they listened, breathlessly anxious to, know what action the
+approaching woodsman would take.
+
+Once Cyrus spoke.
+
+“Dol Farrar,” he said, “I guess this caps all the adventures that you
+or I have had up to date. No wonder you felt all day as if you were
+working up to something. I’ll believe in presentiments in future.”
+
+The words had scarcely passed his lips, when there was the sharp bang!
+bang! of a rifle not twenty yards distant. A bright sputter of fire cut
+the darkness beneath the hemlocks.
+
+The moose’s blind rage threatened to be his own undoing. While he was
+fighting an imaginary danger, ears and nostrils half-choked by fury,
+through the calm night Herb Heal, Winchester in hand, had crept
+noiselessly on, till he reached the very trees which sheltered his
+friends.
+
+Once, twice, three times the rifle snapped. The first shot missed
+altogether. At the second, the moose rose upon his hind-legs, with a
+sharp sound of fright and pain, quite unlike his former noises. Then he
+gave a quick jump.
+
+“Great Governor’s Ghost! he’s gone;” yelled Cyrus, who had swung
+himself down a few feet, and was hanging by one arm, in his anxiety to
+see the result of the firing. “You needn’t shoot again, Herb! He’s off!
+Let him go!”
+
+“I guess that second shot cut some hair from him, and drew blood too,”
+answered Herb, his deep voice giving the pair a queer sensation as they
+heard it right beneath. “It was too dark to see plain, but I think he
+reared; and that’s a sign that he was hurt, little or much. Don’t drop
+down for a minute, boys, till we see whether he has bolted for good.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XX. Triumph
+
+
+He had bolted for good, vanished into the mysterious deeps of the
+primeval forest, whether hurt unto death, or merely “nipped” in a
+fore-leg, as Herb inclined to think, nobody knew.
+
+“It’s too dark to see blood-marks, if there are any, so we can’t trail
+him to-night. If he’s hit bad—but I guess he ain’t—we can track him in
+the morning,” said the guide; as, after an interval of listening, the
+rescued pair dropped down from their perches. “Did he chase you, boys?
+Where on earth did you come on him?”
+
+Talking together, their words tumbling out like a torrent let loose,
+Cyrus Garst and Dol Farrar gave an account of the past two
+hours—strangest hours of their lives—filling up the picture of them bit
+by bit.
+
+“Whew! whew! You did have a narrow squeak, boys, and a scarey time; but
+I guess you had a lot of fun out of the old snorter,” said Herb, his
+rare laugh jingling out, starting the forest echoes like a clang of
+bells. “You’ve won those antlers, Dol—won ’em like a man. Blest, but
+you have! I promised ’em to the first fellow who called up a moose; and
+nary a woodsman in Maine could have done it better. I’m powerful glad
+’twasn’t your own death-call you gave. I’ll keep my eye on you now till
+you leave these woods. Where’s the horn?”
+
+“Smashed to bits,” answered Dol regretfully.
+
+“And the camp-kettle?”
+
+“Lying by the spring, over there on the knoll, unless the moose kicked
+it to pieces,” said Cyrus.
+
+“My senses! you’re a healthy pair to send for water, ain’t ye? Let’s
+cruise off and find it. I guess you’ll be wanting a drink of hot
+coffee, after roosting in them trees for so long.”
+
+Garst led the way to the spring. Its pretty hum sounded like an angel’s
+whisper through the night, after the tumult of the past scene. Herb
+fumbled in his leather wallet, brought out a match and a small piece of
+birch-bark, and kindled a light. With some groping, the kettle was
+found; it was filled, and the party started for camp.
+
+“I heard the distant challenge of a bull-moose a couple of hours ago,”
+said the guide, as they went along. “I never suspicioned he was
+attacking you; but after the camp was a’ ready, and you hadn’t turned
+up, I got kind o’ scared. I left Neal to tend the fire and toast the
+pork, and started out to search. I s’pose I took the wrong direction;
+for I hollered, and got no answer. Afterwards, when I was travelling
+about the bog, I heard a ‘Coo-hoo!’ and the noises of an angry moose.
+Then I guessed there was trouble.”
+
+“Won’t Neal look blue when he hears that he was toasting pork while we
+were perched in those trees, with the moose waltzing below!” exclaimed
+Dol. “Well, Cy, I’ve won the antlers, and I’ve got my ripping story for
+the Manchester fellows. I don’t care how soon we turn home now.”
+
+“You don’t, don’t ye?” said the guide. “Well, I should s’pose you’d
+want to trail up that moose to-morrow, and see what has become of him.”
+
+“Of course I do! I forgot that.”
+
+And Dol Farrar, who had thought his record of adventure and triumph so
+full that it could hold no more, realized that there is always for
+ambition a farther point.
+
+Neal did feel a little blue over the thought of what he had missed.
+But, being a generous-hearted fellow, he tasted his young brother’s
+joy, when the latter cuddled close to him upon the evergreen boughs
+that night, muttering, as if the whole earth lay conquered at his
+feet:—
+
+“My legs are as stiff as ramrods, but who’d think of his legs after
+such a night as we’ve had?
+
+“I say, Neal, this is life; the little humbugging scrapes we used to
+call adventures at home are only play for girls. It’s something to talk
+about for a lifetime, when a fellow comes to close quarters with a
+creature like that moose. I said I’d get the better of his ears, and I
+did it. Pinch me, old boy, if I begin a moose-call in my sleep.”
+
+Several times during the night Neal found it necessary to obey this
+injunction, else had there been no peace in the camp. But, in spite of
+Dol’s ravings and riotings in his excited dreams, the party enjoyed a
+needed ten hours’ slumber, all save Herb, who, as usual, was astir the
+next morning while his comrades were yet snoring.
+
+He got his fire going well, and baked a great flat loaf of bread in his
+frying-pan, setting the pan amid hot ashes and covering it over.
+Previous to this, he had made a pilgrimage to the distant spring, to
+fill his kettle for coffee and bread-making, and had carefully examined
+the ground about the clump of hemlocks.
+
+The result of his investigation was given to the boys as they ate their
+breakfast under the shade of a cedar, with a sky above them whose
+morning glories were here and there overshot by leaden tints.
+
+“I guess we’ve got a pretty fair chance of trailing that moose,” he
+said. “I found both hair and blood on the spot where he was wounded.
+I’m for following up his tracks, though I guess they’ll take us a bit
+up the mountain. If he’s hurt bad, ’twould be kind o’ merciful to end
+his sufferings. If he ain’t, we can let him get off.”
+
+“Right, as you always are, Herb,” answered Cyrus. “But what on earth
+made the creature bolt so suddenly? If you had seen him five minutes
+before he was shot, you’d have said he had as much fight in him as a
+lion.”
+
+“That’s the way with moose a’most always. Their courage ain’t that o’
+flesh-eating animals. It’s only a spurt; though it’s a pretty big spurt
+sometimes, as you boys know now. It’ll fail ’em in a minute, when you
+least expect it. And, you see, that one last night didn’t know where
+his wound came from. I guess he thought he was struck by lightning or a
+thunder-ball, so he skipped. Talking of thunder-balls, boys,” wound up
+Herb, “I shouldn’t be surprised if the old Mountain Spirit, who lives
+up a-top there, gave us a rattling welcome with his thunders to-day.
+The air is awful heavy for this time of year. Perhaps we’d better give
+up the trailing after all.”
+
+“Nonsense!” exclaimed Dol indignantly. “Do you think a shower will melt
+us? Or that we’ll squeal like girls at a few flashes of lightning?
+’Twould be jolly good fun to see old Pamolah sending off his
+artillery.”
+
+“Well, there’d be no special danger, I guess, if we were past the heavy
+timber growth before the storm began. There’s lots of rocky dens on the
+mountain side where we could shelter under a granite ledge, and be
+safer than we’d be here in tent. Or we might come a-near our old log
+camp. I guess, if that’s standing yet, you’d like to see it. Say! we’ll
+leave it to Cyrus. He’s boss, ain’t he?”
+
+Cyrus, desperately anxious to know whether it would be life or death
+for the wounded moose, and regarding the signs of bad weather as by no
+means certain, decided in favor of the expedition. The campers
+hurriedly swallowed the remainder of their breakfast, and made ready
+for an immediate start.
+
+“In trailing a moose the first rule is: go as light as you can; that
+is, don’t carry an ounce more stuff than is necessary. Even a man’s
+rifle is apt to get in his way when he has to scramble over windfalls,
+or slump between big bowlders of rock, which a’most tear the clothes
+off his back. And we may have to do some pretty tall climbing. So leave
+all your traps in the tent, boys; I’ll fasten it down tight. There
+won’t be any human robbers prowling around, you bet! Bears and coons
+are the only burglars of these woods, and they don’t do much mischief
+in daytime.”
+
+The guide rapidly gave these directions, his breezy voice setting a
+current of energy astir, like a wind-gust cutting through a quiet
+grove, while he rolled his indispensable axe, some bread that was left
+from the meal, and a lump of pork into a little bundle, which he
+strapped on his back.
+
+“Now,” he said, “if that trail should give us a long tramp, or if you
+boys should take a notion to go a good ways up Katahdin, or anything
+turns up to hinder our getting back to camp till nightfall, I’ve our
+snack right here. I can light a fire in two minutes, to toast our pork;
+and we’ll wash it down with mountain water, the best drink for
+climbers. I could rig you up a snug shelter, too, in case of accidents.
+A woodsman ain’t in it without his axe.”
+
+To what strange work that axe would be put ere night again closed its
+shutters over granite peaks and evergreen forest, Herb Heal little
+knew; nor could he have guessed that the coming hours would make the
+most heart-stirring day of his stirring life. If he could, would he
+have started out this morning with a happy-go-lucky whistle, softly
+modulated on his lips, and no more sober burden on his mind than the
+trail of that moose?
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXI. On Katahdin
+
+
+“See there, boys, I told you so,” said Herb, as the party reached the
+ever-to-be-remembered clump of hemlocks, the beginning of the trail
+which they were ready to follow up like sleuth-hounds. “There’s plenty
+of hair; I guess I singed him in two places.”
+
+He pointed to some shaggy clotted locks on the grass at his feet, and
+then to a small maroon-colored stain beside them.
+
+“Is that blood?” asked Neal.
+
+“Blood, sure enough, though there ain’t much of it. But I’ll tell you
+what! I’d as soon there wasn’t any. I wish it had been light enough
+last night for me to act barber, and
+only cut some hair from that moose, instead of wounding him. It might
+have answered the purpose as well, and sent him walking.”
+
+“I don’t believe it would have done anything of the kind,” exclaimed
+Dol. “He was far too red-hot an old customer to bolt because a bullet
+shaved him.”
+
+“Well, I don’t set up to be soft-hearted like Cyrus here; and I’m ready
+enough to bag my meat when I want it,” said the woodsman. “But sure’s
+you live, boys, I never wounded a free game creature yet, and seed it
+get away to pull a hurt limb and a cruel pain with it through the
+woods, that I could feel chipper afterwards. It’s only your delicate
+city fellows who come out here for a shot once a year, who can chuckle
+over the pools of blood a wounded moose leaves behind him. Sho! it’s
+not manly.”
+
+A start was now made on the trail, Herb leading, and showing such
+wonderful skill as a trailer that the English boys began to believe his
+long residence in the woods had developed in him supernatural senses.
+
+“That moose was shot through the right fore-leg,” he whispered, as the
+trackers reached the edge of the forest.
+
+“How do you know?” gasped the Farrars.
+
+The woodsman answered by kneeling, bending his face close to the
+ground, and drawing his brown finger successively round three prints on
+a soft patch of earth, which the unpractised eyes could scarcely
+discern.
+
+“There’s no mark of the right fore-hoof,” he whispered again presently;
+“nothing but _that_,” pointing to another dark red blotch, which the
+boys would have mistaken for maroon-tinted moss.
+
+A breathless, wordless, toiling hour followed. Through the dense woods,
+which sloped steadily upward, clothing Katahdin’s highlands, Herb Heal
+travelled on, now and again halting when the trail, because of freshly
+fallen pine-needles or leaves, became quite invisible. Again he would
+crouch close to the ground, make a circle with his finger round the
+last visible print, and work out from that, trying various directions,
+until he knew that he was again on the track which the limping moose
+had travelled before him.
+
+His comrades followed in single file, carrying their rifles in front of
+their bodies instead of on their shoulders, so that there might be no
+danger of a sudden clang or rattle from the barrels striking the trees.
+Following the example of their guide, each one carefully avoided
+stepping on crackling twigs or dry branches, or rustling against bushes
+or boughs. The latter they would take gingerly in their hands as they
+approached them, bend them out of the way, and gently release them as
+they passed. Heroically they forebore to growl when their legs were
+scraped by jagged bowlders or prickly shrubs, giving thanks inwardly to
+the manufacturers of their stout tweeds that their clothes held
+together, instead of hanging on them like streamers on a rag-bush.
+
+It was a good, practical lesson in moose-trailing; but, save for the
+knowledge gained by the three who had never stalked a moose before, it
+was a failure.
+
+The air beneath the dense foliage grew depressing—suffocating. Each one
+longed breathlessly for the minute when he should emerge from this
+heavy timber-growth, even to do more rugged climbing. Distant rumbles
+were heard. Herb’s prophecy was being fulfilled. Pamolah was grumbling
+at the trailers, and sending out his Thunder Sons to bid them back.
+
+But it was too late for retreat. If they gave up their purpose, turned
+and fled to camp, the storm, which was surely coming, would catch them
+under the interlacing trees, a danger which the guide was especially
+anxious to avoid. He pressed on with quickened steps, stooping no more
+to make circles round the moose’s prints. Old Pamolah’s threatenings
+grew increasingly sullen. At last the desired break in the woods was
+reached; the trackers found themselves on the open side of Katahdin,
+surrounded by a tangled growth of alders and white birches struggling
+up between granite rocks; then the mountain artillery broke forth with
+terrifying clatter.
+
+A loud, long thunder-roll was echoed from crag, slide, forest, spur,
+and basin. The “home of storms” was a fort of noise.
+
+“Ha! there’ll be a big cannonading this time, I guess. Pamolah is going
+to let fly at us with big shot, little shot, fire and water—all the
+forces the old scoundrel has,” said Herb Heal, at last breaking the
+silence which had been kept on the trail, and looking aloft towards the
+five peaks guarding that mysterious basin, from which heavy, lurid
+clouds drifted down.
+
+At the same time a blustering, mighty wind-gust half swept the four
+climbers from their feet. A great flash of globe lightning cut the air
+like a dazzling fire-ball.
+
+“We’ll have to quit our trailing, and scoot for shelter, I’m thinking!”
+exclaimed Cyrus.
+
+“Good land, I should say so!” agreed the guide. “The bull-moose likes
+thunder. He’s away in some thick hole in the forest now, recovering
+himself. We couldn’t have come up with him anyhow, boys, for them
+blood-spots had stopped. I guess his leg wasn’t smashed; and he’ll soon
+be as big a bully as ever. Follow me now, quick! Mind yer steps,
+though! Them bushes are awful catchy!”
+
+Undazzled by the lightning’s frequent flare, unstaggered by the
+down-rushing wind, as if the mountain thunders were only the roll of an
+organ about his ears, Herb Heal sprang onward and upward, tugging his
+comrades one by one up many a precipitous ledge, and pulling them to
+their feet again when the tripping bushes brought their noses to the
+ground and their heels into the air.
+
+“Hitch on to me, Dol!” he cried, suddenly turning on that youngster,
+who was trying to get his second breath. “Tie on to me tight. I’ll tow
+you up! I wish we could ha’ reached that old log camp, boys. ’Twould be
+a stunning shelter, for it has a wall of rock to the back. But it’s
+higher up, and off to the right. There! I see the den I’m aiming for.”
+
+A few energetic bounds brought Herb, with Dol in tow, to a platform of
+rock, which rose above a bed of blueberry bushes. It narrowed into a
+sort of cave, roofed by an overhanging bowlder.
+
+“We’ll be snug enough under this rock!” he exclaimed, pointing to the
+canopy. “Creep in, boys. We’ll have tubs of rain, and a pelting of
+hail. The rumpus is only beginning.”
+
+So it was. The storm had been creeping from its cradle. Now it swept
+down with an awful whirl and commingling of elements.
+
+The boys, peering out from their rocky nest, saw a magnificent panorama
+beneath them. The regiments of the air were at war. Lightning chains
+encircled the heavens, lighting up the forests below. Winds charged
+down the mountain-side, sweeping stones and bushes before them.
+Hail-bullets rattled in volleys. Thunder-artillery boomed until the
+very rocks seemed to shake.
+
+“It’s fine!” exclaimed Cyrus. “It’s super-fine!”
+
+Then a curtain of thick rain partly hid the warfare, the lightning
+still rioting through it like a beacon of battle.
+
+“The stones up above will have to be pretty firmly fixed to keep their
+places,” said Herb. “Boys, I hope there ain’t a-going to be slides on
+the mountain after this.”
+
+“Slides?” echoed Dol questioningly.
+
+“Landslides, kid. Say! if you want to be scared until your bones feel
+limp, you’ve got to hear a great big block of granite come ploughing
+down from the top ’o the mountain, bringing earth and bushes along with
+it, and smashing even the rocks to splinters as it pounds along.”
+
+“I guess that’s a sensation we’d rather be spared,” said Cyrus gravely.
+
+And under the quieting spell of the airy warfare there was silence for
+a while.
+
+“Do you think it’s lightening up, Herb?” asked Neal, after the storm
+had raged for three-quarters of an hour.
+
+“I guess it is. The rain is stopping too. But we’ll have an awful
+slushy time of it getting back to camp. To plough through them soaked
+forests below would be enough to give you city fellows a shaking ague.”
+
+“Couldn’t we climb on to your old log camp?” suggested Garst. “If we
+have the luck to find the old shanty holding together, we can light a
+fire there after things dry out a bit, and eat our snack. Then we
+needn’t be in a hurry to get down. We’ll risk it, anyhow.”
+
+“I reckon that’s about the only thing to be done,” assented the guide.
+
+And in twenty minutes’ time the four were again straining up Katahdin,
+clutching slippery rocks, sinking in sodden earth, shivering as they
+were besprinkled by every bush and dwarfed tree, and dreadfully
+hampered with their rifles.
+
+“Never mind, boys; we’ll get there! Clinch yer teeth, and don’t squirm!
+Once we’re past this tangle, the bit of climbing that’s left will be as
+easy as rolling off a log!”
+
+So shouted Herb cheerfully, as he tore a way with hand and foot through
+the stunted growth of alders and birch, which, beaten down by the
+winds, was now an almost impassable, sopping tangle.
+
+“Keep in my tracks!” he bellowed again. “Gracious! but this sort o’
+work is as slow as molasses crawling up-hill in winter.”
+
+But ten minutes later, when the dripping jungle was behind, he dropped
+his jesting tone.
+
+He came to a full stop, catching his breath with a big gulp.
+
+“Boys,” he cried, “it’s standing yet! I see it—the old home-camp! There
+it is above us on that bit of a platform, with the big rock behind it.
+And I’ve kep’ saying to myself for the last quarter of an hour that we
+wouldn’t find it—that we’d find nary a thing but mildewed logs!”
+
+A wealth of memories was in the woodsman’s eyes as he gazed up at the
+timber nest, the log camp which his own hands had put up, standing on a
+narrow plateau, and built against a protecting wall of rock that rose
+in jagged might to a height of thirty or forty feet.
+
+An earth bank or ridge, covered with hardy mosses and mountain
+creepers, sloped gently up to the sheltered platform. To climb this
+was, indeed, “as easy as rolling off a log.”
+
+“We used to have a good beaten path here, but I guess it’s all growed
+over,” said Herb in a thick voice, as if certain cords in his throat
+were swelling. “Many’s the time I’ve blessed the sight of that old
+home-camp, boys, after a hard week’s trapping. Hundert’s o’ night’s
+I’ve slept snug inside them log walls when blasts was a-sweeping and
+bellowing around, like as if they’d rip the mountain open, and tear its
+very rocks out.”
+
+While the guide spoke he was leaping up the ridge. A few minutes, and
+he stood, a towering figure, on the platform above, waving his battered
+hat in salute to the old camp.
+
+“I guess some traveller has been sheltering here lately!” he cried to
+Neal Farrar, as the latter overtook him. “There’s a litter around,”
+pointing to dry sticks and withered bushes strewn upon the
+camping-ground. “And the door’s standing open. I wonder who found the
+old shanty?”
+
+Neal remembered, hours afterwards, that at the moment he felt an odd
+awakening stir in him, a stir which, shooting from head to foot, seemed
+to warn him that he was nearing a sensation, the biggest sensation of
+this wilderness trip.
+
+He heard the voices of Cyrus and Dol hallooing behind; but they sounded
+away back and indistinct, for his ears were bent towards the deserted
+camp, listening with breathless expectation for something, he didn’t
+know what.
+
+One minute the vague suspense lasted, while he followed Herb towards
+the hut. Then heaven and earth and his own heart seemed to stand still.
+
+Through the wide-open door of the shanty came random, crooning snatches
+of sound. Was the guttural voice which made them human? The English boy
+scarcely knew. But as the noise swelled, like the moaning of a dry wind
+among trees, he began, as it were, to disentangle it. Words shaped
+themselves, Indian words which he had heard before on the guide’s
+tongue.
+
+“_N’loan pes-saus, mok glint ont-aven,
+Glint ont-aven, nosh morgun_.”
+
+
+These lines from the “Star Song,” the song which Herb had learned from
+his traitor chum, floated out to him upon Katahdin’s breeze. They
+struck young Farrar’s ears in staggering tones, like a knell, the
+sadness of which he could not at the moment understand. But he had a
+vague impression that the mysterious singer in the deserted camp
+attached no meaning to what he chanted.
+
+“Look out, I say! I don’t want to come a cropper here.”
+
+It was Dol’s young voice which rang out shrilly among the mountain
+echoes. Side by side with Cyrus, the boy had just gained the top of the
+ridge when the guide suddenly backed upon him, Herb’s great
+shoulder-blade knocking him in the face, so that he had to plant his
+feet firmly to avoid spinning back.
+
+But Herb had heard that guttural crooning. Just now he could hear
+nothing else.
+
+Twice he made a heaving effort to speak, and the voice cracked in his
+throat.
+
+Then, as he sprang for the camp-door, four words stumbled from his
+lips:—
+
+“By thunder! it’s Chris.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXII. The Old Home-Camp
+
+
+The silence which followed that ejaculation was like the hush of earth
+before a thunder-storm.
+
+Not a syllable passed the lips of the boys as they followed Herb into
+the log hut, but feeling seemed wagging a startled tongue in each
+finger-tip which convulsively pressed the rifles.
+
+And not another articulate sentence came from the guide; only his
+throat swelled with a deep, amazed gurgle as he reached the interior of
+the shanty, and dropped his eyes upon the individual who raised that
+queer chanting.
+
+On a bed of withered spruce boughs, strewn higgledy-piggledy upon the
+camp-floor—mother earth—lay the form of a man. Thin wisps of blue-black
+hair, long untrimmed, trailed over his face and neck, which looked as
+if they were carved out of yellow bone. His figure was skeleton-like.
+His lips—the lips which at the entrance of the strangers never ceased
+their wild crooning—were swollen and fever-scorched. His black eyes,
+disfigured by a hideous squint, rolled with the sick fancies of
+delirium.
+
+Cyrus and the Farrars, while they looked upon him, felt that, even if
+they had never heard Herb’s exclamation, they would have had no
+difficulty in identifying the creature, remembering that story which
+had thrilled them by the camp-fire at Millinokett. It was Herb Heal’s
+traitor chum—the half-breed, Cross-eyed Chris.
+
+And Herb, backing off from the withered couch as far as the limited
+space of the cabin would allow, stood with his shoulders against the
+mouldy logs of the wall, his eyes like peep-holes to a volcano, gulping
+and gurgling, while he swallowed back a fire of amazed excitement and
+defeated anger, for which his backwoods vocabulary was too cheap.
+
+A flame seemed scorching and hissing about his heart while he
+remembered that during some hour of every day for five years, since
+last he had seen the “hound” who robbed him, he had sworn that, if ever
+he caught the thief, he would pounce upon him with a woodsman’s
+vengeance.
+
+“I couldn’t touch him now—the scum! But I’ll be switched if I’ll do a
+thing to help him!” he hissed, the flame leaping to his lips.
+
+Yet he had a strange sensation, as if that vow was broken like an
+egg-shell even while he made it. He knew that “the two creatures which
+had fought inside of him, tooth and claw,” about the fate of his enemy,
+were pinching his heart by turns in a last hot conflict.
+
+His eyes shot flinty sparks; he drew his breath in hard puffs; his
+knotted throat twitched and swelled, while they (the man and the brute)
+strove within him; and all the time he stood staring in grisly silence
+at the half-breed.
+
+The latter still continued his Indian croon; though from the crazy roll
+of his malformed eyes it was plain that he knew not whether he chanted
+about the stars, his old friends and guides, or about anything else in
+heaven or earth.
+
+But one thing quickly became clear to Cyrus, and then to the Farrar
+boys,—less accustomed to tragedy than their comrade,—that this strange
+personage, in whose veins the blood of white men and red men met,
+carrying in its turbid flow the weaknesses of two races, was singing
+his swan-song, the last chant he would ever raise on earth.
+
+At their first entrance, as their bodies interfered with the broad
+light streaming through the cabin-door, Chris had lifted towards them a
+scared, shrinking stare. But, apparently, he took them for the shadows
+which walked in the dreams of his delirium. Not a ray of recognition
+lightened the blankness of that stare as Herb’s big figure passed
+before him. Letting his eyes wander aimlessly again from log wall to
+log wall, from withered bed to mouldy rafters, his lips continued their
+crooning, which sank with his weakening breath, then rose again to sink
+once more, like the last wind-gusts when the storm is over.
+
+Suddenly his shrunken body shivered in every limb. The humming ceased.
+His yellow teeth tapped upon each other in trouble and fear. He raised
+himself to a squatting posture, with his knee-bones to his chin, the
+wisps of hair tumbling upon his naked chest.
+
+“It’s dark—heap dark!” he whimpered, between long gasps. “Can’t strike
+the trail—can’t find the home-camp. Herb—Herb Heal—ole pard—’twas I
+took ’em—the skins. ’Twas—a dog’s trick. Take it out—o’ my hide—if yer
+wants to—yah! Heap sick!”
+
+Not a ray of sense was yet in the half-breed’s eyes. An imaginary,
+vengeance-dealing Herb was before him; but he never turned a glance
+towards the real, and now forgiving, old chum, who leaned against the
+wall not ten feet away. His voice dropped to a guttural rumble, in
+which Indian sounds mingled with English.
+
+But the flame at Herb’s heart was quenched at the first whimpered word.
+His stiffened muscles and lips relaxed. With a gurgle of sorrow, he
+crossed the camp-floor, and dropped into a crawling position on the
+faded spruces.
+
+“Chris!” he cried thickly. “Chris,—poor old pard,—don’t ye know me?
+Look, man! Herb is right here—Herb Heal, yer old chum. You’re ‘heap
+sick’ for sure; but we’ll haul you off to a settlement or to our camp,
+and I’ll bring Doc along in two days. He’ll”—
+
+But Cross-eyed Chris became past hearing, his flicker of strength had
+failed; he keeled over, and lay, with his limp legs curled up, faint
+and speechless, upon the dead evergreens.
+
+“You ain’t a-going to die!” gasped Herb defiantly. “I’ll be jiggered if
+you be, jest as I’ve found you! Say, boys! Cyrus! Neal! rub him a bit,
+will ye? We ain’t got no brandy, I’ll build a fire, and warm some
+coffee.”
+
+It was strange work for the hands of the Bostonian, and stranger yet
+for those of young Farrar,—son of an English merchant-prince,—this
+straightening and rubbing of a dying half-Indian, a “scum,” as Herb
+called him, drunkard, and thief. Yet there was no flash of hesitation
+on Farrar’s part, as they brought their warm friction to bear upon the
+chill yellow skin, piebald from dirt and the stains of travel, as if it
+were the very mission which had brought them to Katahdin.
+
+They had grave thoughts meanwhile that the old mountain was decidedly
+gloomy in its omens, first a thunder-storm and then a tragedy; for, rub
+as they might with brotherly hands, they could not pass their own
+warmth into the body of the half-breed, though he still lived.
+
+But the mountain had not ended its terrors yet.
+
+Its mumbling lips began to speak, with a threatening, low at first like
+muttered curses, but swelling into a nameless noise—a rumbling,
+pounding, creeping, crashing.
+
+“Great Governor’s Ghost! what’s that?” gasped Cyrus, stopping his
+rubbing. “Pamolah or some other fiend seems to be bombarding us from
+the top now.”
+
+“It’s more thunder rolling over us,” said Neal; but as he spoke his
+tongue turned stiff with fear.
+
+“Sounds as if the whole mountain was tumbling to pieces. Perhaps it’s
+the end of the world,” suggested Dol, as a succession of booming shocks
+from above seemed to shake the camping-ground under his feet.
+
+There was one second of awful indecision. The boys looked at each
+other, at the dying man, at the roof above them, in the stiffness of
+uncertain terror.
+
+Then a figure leaped into their midst, with an armful of dry sticks,
+which he dashed from him. It was Herb, with the fuel for a fire. And,
+for the first and last time in his history, so far as these friends of
+his knew it, there was that big fear in his face which is most terrible
+when it looks out of the eyes of a naturally brave man.
+
+“Boys, where’s yer senses?” he yelled cuttingly. “Out, for your lives!
+Run! There’s a slide above us on the mountain!”
+
+“Him?” questioned Cyrus’s stiff lips, as he pointed to the breathing
+wreck on the spruce boughs. “He’s not dead yet.”
+
+“D’ye think I’d leave him? Clear out of this camp—you, or we’ll be
+buried in less’n two minutes! To the right! Off this ridge! Got yer
+rifles? I’m coming!”
+
+The woodsman flung out the words while his brawny arms hoisted the body
+of his old chum. His comrades had already disappeared when he turned
+and sprang for the camp-door with his limp burden, but his moccasined
+foot kicked against something.
+
+A great hiccough which was almost a sob rose from Herb’s throat. It was
+his one valuable possession, his 45-90 Winchester rifle, his second
+self, which he had rested against the log wall.
+
+“Good-by, Old Blazes!” he grunted. “You never went back on me, but I
+can’t lug him and you! My stars! but that was a narrow squeak.”
+
+For, as he cleared the camping-ground with a blind dash, with head bent
+and tongue caught between his clenched teeth, with a boom like a
+Gatling gun, a great block of granite from the summit of Katahdin
+struck the rock which sheltered the old camp, breaking a big piece off
+it, and shot on with mighty impetus down the mountain.
+
+An avalanche of loose earth, stones, and bushes, brought down by this
+battering-ram of the landslide, piled themselves upon the log hut,
+smashing to kindling-wood its walls, which had stood many a hard storm,
+burying them out of sight, and flinging wide showers of dust and small
+missiles.
+
+A scattered rain of clay caught Herb upon the head, and lodged, some of
+it, on the little pack containing axe and lunch which was strapped upon
+his shoulders.
+
+He shook. His grip loosened. The limp, dragging body in his arms sank
+until the feet touched the earth.
+
+But with the supreme effort, moral and physical, of his life, the
+forest guide gathered it tight again.
+
+“I’ll be blowed if I’ll drop him now,” he gasped. “He ain’t nothing but
+a bag o’ bones, anyhow.”
+
+Only a strong man in the hour of his best strength could have done it.
+With a defiant snort Herb charged through the choking dust-clouds,
+pelted by flying pebbles, sods, and fragments of sticks.
+
+“This way, boys!” he roared, after five straining, staggering minutes,
+as he caught a glimpse of his comrades ahead, tearing off to the right,
+as he had bidden them. “You may let up now. We’re safe enough.”
+
+They faced back, and saw him make a few reeling, descending steps, then
+lay what now seemed to be an out-and-out lifeless man on a bed of moss
+beneath a dwarfed spruce.
+
+The nerves of the three were in a jumping condition, their brains felt
+befuddled, and their hearts sinking and melting in the midst of their
+bones, from the astounding shock and terror of the land-slide. But, as
+they beheld the guide deposit his burden, with its helplessly trailing
+head and limbs, a cheer in unsteady tones rang above the slackening
+rattle of earth and stones, and the far-away boom of the granite-block
+as it buried itself in the forest beneath.
+
+“Hurrah! for you, Herb, old boy,” yelled Cyrus triumphantly. “That was
+the grittiest thing I ever saw done’ Hurrah! Hurrah! Hoo-ray!”
+
+The English boys, open-throated, swelled the peal.
+
+But their cheering broke off as they came near, and saw the mask-like
+face over which Herb bent.
+
+“Is he gone, poor fellow?” asked Garst. “What do you suppose caused
+it—the slide?”
+
+“Why, it was a thundering big lump of granite from the top o’ the
+mountain,” answered Herb, replying to the second question. “That plaguy
+heavy rain must ha’ loosened the earth around it the clay and bushes
+that kep’ it in place. So it got kind o’ top-heavy, and came slumping
+and pitching down, slow at first, and then a’most as quick as a
+cannon-ball, bringing all that pile along with it. I’ve seen the like
+before; but, sho! I never came so near being buried by it.”
+
+He pointed as he spoke to the late camping-ground, with its lodgment of
+clay, sods, pygmy trees, and pieces of rock, big and little.
+
+
+Illustration: “Herb Charged Through The Choking Dust-Clouds.”
+
+
+“The old camp’s clean wiped out, boys,” he said; “and I guess one of
+the men that built it is gone, or a’most gone, too. Stick your arm
+under his head, Cyrus, while I hunt for some water.”
+
+Garst did as he was bidden, but his help was not needed long. The guide
+went off like a racer, covering the ground at a stretching gallop. He
+remembered well the clear Katahdin spring, which had supplied the
+home-camp during that long-past trapping winter. He returned with his
+tin mug full.
+
+When the ice-cold drops touched Chris’s forehead, and lay on his parted
+lips, gem-like drops which he was past swallowing, his malformed eyes
+slowly opened. There was intelligence in them, shining through the
+gathering death-film, like a sinking light in a lantern.
+
+He was groping in the dim border-land now, and in it he recognized his
+old partner with shadowy wonder; for delirium was past, with the other
+storms of a storm-beaten life.
+
+“Herb,” he gurgled in snatches, the words being half heard, half
+guessed at, “’twas I—took ’em—the skins—an’ the antlers. I wanted—to
+get—to the ole camp—an’ let you—take it out o’ me—afore I—keeled over.”
+
+Herb had taken Cyrus’s place, and was upholding him with a tenderness
+which showed that the guide’s heart was in this hour melted to a jelly.
+Two tears were dammed up inside his eyelids, which were so unused to
+tears that they held them in. He neither wiped nor winked them away
+before he answered:—
+
+“Don’t you fret about that—poor kid. We’ll chuck that old business
+clean out o’ mind. You’ve jest got to suck this water and try to
+chipper up, and—we’ll make camp together again.”
+
+But Herb knew as well as he knew anything that the man who had robbed
+him was long past “chippering up,” and was starting alone to the unseen
+camping-grounds.
+
+“How long since you got back here?” he’ asked, close to the dulling
+ear.
+
+“Couldn’t—keep—track—o’ days. Got—turned—round—in woods.
+Lost—trail—heap—long—getting—to—th’ old—camp.”
+
+The words seemed freezing on the lips which uttered them. Herb asked no
+more questions. Silence was broken only by the rolling voice of the
+land-slide, which had not yet ceased. Occasional volleys of loose earth
+and stones, dislodged or shaken by the down-plunging granite, still
+kept falling at intervals on the buried camp.
+
+At one unusually loud rattle, Chris’s lips moved again. In those
+strange gutturals which the boys had heard in the hut, he rumbled an
+Indian sentence, repeating it in English with scared, breaking breaths.
+
+It was a prayer of her tribe which his mother had taught him to say at
+morning and eve:—
+
+“God—I—am—weak—Pity—me!”
+
+“Heap—noise! Heap—dark!” he gasped. “Can’t—find—th’ old—camp.”
+
+“You’re near it now, old chum,” said Herb, trying to soothe him. “It’s
+the home-camp.”
+
+“We’ll—camp—to-ge-ther?”
+
+“We will again, sure.”
+
+The last stone pounded down on the heap above the old camp; and Herb
+gently laid flat the body of the man he had sworn to shoot, closed the
+malformed eyes, and turned away, that the fellows he was guiding might
+not see his face.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIII. Brother’s Work
+
+
+They buried Chris upon Katahdin’s breast. It was a good cemetery for
+woodsmen, so Herb said, granite above and forest beneath.
+
+But, good or bad, this was the one thing to be done. An attempt to
+transfer the body to a distant settlement would be objectless labor;
+for, as far as the guide knew, the half-breed had not a friend to be
+interested in his fate, father and mother having died before Herb found
+him in the snow-heaped forest.
+
+There were three reliable witnesses, besides the man who was known to
+have a grudge against him, to testify as to the cause and manner of his
+death when the party returned to Greenville; so no suspicious finger
+could point at Herb Heal, with a hint that he had carried out his old
+threat.
+
+How long Chris, in lonely, crazed repentance, had sheltered in the camp
+on the mountain-side could only be a matter of guess. Herb inclined to
+think that he had been there for weeks,—months, perhaps,—judging from
+the withered spruce bed and the dry boughs and sticks upon the
+camping-ground, which had evidently been gathered and broken for fuel.
+His ravings made it clear that, on returning to the old haunts after
+years of absence, he had missed the trail he used to know, and wandered
+wearily in the dense woods about the foot of Katahdin before he escaped
+from the prison of trees, and climbed to the hut he sought.
+
+Such wanderings, Herb declared, generally ended in “a man having wheels
+in his head,” being half or wholly insane, though he might keep
+sufficient wits to provide himself with food and warmth, as Chris had
+done while his strength held out. This was not long; for the
+half-breed’s words suggested that he felt near to the great change he
+roughly called “keeling over,” when he started to find his cheated
+partner.
+
+But Cyrus, while he watched the guide making preparations for the
+mountain burial, pictured the poor weakling tramping for hundreds of
+miles through rugged forest-land, doubtless with aching knee-joints and
+feet, that he might make upon his own skin justice for the skins which
+he had stolen, and so, in the only way he knew, square things with his
+wronged chum. And the city man thought, with a tear of pity, that even
+that poor drink-fuddled mind must have been lit by some ray of longing
+for goodness.
+
+It was a strange funeral.
+
+The guide chose a spot where the earth had been much softened by the
+recent rain; and, with the ingenuity of a man accustomed to wilderness
+shifts, he broke up the drenched ground with the axe which he took from
+his shoulders.
+
+That axe, which had so often made camp, had never before made a grave;
+the Farrars doubted that it ever would. But Herb worked away upon his
+knees, moisture dripping from his skin, putting sorrow for years of
+anger into every blow of his arms. Then, stopping a while, he went off
+down the mountain to the nearest belt of trees, and cut a limb from
+one, out of which, with his hunting-knife, he fashioned a rude wooden
+implement, a cross between a spade and shovel.
+
+With this he scooped out the broken earth until a grave appeared over
+three feet deep. He lined it with fragrant spruce-boughs from the
+wind-beaten tangle below.
+
+These Cyrus and Dol had busied themselves in cutting. Neal thought of
+other work for his fingers. Getting hold of Herb’s axe when the owner
+was not using it, he felled one of the dwarf white birches. Out of its
+light, delicate wood, with the help of his big pocket-knife and a ball
+of twine that was hidden somewhere about him, he made a very
+presentable cross, to point out to future hunters on Katahdin the
+otherwise unmarked grave.
+
+He was a bit of a genius at wood-carving, and surveyed his work with
+satisfaction when he considered it finished, having neatly cut upon it
+the name, “Chris Kemp,” with the date, “October 20th, 1891.”
+
+“Couldn’t you add a text or motto of some kind?” suggested Dol,
+glancing over his shoulder. “Twould make it more like the things one
+sees in cemeteries. You’re such a dab at that sort of work.”
+
+“Can’t think of anything,” answered the elder brother.
+
+Then, with a sudden lighting of his face, he seized the knife again,
+and worked in, in fine lettering, the frightened prayer he had heard on
+the half-breed’s lips:—
+
+“God, I am weak; pity me!”
+
+Herb and Cyrus lowered the body into its resting-place, and covered it
+with the green spruces.
+
+The four campers knelt bare-headed by the grave.
+
+“Couldn’t one of you boys say a bit of a prayer?” asked Herb in a thick
+voice. “I ain’t used to spouting.”
+
+All former help had been easily given. This was a harder matter, yet
+not so difficult as it would have been amid a city congregation.
+
+Garst tried to recall some suitable prayer from a funeral service; so
+did Neal. Both failed.
+
+But here upon Katahdin’s side, where, in the large forces of storm and
+slide, in forest and granite, through every wind-swept bush, waving
+blade, and tinted lichen, breathed a whisper from God, it seemed no
+unnatural thing for a man or a boy to speak to his Father.
+
+“Can’t one of you fellers say a prayer?” asked Herb again.
+
+Then the river of feeling in Cyrus broke the dam of reserve, and flowed
+over his lips in a prayer such as he had never before uttered.
+
+It was the prayer of a son who was for the minute absorbed in his
+Father.
+
+It left the five, those who were camping here and one who had gone to
+unseen camping-grounds, with son-like trust to the Father’s dealings.
+
+Herb and the Farrars responded to it with heart-eager “Amens!” the
+fervor of which was new to their lips.
+
+“I thank you as if he were my own brother, boys,” said the woodsman,
+while he filled in the grave, and planted Neal’s cross at its head.
+“Sho! when it comes to a time like we’ve been through to-day, a man, if
+he has anything but a gizzard in him, must feel as how we’re all
+brothers,—every man-jack of us,—white men, red men, half-and-half men,
+whatever we are or wherever we sprung.”
+
+“A fellow is always hearing that sort of thing,” said Neal Farrar to
+Cyrus. “But I’m blessed if I ever felt it stick in me before! that
+we’re all of the one stuff, you know—we and that poor beggar. Some of
+us seem to get such precious long odds over the others.”
+
+“All the more reason why we should do our level best to pull the
+backward ones up to us,” answered the American.
+
+The words struck into the ears of Dol—that youngster listening with a
+soberness of attention seldom seen in his flash-light eyes.
+
+A few years afterwards, when Neal Farrar was a newly blown lieutenant
+in his Queen’s Twelfth Lancers, as full of heroic impulses and
+enthusiasms as a modern young officer may be,—while his half-fledged
+ambitions were hanging on the chances of active service, and the
+golden, remote possibility of his one day being a V.C.,—there was a
+peaceful honor which clung to him unsought.
+
+During his first year of army life, he became the paragon of every poor
+private and raw recruit struggling with the miseries of goose-step,
+with whom he came even into momentary contact. For sometimes through a
+word or act, sometimes through a flash of the eye, or a look about the
+mouth, during the brief interchange of a military salute, these
+“backward ones” saw that the progressive young officer looked on them,
+not as men-machines, but as brothers, as important in the great schemes
+of the nation and the world as he was himself; that he was proud to
+serve with them, and would be prouder still to help them if he could.
+
+It was an understanding which inspired many a tempted or newly joined
+fellow to drill himself morally as his sergeant drilled him physically,
+with a determination to become as fine a soldier and forward a man as
+his paragon.
+
+But only one American friend of Lieutenant Farrar’s, who has let out
+the secret to the writer, knows that the binding truth of human
+brotherhood was first born into him when, on Katahdin’s side, he helped
+to bury a thieving half-Indian.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIV. “Keeping Things Even”
+
+
+“Now, you musn’t be moping, boys, because of this day’s work that you
+took a hand in, and that wasn’t in your play-bill when you come to
+these woods. We’ll have to try and even things up to-morrow with some
+big sport. You look kind o’ wilted.”
+
+So said Herb when the tired party were half-way back to camp, doing the
+descent of the mountain in a silence clouded by the scene which they
+had been through.
+
+The woodsman seemed troubled with a rasping in his throat. He cleared
+it twice and spat before he could open a passage for a decently
+cheerful voice in which to suggest a rise of spirits. But Herb was too
+faithful a guide to bear the thought that his employers’ trip should
+end in any gloom because the one painful chapter in his own life had
+closed forever. Moreover, although more than once, as he fought his way
+through a jungle or jumped a windfall, something nipped his heart,
+pinching him up inside, and making his eyes leak, he felt that the
+thing had ended well for him—and for Chris.
+
+Herb, in his simple faith, scarcely doubted that the old chum, whom he
+had forgiven, had reached a Home-Camp where his broken will and stunted
+life might be repaired, and grow as they had poor chance to grow here.
+
+“Say, boys!” he burst forth, a few minutes after his protest against
+“moping,” and when the band were within sight of the spring whence they
+had started, an age back, as it seemed, on the trail of the moose.
+“Say, boys! I’ve been all these years raging at Chris. Seems to me now
+as if he was a poor sort of overgrowed baby, and not so bad a thief as
+the chump who gave him that whiskey, and stole his senses. It’s a
+thundering big pity that man hadn’t the burying of him to-day.
+
+“He was always the under dog,—was Chris,” he went on slowly, as if he
+was seeking from his own heart an excuse for those unforeseen impulses
+which had worked it and his body during the past five hours. “Whites
+and Injuns jumped on him. They said he was criss-cross all through,
+same as his eyes. But he warn’t. Never seed a half-breed that had less
+gall and more grit, except when the hanker for whiskey would creep up
+in him, and boss him. He could no more stand agen it, and the things it
+made him do, than a jack-rabbit.”
+
+“Another reason why we Americans ought to feel our responsibility
+towards every man in whose veins runs Indian blood, a thousand times
+more hotly than we do!” burst out Cyrus. “It maddens a fellow to think
+that we made them the under dogs, and as much by giving them a ‘boss,’
+as you say, in fire-water, as by anything else.”
+
+“I kind o’ think that way myself sometimes,” said Herb.
+
+And there was silence until the guide cried:—
+
+“Here’s our camp, boys. I’ll bet you’re glad to see it. I must get the
+kettle, and cruise off for water. ’Tain’t likely I’ll trust one of you
+fellers after last night. But you can hustle round and build the
+camp-fire while I’m gone.”
+
+Herb had a shrewd motive in this. He knew that there is nothing which
+will cure the blues in a camper, if he is touched by that affliction,
+rare in forest life, like the building of his fire, watching the little
+flames creep from the dull, dead wood, to roar and soar aloft in
+gold-red pennons of good cheer.
+
+The result proved his wisdom. When he returned in a very short time
+from that ever-to-be-famous spring, with his brimming kettle, he found
+a glorious fire, and three tired but cheerful fellows watching it, its
+reflection playing like a jack-o’-lantern in each pair of eyes.
+
+“Now I’ll have supper ready in a jiffy,” he said. “I guess you boys
+feel like eating one another. Jerusha! we never touched our snack—nary
+a crumb of it.”
+
+In the strange happenings and chaotic feelings of the day, hunger,
+together with the bread and pork for satisfying it which Herb had
+carried up the mountain, were forgotten until now.
+
+“Never mind! We’ll make up for it. Only hurry up!” pleaded Dol. “We’re
+like bears, we’re so hungry.”
+
+“Like bears! You’re a sight more like calves with their mouths open,
+waiting for something to swallow,” answered Herb, his eyes flashing
+impudence, while, with an energy apparently no less brisk than when he
+started out in the morning, he rushed his preparations for supper.
+
+“Say I’m like a Sukey, and I’ll go for you!” roared Dol, a gurgling
+laugh breaking from him, the first which had been heard since the four
+struggled through that tangle on Katahdin to a sight of the old camp.
+
+Once or twice during supper the mirth, which had been frozen in each
+camper’s breast by a sight of the drifted wreck of a human life, warmed
+again spasmodically. Herb did his manly best to fan its flame, though
+his heart was still pinched by a feeling of double loss.
+
+Later in the evening, when the party were huddling close to the
+camp-fire, he lifted his right hand and looked at it blankly.
+
+“My!” he gasped, “but it will feel awful queer and empty without Old
+Blazes. That rifle was a reg’lar corker, boys. I was saving up for
+three years to buy it. An’ it never went back on me. Times when I’ve
+gone far off hunting, and had nary a chance to speak
+to a human for weeks, I’d get to talking to it like as if ’twas a
+living thing. When I wasn’t afeard of scaring game, I’d fire a round to
+make it answer back and drive away lonesomeness. Folks might ha’
+thought I was loony, only there was none to see. Well, it’s smashed to
+chips now, ’long with the old camp.”
+
+“What awfully selfish jackasses we were, to skip off with our own
+rifles, and never think of yours, or that you couldn’t save it,
+carrying that poor fellow! I feel like kicking myself,” said Cyrus,
+sharp vexation in his voice. “But that slide business sprang on us so
+quickly. The sudden rumbling, rattling, and pounding jumbled a fellow’s
+wits. I scarcely understood what was up, even when we were scooting for
+our lives.”
+
+“I felt a bit white-livered myself, I tell ye; and I’m more hardened to
+slides than you are,” was the woodsman’s answer.
+
+The confession, taken in the light of his conduct, made him doubly a
+hero to his city friends.
+
+They thought of him staggering along the mountain, blinded, bewildered,
+pelted by clay, with that dragging burden in his arms, a heart tossed
+by danger’s keenest realization in his breast. And they were silent
+before the high courage which can recognize fear, yet refuse to it the
+mastery.
+
+Neal, whose secret musings were generally crossed by a military thread,
+seeing that he had chosen the career of a cavalry-soldier, and hoped
+soon to enter Sandhurst College, stared into the heart of the
+camp-fire, glowering at fate, because she had not ordained that Herb
+should serve the queen with him, and wear upon his resolute heart—as it
+might reasonably be expected he would—the Victoria Cross.
+
+Young Farrar’s feeling was so strong that it swept his lips at last.
+
+“Blow it all! Herb,” he cried. “It’s a tearing pity that you can’t come
+into the English Lancers with me. I don’t suppose I’ll ever be a V.C.,
+but you would sooner or later as sure as gun’s iron.”
+
+“A ‘V.C.!’ What’s that?” asked Herb.
+
+“A Vigorous Christian, to be sure!” put in Cyrus, who was progressive
+and peaceful, teasingly.
+
+But the English boy, full of the dignity of the subject to him,
+summoned his best eloquence to describe to the American backwoodsman
+that little cross of iron, Victoria’s guerdon, which entitles its
+possessor to write those two notable letters after his name, and which
+only hero-hearts may wear.
+
+But a vision of himself, stripped of “sweater” and moccasins, in
+cavalry rig, becrossed and beribboned, serving under another flag than
+the Stars and Stripes, was too much for Herb’s gravity and for the grim
+regrets which wrung him to-night.
+
+“Oh, sugar!” he gasped; and his laughter was like a rocket shooting up
+from his mighty throat, and exploding in a hundred sparkles of
+merriment.
+
+He laughed long. He laughed insistently. His comrades were won to join
+in.
+
+When the fun had subsided, Garst said:—
+
+“Herb Heal, old man, there’s something in you to-night which reminds me
+of a line I’m rather stuck on.”
+
+“Let’s have it!” cried Herb.
+
+And Cyrus quoted:—
+
+“As for this here earth,
+It takes lots of laffin’ to keep things even!”
+
+
+“Now you’ve hit it! The man that wrote that had a pile o’ sense. Come,
+boys, it’s been an awful full day. Let’s turn in!”
+
+As he spoke, Herb began to replenish the fire, and make things snug in
+the camp for the night.
+
+But shortly after, when he threw himself on the spuce-boughs near them,
+the boys heard him murmur, deep in his throat, as if he took strength
+from the words:—
+
+“It takes lots of laffin’ to keep things even!”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXV. A Little Caribou Quarrel
+
+
+But things on this old planet seemed even enough the next day, when,
+after a dozen hours of much needed sleep, the campers’ eyes opened upon
+a scene which might have stirred any sluggish blood—and they were not
+sluggards.
+
+A fresh breath of frost was in the air to quicken circulation and
+hunger. Under a smiling sun an October breeze frolicked through leaves
+with tints of fire and gold, humming, while it swiftly skimmed over
+their beauties, as if it was reading a wind’s poem of autumn.
+
+Katahdin looked as though it had suddenly taken on the white crown of
+age, with age’s stately calm. The weather had grown colder during the
+night. Summer—the balmy Indian summer, with its late spells of
+sultriness—had taken a weeping departure yesterday. To-day there was no
+threatening of rain-storm or slide. The mountain’s principal peaks had
+fleecy wraps of snow.
+
+“Ha! Old Katahdin has put on its nightcap,” exclaimed Cyrus, when the
+trio issued from their tent in the morning. “Listen, you fellows! This
+is the 21st of October. I propose that we start back to our home-camp
+to-morrow. It will take us two days to reach Millinokett Lake. Then
+we’ll set our faces towards civilization the first week in November, or
+thereabouts.”
+
+“Oh, bother it! So soon!” protested Dol.
+
+“Now, Young Rattlebrain,”—Garst took the calm tone of
+leadership,—“please consider that this is the first time you’ve camped
+out in Maine woods. You might find it fun to be snowed up in camp
+during a first fall, and to tramp homewards through a thawing slush.
+But your father wouldn’t relish its effects on your British
+constitution. And out here—once we’re well into November—there’s no
+knowing when the temperature
+may drop to zero with mighty short notice. I’ve often turned in at
+night, feeling as if I were on ‘India’s coral strands’ and woke up next
+morning thinking I had popped off in my sleep to ‘Greenland’s icy
+mountains.’ Herb Heal! you know what tricks a thermometer, if we had
+one, might play in our camp from this out; talk sense to these
+fellows.”
+
+Herb, who had risen an hour before his charges, had already fetched
+fresh water, coaxed up the fire, and was busily mixing flapjacks for
+breakfast. His ears, however, had caught the drift of the talk.
+
+“Guess Cyrus is right,” he said. “Seeing as it’s the first time you
+Britishers have slept off your spring mattresses, I’d say, light out
+for the city and steam-heat afore the snow comes. Oh! you needn’t get
+your mad up. I ain’t thinking you’d growl at being snowed in. I know
+better.
+
+“By the great horn spoon! I b’lieve I’ll go right along to Greenville
+with you,” exclaimed the guide a minute later. “I might get a chance to
+pick up a bargain of a second-hand rifle there. And I guess you’d be
+mighty sick o’ your luck, Dol, if you had to lug them moose-antlers
+part o’ the way yerself.
+I ain’t stuck on carrying ’em either, if we can get a jumper.”
+
+But there was a third reason, still more powerful than these two, why
+he should make a trip to the distant town, which stirred Herb’s mind
+while he stirred his cakes. His sturdy sense told him that it would be
+well he should put in an appearance when Cyrus made a statement before
+the Greenville coroner as to the cause and manner of Chris’s death.
+
+“Now, you boys, we don’t want no fooling this blessed day,” he said,
+when breakfast was in order, and the campers were emptying for the
+second time their tin mugs of coffee. “There’s sport before us—tearing
+good sport. Whatever do you s’pose I come on this morning when I was
+cruising over the bog for water? Caribou-tracks! Caribou-tracks, as
+sure as there’s a caribou in Maine!
+
+“Who’s for following ’em? We hain’t got much provisions left; and I
+guess a chunk of broiled caribou-steak about as big as a horse’s upper
+lip would cheer each of us up, and make us feel first-rate. What say,
+boys?”
+
+“By all that’s glorious!” ejaculated Cyrus, his eyes striking light.
+“Caribou-signs! Of course we’ll follow them. A bit of fresh meat
+would be pretty acceptable, and a good view of a herd of caribou would
+be still more so—to me, at any rate. That would just about top off our
+exploring to a T.”
+
+“We’ve got to be mighty spry, then,” said the woodsman, lurching to his
+feet, muscles swelling, and nostrils spreading like a sleuth-hound’s.
+“If you want caribou, you’ve got to take ’em while they’re around. Old
+hunters have a saying: ‘They’re here to-day, to-morrow nowhere.’ And
+that’s about the size of it.”
+
+“Let’s start off this minute!” Dol jerked out the words while he bolted
+the last salt shreds of his pork. “Hurry up, you fellows! You’re as
+slow as snails. I’d eat the jolliest meal that was ever cooked in three
+minutes.”
+
+“No wonder you squirm and shout all night, then, until sane people with
+good digestions feel ready to blow your head off,” laughed Cyrus, who
+was one of the laggards; but he disposed of the last mouthfuls of his
+own meal with little regard for his digestive canal.
+
+In rather less than twenty minutes the four were scanning with wide
+eyes certain fresh foot-marks, plainly printed on a patch of soft
+oozing clay, midway on the boggy tract.
+
+“Whew! Bless me! Those caribou-tracks?” Cyrus caught his breath with
+amazement while he crouched to examine them. “Why, they’re bigger than
+any moose-tracks we’ve seen!”
+
+“Isn’t that great?” gasped Dol.
+
+“Well, come to think of it, it is,” answered the guide, in the stealthy
+tones of an expectant hunter; “for a full-grown bull-caribou don’t
+stand so high as a full-sized moose by two or three feet, and he don’t
+weigh more’n half as much. Still, for all that, caribou deer beat every
+other animal of the deer tribe, so far’s I know, in the size of their
+hoofs, as you’ll see bime-by if luck’s with us! And my stars! how they
+scud along on them big hoofs. I’d back ’em in a race against the
+smartest of your city chaps that ever spun through Maine on his
+new-fangled ‘wheel,’ that he’s so sot on.”
+
+Garst, who was an enthusiastic cyclist, with a gurgle of unbelieving
+mirth, prepared to dispute this. There might have ensued a wordy
+sparring about caribou versus bicycle, had not the guide been impressed
+with the necessity for prompt action at the expense of speech.
+
+“We must quit our talk and get a move on,” he whispered, and led the
+forward march across the bog, his eyes every now and again narrowing
+into two gleaming slits, as if he were debating within himself, while
+he studied the ground or some bush which showed signs of being nibbled
+or trampled. Then he would sweep the horizon with long-range vision.
+
+But not a tuft of hair or glancing horn hove in sight.
+
+The marsh was left behind. The hoof-marks were lost in a wide meadowy
+sweep of open ground, bounded at a distance by an irregular line of
+hills, sparsely covered with spruce-trees.
+
+Towards these Herb headed, leaving Katahdin away back in the rear.
+
+“’Shaw! I’m afeard they’re ‘nowhere’ by this time,” he whispered, when
+the hunters reached the rising ground, glancing at Dol, who stepped
+lightly beside him.
+
+The boy’s lips parted to breathe out compressed disappointment; but his
+answer was lost in a sharp whirr! whirr! and a sudden flutter of wings
+above his head. His eyes went aloft towards a bough about eight feet
+from the ground. So did Herb’s, and lit with a new, whimsical hope.
+
+“A spruce partridge!” hissed the guide, his voice thrilling even in its
+stealthy whisper. “That’s luck—dead sure! The Injuns say, ‘The red eye
+never tells a lie;’” and the woodsman pointed out the strip of bare red
+skin above the beady eyes of the bird, which cuddled itself on its
+branch, and looked down at them unfrighted.
+
+Dol Farrar, who in this region of moose-birds and moose-calls could
+believe in anything, felt both his spirits and credulity rise together.
+He managed to keep abreast of the trained hunter, as the latter, with
+swift, stretching, silent steps climbed the hill. And he heard the
+hunter’s sudden cluck of triumph as he reached the top, and looked down
+upon the valley at the other side, the inarticulate sound being
+followed by one softly rung word,—
+
+“Caribou!”
+
+“Caribou? They look awfully like quiet Alderney cows, except for the
+big antlers!” The amazed exclamation stirred the English boy’s tongue,
+but he did not make it audible.
+
+Following Herb’s example, he stretched himself flat upon his stomach
+under a spruce, and stared over the brow of the hill at a forest
+pantomime which was being acted in the valley.
+
+Cautiously slipping from tree to tree, Cyrus and Neal, who had lagged a
+few steps behind, joined the leaders, and lay low, eagerly gazing too.
+
+On its farther side the hill was yet more sparsely covered, the
+scattered spruces showing gaps between them where the lumberman’s axe
+had made havoc. Through these openings, which were as shafts of light
+amid the evergreen’s waving play, the hunters saw the sun silver a
+brown pool in the valley. A few maples and birches waved their
+shrivelling splendors of scarlet and buff at irregular distances from
+the water. And in and out among these trees moved in graceful woodland
+frolic four or five large animals,—perhaps more,—their doings being
+plainly seen by the watchers on the hill.
+
+Their coats, like those of the smaller deer, were of a brown which
+seemed to have caught its dye from the autumnal tints surrounding them.
+In shape they justified Dol’s criticism; for they certainly were not
+unlike cows of the Alderney breed, save for the widely branching horns.
+
+Of the strength of these antlers the hidden spectators got sudden,
+startling proof, as the two largest caribou drew off from the rest, and
+charged each other in a real or sham fight, the battle-clang of their
+meeting horns sounding far away to the hill-top.
+
+“Them two bulls are having a big time of it. Look at ’em now, with the
+small one. That’s a stranger in the herd,” hummed Herb into the ear of
+the boy next to him, his voice so light and even that it might have
+been but the murmur of a falling leaf. “It’s an all-fired pity that
+we’re jest too far off for a shot.”
+
+The “stranger,” which the woodsman’s long-range eye had singled out,
+was of a smaller size and paler color than the other caribou; and
+Herb—who could interpret the forest pantomime far better than he would
+have explained the acting of human beings on a stage—told his
+companions in whispers and signs that it was in distressed dread of its
+company.
+
+The attentions which the rest paid to it seemed at first only friendly
+and facetious. The two big bulls, after trying their mettle against
+each other for a minute, separated, and moved towards it, prodded it
+lightly with their horns, and playfully bit its sides, a sport in which
+the other members of the herd joined.
+
+“They’re playing it, like a cat with a mouse; but I guess they’ll
+murder it in the long run if it’s sickly or weak. Caribou are the
+biggest bullies in these woods—to each other,” whispered Herb.
+
+“By the great horn spoon! they’re doing for it now,” he gasped, a
+minute later. “Sho!... if I only had my old Winchester here, I’d soon
+stop their lynching. Try it, you, Cyrus! You’re a sure shot, an’ you
+can creep within a hundred yards of ’em without being scented. Try it,
+man!”
+
+The guide’s flashing eyes and quick signs conveyed half his meaning;
+his excited sentences were so low that Garst only caught fag-ends of
+them. But they were emphasized unexpectedly by a faint bleating sound
+rising from the valley,—the helpless bleat of a buffeted creature.
+
+“We want meat, and I’m going to spring a surprise on those bullies,”
+muttered Cyrus, setting his teeth.
+
+Still lying flat, he shot his eyes down the hill-slope, forming a plan
+of descent; then he lifted the rifle beside him, and jammed some fresh
+cartridges into the magazine.
+
+Ere a dozen long breaths had been drawn, he was stealthily moving
+towards the valley, slipping from spruce to spruce—an arrowlike,
+unnoticeable figure in his dark gray tweeds.
+
+He was close to the foot of the hill when the three breathless fellows
+above saw him raise his rifle, just as the unfortunate little caribou,
+after many efforts to escape, had been beaten to its knees.
+
+“He’ll drop one, sure! He’s a crack shot—is Cyrus! There! he’s drawing
+bead. Bravo!... he’s floored the biggest!”
+
+Herb’s gusty breath blew the sentences through his nostrils, while the
+sudden, explosive bang of the Winchester cut through all other sounds,
+and set the air a-quiver.
+
+Twice Cyrus fired.
+
+The largest bull-caribou leaped three feet upward, wheeled about,
+staggered to his knees. A third shot stopped his bullying forever.
+
+“Hurrah! I guess you’ve got the leader—the best of the herd. That other
+bull was a buster too! You might ha’ dropped him, if you’d been in the
+humor!” bellowed the guide, springing to his legs, and letting out his
+pent-up wind in a full-blast roar of triumph.
+
+He well knew that Cyrus, “being a queer specimen sportsman,” and the
+right sort after all, would be satisfied with the one inevitable deed
+of death.
+
+As their leader fell, the caribou raised their heads, stared in
+stiffened wonder for a few seconds, offering a steady mark for the
+smoking rifle if it had been in the grasp of a butcher. Then, as though
+propelled by one shock, they cut for the wood at dazzling speed.
+
+A minute—and they were in the distance as tufts of hair blown before a
+storm-wind.
+
+The half-killed weakling sought shelter more slowly in another
+direction.
+
+“Well done, Cy!”
+
+“Congratulations, old man!”
+
+“You’ve got a trophy now. You’ll never leave this splendid head behind.
+My eye, what antlers!”
+
+Such were the exclamations blown to Garst’s ears by the hot breath of
+his English friends, as they reached his side, and stooped with him to
+examine the fallen forest beauty.
+
+“No; I guess we can manage to haul the head back to camp, with as much
+meat as we need. You’ll have your ‘chunk of caribou-steak as big as a
+horse’s upper lip,’ to-night, Herb, and bigger if you want it. I’m
+tickled at getting the antlers, especially as I didn’t shoot this
+beauty for the sake of them. I’ll hook them on my shoulders when we
+start back to Millinokett to-morrow.”
+
+So answered the successful hunter, tingling with some pride in the
+skill which, because of his reverence for all life, he generally kept
+out of sight.
+
+And he stuck to his purpose about the antlers.
+
+Cheered and invigorated by a sumptuous supper and breakfast of broiled
+caribou-steaks, supplemented by Herb’s lightest cakes, and carrying
+some of the meat with them as provision for the way, the campers
+accomplished their backward tramp to the log camp on Millinokett Lake
+in fulness of strength and spirits.
+
+Once or twice during the journey, when the guide was stalking ahead,
+and thought himself unnoticed, the city fellows saw him lift his right
+hand and look at it for a full minute. Then it swung heavily back to
+his side.
+
+“He’s missing his rifle, the partner that never went back on him,” said
+Cyrus. “Say, boys! I’ve got an idea!”
+
+“Out with it if it’s worth anything,” grunted Dol. “I never have ideas
+these days. Too much doing. I don’t feel as if there was a steady peg
+in me to hang one on.”
+
+“Oh! quit your nonsense, Chick, and listen. Herb will wait for us in a
+few minutes,” was the Boston man’s impatient rejoinder.
+
+Then followed a low-toned consultation, in the course of which such
+talk as this was heard:—
+
+“Our Pater will want to shell out when he hears about Chris.”
+
+“So will mine. He’ll be for sending Herb a cool five hundred or
+thousand dollars, right away. And, as likely as not, Herb would feel
+flaring mad, and ready to chuck it in his face. He’s not the sort of
+fellow to stand being paid by an outsider for a plucky act, done in the
+best hour of his life.”
+
+“Oh, I say! wouldn’t it be decenter to manage the thing ourselves,
+without letting anybody who doesn’t know him meddle in it?” This
+suggestion was in Dol’s voice. “Neal and I could draw our allowances
+for three months in advance; the Pater will be willing enough. We’ll be
+precious hard up without them, but we’ll rub through somehow. Then you
+can chip in an even third, Cy, and we’ll order an A I rifle,—the best
+ever invented, from the best company in America,—silver plate, with his
+name,—and all the rest of it. I’d swamp my allowance for a year to see
+Herb’s face when he gets it.”
+
+“That’s the plan! You do have occasional moments of wisdom, Dol; I’ll
+say that much for you,” commented the leader. “Well, Herb has taken a
+special sort of liking to you. You may tip him a hint to wait in
+Greenville for a few days, and not to go looking for second-hand rifles
+till he hears from us. Better not say anything until we’re just
+parting. Ten to one, though, you’ll blurt the whole thing out in some
+harebrained minute, or give it away in your sleep.”
+
+“Blow me if I do!” answered Dol solemnly.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVI. Doc Again
+
+
+Herb, turning back at that minute to wait for his party, experienced a
+shock of curiosity which was new to him, at seeing the three in close
+counsel, shouldering each other upon a trail a couple of feet wide.
+
+But the sensation passed. Dol for once was not guilty of an
+indiscretion, waking or sleeping. The woodsman got no hint of what
+matter had been discussed until more than two weeks later, when he
+stood in the main street of Greenville, beside a tanned, muscular,
+newly shaven trio, waiting for their departure for Boston.
+
+A few pleasant days, marked by no particular excitements, had been
+spent at the log camp on Millinokett after that wonderful trip into the
+forests of Katahdin. Then the weather turned suddenly blustering and
+cold; and Cyrus, as captain, ordered an immediate forced march to
+Greenville.
+
+Under Herb’s guidance that march was made with singularly few
+hardships. He managed to hire a “jumper” from a new settler who had a
+farm a couple of miles from their camp. This contrivance was a rough
+sort of sled, formed of two stout ash saplings, and hitched to a
+courageous horse. The “jumper’s” one merit was that it could travel
+along many a rough trail where wheels would be splintered at the
+outset. But since, as Herb said, it went at “a succession of dead
+jumps,” no camper was willing to trust his bones to its tender mercies.
+However, it answered admirably for carrying the tent, knapsacks, and
+trophies of the party, tightly strapped in place, including Neal’s
+bear-skin, which was duly called for, and the moose-antlers, more
+precious in Dol’s sight than if they had been made of beaten gold.
+
+Thus the campers journeyed homeward with their backs as light as their
+spirits, caring little for the chills of a couple of nights spent under
+canvas and rubber coverings.
+
+Two gala evenings they had,—one with Uncle Eb in his bark hut near
+Squaw Pond, where they were regaled with a sumptuous supper, for “coons
+war in eatin’ order now;” and the second with Doctor Phil Buck at his
+little frame house near Moosehead Lake.
+
+Dear old Doc was as ever a power,—a power to welcome, uplift,
+entertain.
+
+The campers sought him immediately on their arrival at Greenville; and
+he stood by them while Cyrus made a full statement before the local
+coroner about the death and burial of the half-breed, Chris Kemp, the
+Farrars and Herb confirming what was said with due dignity.
+
+But dignity was blown to the four winds by the very unprofessional and
+very woodsman-like cheer that Doc raised, and that was echoed
+thunderously by Joe Flint and a few other guides and loungers who had
+collected to hear the story, when Cyrus described the splendid rush
+which Herb made, with the dying man in his arms, and the clay of the
+landslide half smothering him.
+
+“I’m sorry I wasn’t near to try and do something for the poor fellow,”
+said the doctor, later on, when his friends were gathered round a
+blazing wood-fire in his own snug house. “But I doubt if I could have
+helped him. I guess he was born with the hankering for whiskey, and
+when that is in the mongrel blood of a half-breed it is pretty sure to
+wreck him some time. We must leave him to God, boys, and to changes
+larger than we know.”
+
+“I’ve a letter for you, Neal,” added the host presently in a lighter
+tone. “It was directed to my care. It is from Philadelphia, from Royal
+Sinclair, I think.”
+
+Neal slit the envelope which was handed to him, and read the few lines
+it contained aloud, with a longing burst of laughter.
+
+Royal was as short with his pen as he was dash-away with his tongue.
+The letter was a brief but pressing invitation to Cyrus and the Farrars
+to visit their camping acquaintances of the Maine wilds at the
+Sinclairs’ home in Philadelphia before the English boys recrossed the
+Atlantic.
+
+“Come you must!” wrote Roy. “We’ve promised to give a big spread, and
+invite all the crowd we train with to meet you. We’ll have a great old
+time, and bring out our best yarns. Don’t let me catch you refusing!”
+
+
+Illustration: Greenville,—“Farewell To The Woods.”
+
+
+“We won’t if we can help it,” commented Neal; “if only we can coax the
+Pater to give us another week in jolly America.”
+
+The campers slept upon mattresses that night for the first time in many
+weeks.
+
+The following morning saw them grouped in the main street of
+Greenville, with Doc and Herb on hand for a final farewell, waiting for
+the departure of the coach which was to bear them a little part of the
+way towards Boston civilization.
+
+Dol was turning over in his jostled thoughts the delicate wording of
+the hint which he was to convey to Herb about the rifle, when he became
+aware that Doctor Phil was pinching his shoulder, and saying, while he
+drew Neal’s attention in the same way:—
+
+“Well, you fellows! I’m glad to have known you. If you ever come to
+Maine again, remember that there’s one old forest fogy who’ll have a
+delightful welcome for you in his house or camp, not to speak of the
+thing he calls his heart. And I hope you’ll keep a pleasant corner in
+your memories for our Pine Tree State, and for American States
+generally, so far as you’ve seen them.”
+
+Dol tried to answer; but recalling the evening when, wrecked at heart,
+with stinging feet, he had stumbled at last into the trail to Doc’s
+camp, he could only mutter, “Dash it all!” and rub his leaking eyes.
+
+“Of course I’ll think in an hour from now of all the things I want to
+say,” began Neal helplessly, and stopped. “But I’ll tell you how I
+feel, Doc,” he added, with a sudden rush of breath: “I think I can
+never see your Stars and Stripes again without taking off my hat to
+them, and feeling that they’re about equal to my own flag.”
+
+“Neatly put, Neal! I couldn’t have done it better,” laughed Cyrus.
+
+“Shake!” and Doc offered his hand in a heart-grip, while the hairs on
+it bristled. “Boy! long life to that feeling. You men who are now being
+hatched will show us one day what Young England and Young America, as a
+grand brotherhood under comrade flags, can do to give this old earth a
+lift which she has never had yet towards peace and prosperity. We’re
+looking to you for it!”
+
+“Hur-r-r-rup!” cheered Herb, subduing his shout to the requirements of
+a settlement, but sending his battered hat some ten feet into the air,
+and recovering it with a dexterous shoot of his long arm, by way of
+giving his friends an inspiring send-off.
+
+“Tell you what it is!” he said suddenly, turning upon the Farrars, “I
+never guided
+Britishers till now; but, wherever you sprung from, you’re clean grit.
+If a man is that, it don’t matter a whistle to me what country riz
+him.”
+
+A few minutes afterwards, with a jingle, jangle, lurch, and rattle, the
+stage-coach was swaying its way out of Greenville. Dol, stooping from
+his seat upon it, gripped the guide’s hand in a wringing good-by.
+
+“Herb,” he said, “we three fellows want you to stay here for a few
+days, and not to do anything about a second-hand rifle until you hear
+from us. Mind!”
+
+
+
+And so it happened that, ten days or so later, while the three were
+enjoying the hospitalities of the Sinclairs and “their crowd” in the
+Quaker City, Herb, who was still in Greenville, waiting for a fresh
+engagement as guide, was accosted by the driver of the coach from
+Bangor.
+
+“Herb Heal, here’s a bully parcel for you,” said the Jehu, with a
+knowing grin. “Came from Boston, I guess. I war booked to take
+pertik’lar care of it.”
+
+And Herb, feeling his strong fingers tingle, undid many wrappers, and
+hauled out, before the eyes of Greenville loungers, a rifle such
+as it is the desire of every Maine woodsman’s heart to possess.
+
+A best grade, 45-90, half-magazine Winchester it was, fitted with
+shot-gun stock and Lyman sights, and bearing a gleaming silver plate,
+on which was prettily lettered:—
+
+HERB HEAL
+
+In Memory Of October, 1891.
+
+Underneath was engraved a miniature pine, its trunk bearing three sets
+of initials.
+
+Herb stalked straight off a distance of one mile to Doctor Buck’s
+house, pushed the door open as if it had been the door of a wilderness
+camp, and shot himself into Doc’s little study.
+
+“Look what those three gamy fellows have sent me,” he said; and his
+eyes were now like Millinokett Lake under a full sun-burst. “I thought
+the old one was a corker, but this”—
+
+Here the woodsman’s dictionary gave out.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVII. Christmas on the Other Side
+
+
+“‘Christmas, 1893.’ Those last two figures are a bit crooked; aren’t
+they, Dol?” said a tall, soldierly fellow, who was no longer a boy, yet
+could scarcely in his own country call himself a man.
+
+He read the date critically, having fixed it as the centre-piece in a
+festive arch of holly and bunting, which spanned the hall of a mansion
+in Victoria Park, Manchester.
+
+“I believe that’s better,” he added, straightening a tipsy “93,” and
+bounding from a chair-back on which he was perched, to step quickly
+backward, with a something in gait and bearing that suggested a cavalry
+swing.
+
+“‘Christmas, 1893,’” he read musingly again. “Goodness! to think it’s
+two years since we laid eyes on old Cyrus, and that he has landed on
+English soil before this, may be here any minute—and Sinclair too. I
+guess”—these two words were brought out with a smile, as if the speaker
+was putting himself in touch with the happiness of a by-gone time—“I
+guess that ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ will look home-like to them.”
+
+And Neal Farrar, just back for a short vacation from Sandhurst Military
+College, twice gravely saluted the gay bunting with which his Christmas
+arch was draped, where the Union Jack of old England kissed the
+American Stars and Stripes.
+
+“I say!” he exclaimed, turning to a tall youth, who had been inspecting
+his operations, “that Liverpool train must be beastly late, Dol. Those
+fellows ought to be here before this. The Mater will be in a stew. She
+ordered dinner at five, as the youngsters dine with us, of course,
+to-day, and it’s past that now.”
+
+“Hush! will you? I’ll vow that cab is stopping! Yes! By all that’s
+splendid, there they are!” and Dol Farrar’s joy-whoop rang through the
+English oaken hall with scarcely less vehemence than it had rung in
+former days through the dim aisles of the Maine forests.
+
+A sound of spinning cab-wheels abruptly stopping, a noise of men’s feet
+on the steps outside, and the hall-door was flung wide by two pairs of
+welcoming hands.
+
+“Cyrus! Royal! Got here at last? Oh! but this is jolly.”
+
+“Neal, dear old boy, how goes it? Dol, you’re a giant. I wouldn’t have
+known you.”
+
+Such were the most coherent of the greetings which followed, as two
+visitors, in travelling rig, their faces reddened by eight days at sea
+in midwinter, crossed the threshold.
+
+There could be no difficulty in recognizing Cyrus Garst’s well-knit
+figure and speculative eyes, though a sprouting beard changed somewhat
+the lower part of his face. And if Royal Sinclair’s tall shoulders and
+brand-new mustache were at all unfamiliar, anybody who had once heard
+the click and hum of his hasty tongue would scarcely question his
+identity.
+
+The Americans had steamed over the Atlantic amid bluster of elements,
+purposing a tour through southern France and Italy. And they were to
+take part, before proceeding to the Continent, in the festivities of an
+English Christmas at the Farrars’ home in Manchester.
+
+“Oh, but this is jolly!” cried Neal again, his voice so thickened by
+the joy of welcome that—embryo cavalry man though he was—he could bring
+out nothing more forceful than the one boyish exclamation.
+
+Dol’s throat was freer. Sinclair and he raised a regular tornado in the
+handsome hall. Questions and answers, only half distinguishable, blew
+between them, with explosions of laughter, and a thunder of claps on
+each other’s shoulders. When their gale was at its noisiest, Royal’s
+part of it abruptly sank to a dead calm, stopped by “an angel
+unawares.”
+
+A girl of sixteen, with hair like the brown and gold of a pheasant’s
+breast, opened a drawing-room door, stepped to Neal’s side, and
+whispered,—
+
+“Introduce me!”
+
+“My sister,” said Neal, recovering self-possession. “Myrtle, I believe
+I’ll let you guess for yourself which is Garst and which is Sinclair.”
+
+“Well, I’ve heard so much about you for the past two years that I know
+you already,
+all but your looks. So I’m sure to guess right,” said Myrtle Farrar,
+scrutinizing the Americans with a pretty welcoming glance, then giving
+to each a glad hand-shake.
+
+Royal’s tongue grew for once less active than his eyes, which were so
+caught by the golden shades on the pheasant-like head that for a minute
+he could see nothing else. Even Cyrus, who was accustomed to look upon
+himself as the cool-blooded senior among his band of intimates, tingled
+a little.
+
+“You’re just in time for dinner—I’m so glad,” laughed Miss Myrtle. “A
+Christmas dinner with a whole tribe of Farrars, big and little.”
+
+“But our baggage hasn’t come on yet,” answered Garst ruefully. “Will
+Mrs. Farrar excuse our appearing in travelling rig?”
+
+“Indeed she will!” answered for herself a fair, motherly-looking
+English woman, as pretty as Myrtle save for the gold-brown hair, while
+she came a few steps into the hall to welcome her sons’ friends.
+
+Five minutes afterwards the Americans found themselves seated at a
+table garlanded with red-berried holly, trailing ivy, and pearl-eyed
+mistletoe, and surrounded by a round dozen of Farrars, including
+several youngsters whose general place was in schoolroom or nursery,
+but who, even to a tot of three, were promoted to dine in splendor on
+Christmas Day.
+
+“Well, this is festive!” remarked Cyrus to Myrtle, who sat next to him,
+when, after much preparatory feasting, an English plum-pudding,
+wreathed, decorated, and steaming, came upon the scene. Fluttering amid
+the almonds which studded its top were two wee pink-stemmed flags. And
+here again, in compliment to the newly arrived guests, the
+“Star-Spangled Banner” kissed the English Union Jack.
+
+“Say, Neal!” exclaimed Cyrus, his eyes keenly bright as he looked at
+the toy standards, “wouldn’t this sort of thing delight our friend Doc?
+By the way, that reminds me, I have a package for you from him, and a
+message from Herb Heal too. Herb wants to know ‘when those gamy
+Britishers are coming out to hunt moose again?’ And Doc has sent you a
+little bundle of beaver-clippings. They are from an ash-tree two feet
+in circumference, felled by that beaver colony which we came across
+near the _brûlée_ where you shot your bear and covered yourself with
+glory. Doc asked you to put the wood in sight on Christmas Night, and
+to think of the Maine woods.”
+
+“Think of them!” Neal ejaculated. “Bless the dear old brick! does he
+think we could ever forget them and the stunning times we had in camp
+and on trail?”
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Camp and Trail, by Isabel Hornibrook
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Camp and Trail, by Isabel Hornibrook
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Camp and Trail
+       A Story of the Maine Woods
+
+Author: Isabel Hornibrook
+
+Release Date: November 4, 2004 [EBook #13946]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAMP AND TRAIL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Curtis Weyant, Josephine Paolucci, Joshua Hutchinson and
+the PG Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE MOOSE WAS NOW SNORTING LIKE A WAR-HORSE BENEATH.
+
+(_See page 274_)]
+
+
+
+
+CAMP AND TRAIL
+
+A Story of the Maine Woods
+
+BY
+
+ISABEL HORNIBROOK
+
+AUTHOR OF "TUKE," "IN THE SERVICE," "LOST IN MAINE WOODS," ETC.
+
+BOSTON
+
+LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY
+
+1897
+
+TYPOGRAPHY BY C.J. PETERS & SON, BOSTON.
+
+PRESSWORK BY BERWICK & SMITH.
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+J.L.H.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+In adding another to the list of stories bearing on that subject of
+perennial interest to boys, adventures in camp and on trail among the
+woods and lakes of Northern Maine, one thought has been the inspiration
+that led me on.
+
+It is this: To prove to high-mettled lads, American, and English as
+well, that forest quarters, to be the most jovial quarters on earth,
+need not be made a shambles. Sensation may reach its finest pitch,
+excitement be an unfailing fillip, and fun the leaven which leavens the
+camping-trip from start to finish, even though the triumph of killing
+for triumph's sake be left out of the play-bill.
+
+"There is a higher sport in preservation than in destruction," says a
+veteran hunter, whose forest experiences and descriptions have in part
+enriched this story. I commend the opinion to boy-readers, trusting that
+they may become "queer specimen sportsmen," after the pattern of Cyrus
+Garst; and find a more entrancing excitement in studying the live wild
+things of the forest than in gloating over a dying tremor, or examining
+a senseless mass of horn, hide, and hoofs, after the life-spring which
+worked the mechanism has been stilled forever.
+
+One other desire has trodden on the heels of the first: That Young
+England and Young America may be inspired with a wish to understand each
+other better, to take each other frankly and simply for the manhood in
+each; and that thus misconception and prejudice may disappear like mists
+of an old-day dream.
+
+ISABEL HORNIBROOK.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+I. JACKING FOR DEER
+
+II. A SPILL-OUT
+
+III. LIFE IN A BARK HUT
+
+IV. WHITHER BOUND?
+
+V. A COON HUNT
+
+VI. AFTER BLACK DUCKS
+
+VII. A FOREST GUIDE-POST
+
+VIII. ANOTHER CAMP
+
+IX. A SUNDAY AMONG THE PINES
+
+X. FORWARD ALL!
+
+XI. BEAVER WORKS
+
+XII. "GO IT, OLD BRUIN!"
+
+XIII. "THE SKIN IS YOURS"
+
+XIV. A LUCKY HUNTER
+
+XV. A FALLEN KING
+
+XVI. MOOSE-CALLING
+
+XVII. HERB'S YARNS
+
+XVIII. To LONELIER WILDS
+
+XIX. TREED BY A MOOSE
+
+XX. DOL'S TRIUMPH
+
+XXI. ON KATAHDIN
+
+XXII. THE OLD HOME-CAMP
+
+XXIII. BROTHERS' WORK
+
+XXIV. "KEFPING THINGS EVEN"
+
+XXV. A LITTLE CARIBOU QUARREL
+
+XXVI. DOC AGAIN
+
+XXVII. CHRISTMAS ON THE OTHER SIDE
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+THE MOOSE WAS NOW SNORTING LIKE A WAR-HORSE BENEATH.
+
+"THERE IS MOOSEHEAD LAKE."
+
+DOL SIGHTS A FRIENDLY CAMP.
+
+IN THE SHADOW OF KATAHDIN.
+
+"GO IT, OLD BRUIN! GO IT WHILE YOU CAN!"
+
+"HERB HEAL."
+
+A FALLEN KING.
+
+THE CAMP ON MILLINOKETT LAKE.
+
+"HERB CHARGED THROUGH THE CHOKING DUST-CLOUDS."
+
+GREENVILLE,--"FAREWELL TO THE WOODS."
+
+
+
+
+CAMP AND TRAIL.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+JACKING FOR DEER.
+
+
+"Now, Neal Farrar, you've got to be as still as the night itself,
+remember. If you bounce, or turn, or draw a long breath, you won't have
+a rag of reputation as a deer-hunter to take back to England. Sneeze
+once, and we're done for. That means more diet of flapjacks and pork,
+instead of venison steaks. And I guess your city appetite won't rally to
+pork much longer, even in the wilds."
+
+Neal Farrar sighed as if there was something in that.
+
+"But, you know, it's just when an unlucky fellow would give his life
+not to sneeze that he's sure to bring out a thumping big one," he said
+plaintively.
+
+"Well, keep it back like a hero if your head bursts in the attempt," was
+the reply with a muffled laugh. "When you know that the canoe is gliding
+along somehow, but you can't hear a sound or feel a motion, and you
+begin to wonder whether you're in the air or on water, flying or
+floating, imagine that you're the ghost of some old Indian hunter who
+used to jack for deer on Squaw Pond, and be stonily silent."
+
+"Oh! I say, stop chaffing," whispered Neal impetuously. "You're enough
+to make a fellow feel creepy before ever he starts. I could bear the
+worst racket on earth better than a dead quiet."
+
+This dialogue was exchanged in low but excited voices between a young
+man of about one and twenty, and a lad who was apparently five years his
+junior, while they waded knee-deep in water among the long, rank grasses
+and circular pads of water-lilies which border the banks of Squaw Pond,
+a small lake in the forest region of northern Maine.
+
+The hour was somewhere about eleven o'clock. The night was intensely
+still, without a zephyr stirring among the trees, and of that wavering
+darkness caused by a half-clouded moon. On the black and green water
+close to the bank rocked a light birch-bark canoe, a ticklish craft,
+which a puff might overturn. The young man who had urged the necessity
+for silence was groping round it, fumbling with the sharp bow, in which
+he fixed a short pole or "jack-staff," with some object--at present no
+one could discern what--on top.
+
+"There, I've got the jack rigged up!" he whispered presently. "Step in
+now, Neal, and I'll open it. Have you got your rifle at half-cock?
+That's right. Be careful. A fellow would need to have his hair parted in
+the middle in a birch box like this. Remember, mum's the word!"
+
+The lad obeyed, seating himself as noiselessly as he could in the bow of
+the canoe, and threw his rifle on his shoulder in a convenient position
+for shooting, with a freedom which showed he was accustomed to firearms.
+
+At the same time his companion stepped into the canoe, having first
+touched the dark object on the pole just over Neal's head. Instantly it
+changed into a brilliant, scintillating, silvery eye, which flashed
+forward a stream of white light on a line with the pointed gun, cutting
+the black face of the pond in twain as with a silver blade, and making
+the leaves on shore glisten like oxidized coins.
+
+The effect of this sudden illumination was so sudden and beautiful that
+the boy for a minute or two held his rifle in unsteady hands while the
+canoe glided out from the bank. An exclamation began in his throat which
+ended in an indistinct gurgle. Remembering that he was pledged to
+silence, he settled himself to be as wordless and motionless as if his
+living body had become a statue.
+
+From his position no revealing radiance fell on him. He sat in shadow
+beside that glinting eye, which was really a good-sized lantern, fitted
+at the back with a powerful silvered reflector, and in front with a
+glass lens, the light being thrown directly ahead. It was provided also
+with a sliding door that could be noiselessly slipped over the glass
+with a touch, causing the blackness of a total eclipse.
+
+This was the deer-hunters' "jack-lamp," familiarly called by Neal's
+companion the "jack."
+
+And now it may be readily guessed in what thrilling night-work these
+canoe-men are engaged as they skim over Squaw Pond, with no swish of
+paddle, nor jar of motion, nor even a noisy breath, disturbing the
+brooding silence through which they glide. They are "jacking" or
+"floating" for deer, showing the radiant eye of their silvery jack to
+attract any antlered buck or graceful doe which may come forth from the
+screen of the forest to drink at this quiet hour amid the tangled
+grasses and lily-pads at the pond's brink.
+
+Now, a deer, be it buck, doe, or fawn in the spotted coat, will stand as
+if moonstruck, if it hears no sound; to gaze at the lantern, studying
+the meteor which has crossed its world as an astronomer might
+investigate a rare, radiant comet. So it offers a steady mark for the
+sportsman's bullet, if he can glide near enough to discern its outline
+and take aim. There is one exception to this rule. If the wary animal
+has ever been startled by a shot fired from under the jack, trust him
+never to watch a light again, though it shine like the Kohinoor.
+
+As for Neal Farrar, this was his first attempt at playing the part of
+midnight hunter; and I am bound to say that--being English born and
+city bred--he found the situation much too mystifying for his peace of
+mind.
+
+He knew that the canoe was moving, moving rapidly; for giant pines along
+the shore, looking solid and black as mourning pillars, shot by him as
+if theirs were the motion, with an effect indescribably weird. Now and
+again a gray pine stump, appearing, if the light struck it, twice its
+real size, passed like a shimmering ghost. But he felt not the slightest
+tremor of advance, heard no swish or ripple of paddle.
+
+A moisture oozed from his skin, and gathered in heavy drips under the
+brim of his hat, as he began to wonder whether the light bark skiff was
+working through the water at all, or skimming in some unnatural way
+above it. For the life of him he could not settle this doubt. And,
+fearful of balking the expedition by a stir, he dared not turn his head
+to investigate the doings of his comrade, Cyrus Garst.
+
+Cyrus, though also city bred, was an American, and evidently an old hand
+at the present business. The Maine wilds had long been his playground.
+He had studied the knack of noiseless paddling under the teaching of a
+skilled forest guide until he fairly brought it to perfection. And, in
+perfection, it is about the most wizard-like art practised in the
+nineteenth century.
+
+The silent propulsion was managed thus: the grand master of the paddle
+gripped its cross handle in both hands, working it so that its broad
+blade cut the water first backward then forward so dexterously that not
+even his own practised hearing could detect a sound; nor could he any
+more than Neal feel a sensation of motion.
+
+The birch-bark skiff skimmed onward as if borne on unseen pinions.
+
+To Neal Farrar, who had been brought up amid the tumult of rival noises
+and the practical surroundings of Manchester, England, who was a
+stranger to the solitudes of primitive forests, and almost a stranger to
+weird experiences, the silent advance was a mystery. And it began to be
+a hateful one; for he had not even the poor explanation of it which has
+been given in this record.
+
+It was only his third night in Maine wilds; and I fear that his friend
+Cyrus, when inviting him to join in the jacking excursion, had refrained
+from explaining the canoe mystery, mischievously promising himself
+considerable fun from the English lad's bewilderment.
+
+Neal's hearing was strained to catch any sound of big game beating
+about amid the bushes on shore or splashing in the water, but none
+reached him. The night seemed to grow stiller, stiller, ever stiller, as
+they glided towards the head of the pond, until the dead quiet started
+strange, imaginary noises.
+
+There was a pounding as of dull hammers in his ears, a belling in his
+head, and a drumming at his heart.
+
+He was tortured by a wild desire to yell his loudest, and defy the
+brooding silence.
+
+Another--a midnight watchman--broke it instead.
+
+"Whoo-ho-ho-whah-whoo!"
+
+It was the thrilling scream of a big-eyed owl as he chased a squirrel to
+its death, and proceeded to banquet in unwinking solemnity.
+
+"Whoo-ho-ho-whah-whoo!"
+
+Neal started,--who wouldn't?--and joggled the canoe, thereby nearly
+ending the night hunt at once by the untimely discharge of his rifle.
+
+He had barely regained some measure of steadiness, though he felt as if
+needles were sticking into him all over, when at last there was a
+crashing amid the bushes on the right bank, not a hundred yards distant.
+
+Noiselessly as ever the canoe shot around, turning the jack's eye in
+that direction. A minute later a magnificent buck, swinging his antlers
+proudly, dashed into the pond, and stooped his small red tongue to
+drink, licking in the water greedily with a soft, lapping sound.
+
+Neal silently cocked his rifle, almost choking with excitement; then
+paused for a few seconds to brace up and control the nervous terrors
+which had possessed him, before his eye singled out the spot in the
+deer's neck which his bullet must pierce. But he found his operations
+further delayed; for the animal suddenly lifted its head, scattered
+feathery spray from its horns and hoofs, and retired a few steps up the
+bank.
+
+In its former position every part of its body was visibly outlined under
+the silver light of the jack. Now a successful shot would be difficult,
+though it might be managed. The boy leaned slightly forward, trying to
+hold his gun dead straight and take cool aim, when the most curious of
+all the curious sensations he had felt this night ran through him,
+seeming to scorch like electricity from his scalp to his feet.
+
+From the stand which the deer had taken, its body was in shadow. All
+that the sportsman could discern were two living, glowing eyes,
+staring--so it appeared to him--straight into his, like starry
+search-lights, as if they read the death-purpose in the boy's heart, and
+begged him to desist.
+
+It was all over with Neal Farrar's shot. He lowered his rifle, while the
+speech, which could no longer be repressed, rattled in his throat before
+it broke forth.
+
+"I'll go crazy if I don't speak!" he cried.
+
+At the first word the buck went scudding like the wind through the
+forest, doubtless vowing by the shades of his ancestors that he never
+would stand to gaze at a light again.
+
+"And--and--I can't shoot the thing while it's looking at me like that!"
+the boy blurted out.
+
+"You dunderhead! What do you mean?" gasped Cyrus, breaking silence in a
+gusty whisper of mingled anger and amusement. "You won't get a chance to
+shoot it or anything else now. You've lost us our meat for to-night."
+
+"Well, I couldn't help it," Neal whispered back. "For pity's sake, what
+has been moving this canoe? The quiet was enough to set a fellow mad!
+And then that buck stared straight at me like a human thing. I could
+see nothing but two burning eyes with white rings round them."
+
+"Stuff!" was the American's answer. "He was gazing at the jack, not at
+you. He couldn't see an inch of you with that light just over your head.
+But it would have been a hard shot anyhow, for his nose was towards you,
+and ten to one you'd have made a clean miss."
+
+"Well," he added, after five minutes of acute listening, "I guess we may
+give over jacking for to-night. That first cry of yours was enough to
+set a regiment of deer scampering. I'm only half mad after all at your
+losing a chance at such a splendid buck. It was something to see him as
+he stooped to drink in the glare of the jack, a midnight forest picture
+such as one wants to remember. Long may he flourish! We wouldn't have
+started out to rid him of his glorious life if we weren't half-starved
+on flapjacks and ends of pork. Let's get back to camp! I guess you felt
+a few new sensations to-night, eh, Neal Farrar?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+A SPILL-OUT.
+
+
+Indeed, shocks and sensations seemed to ride rampant that night in
+endless succession; a fact which Neal presently realized, as does every
+daring young fellow who visits the Maine wilderness for the first time,
+whatever be his object.
+
+Ere turning the canoe towards home, Cyrus drove it a few feet nearer to
+shore, again warily listening for any further sound of game. Just then
+another wild, whooping scream cleft the night air; and, on looking
+towards the bank, Neal beheld his owlship, who had finished the
+squirrel, seated on an aged windfall,[1] one end of which dipped into
+the water.
+
+[Footnote 1: A forest tree which has been blown down.]
+
+The gray bird on the gray old trunk formed a second thrilling midnight
+picture, but at this moment young Farrar was in no mood for studying
+effects. He felt rather unstrung by his recent emotions; and, though he
+was by no means an imaginative youth, he actually took it into his head
+half seriously that the whooping, hooting thing was taunting him with
+making a failure of the jacking business. Without pausing to consider
+whether the owl would furnish meat for the camp or not, he let fly at
+him suddenly with his rifle.
+
+The fate of that ghostly, big-eyed creature will be forever one of those
+mysteries which Neal Farrar would like to solve. Whether the heavy
+bullet intended for deer laid him open--which is improbable--or whether
+it didn't, nobody had a chance to discover. Being unused to birch-bark
+canoes, the sportsman gave a slight lurch aside after he had discharged
+his leaden messenger of death, startled doubtless by the loud,
+unexpected echoes which reverberated through the forest after his shot.
+
+"Hold on!" cried Cyrus, trying to avert a ducking by a counter-motion.
+"You'll tip us over!"
+
+Too late! The birch skiff spun round, rocked crazily for a second or
+two, and keeled over, spilling both its occupants into the black and
+silver water of the pond.
+
+Of course they ducked under, and of course they rose, gurgling and
+spluttering.
+
+"You didn't lose the rifle, Neal, did you?" gasped the American directly
+he could speak.
+
+"Not I! I held on to it like grim death."
+
+"Good for you! To lose a hundred-and-fifty-dollar gun when we're
+starting into the wilds would be maddening."
+
+Then, just because they were extremely healthy, happy, vigorous fellows,
+whose lungs had been drinking in pure, exhilarating ozone and fragrant
+odors of pine-balsam and were thereby expanded, they took a cheerful
+view of this duck under, and made the midnight forest echo, echo, and
+re-echo, with peals and gusts and shouts of laughter, while they
+struggled to right their canoe.
+
+The merry jingles rang on in challenge and answer, repeating from both
+sides of the pond, until they reached at last the wooded slopes and
+mighty bowlders of Old Squaw Mountain, a peak whose "star-crowned head"
+could be imagined rather than discerned against the horizon, near the
+distant shore from which the hunters had started. Here echo ran riot.
+It seemed to their excited fancies as if the ghost of Old Squaw herself,
+the disappointed Indian mother who had, according to tradition, lived so
+long in loneliness upon this mountain, were joining in their mirth with
+haggish peals.
+
+The canoe had turned bottom uppermost. On righting it they found that
+the jack-staff had been dislodged. The jack was floating gayly away over
+the ripples; its light, being in an air-tight case, was unquenched.
+
+"Swim ashore with the rifle, Neal," said Cyrus. "I'll pick up the jack.
+Did you ever see anything so absurdly comical as it looks, dodging off
+on its own hook like a big, wandering eye?"
+
+With his comrade's help young Farrar succeeded in getting the gun across
+his back, slinging it round him by its leather shoulder-strap; then he
+struck out for the bank, having scarcely twenty yards to swim before he
+reached shallow water.
+
+Now, for the first time to-night, the moon shone fully out from her veil
+of cloud, casting a flood of silver radiance, and showing him a scene in
+white and black, still and clear as a steel engraving, of a beauty so
+unimagined and grand that it seemed a little awful. It gave him a
+sudden respect for the unreclaimed, seldom-trodden region to which his
+craving for adventure had brought him.
+
+The outline of Old Squaw Mountain could be plainly discerned, a dark,
+towering shape against the horizon. A few stars glinted like a diamond
+diadem above its brow. Down its sides and from the base stretched a
+sable mantle of forest, enwrapping Squaw Pond, of which the moon made a
+mirror.
+
+"My! I think this would make the fellows in Manchester open their eyes a
+bit," muttered Neal aloud. "Only one feels as if he ought to see some
+old Indian brave such as Cyrus tells about,--a Touch-the-Cloud, or
+Whistling Elk, or Spotted Tail, come gliding towards him out of the
+woods in his paint and feather toggery. Glad I didn't visit Maine a
+hundred years ago, though, when there'd have been a chance of such a
+meeting."
+
+Still muttering, young Farrar kicked off his high rubber boots, and
+dragged off his coat. He proceeded to shake and wring the water from his
+upper garments, listening intently, and glancing half expectantly into
+the pitch-black shadows at the edges of the forest, as if he might hear
+the stealthy steps and see the savage form of the superseded red man
+emerge therefrom.
+
+"Ugh! I mind the ducking now more than I did a while ago," he murmured.
+"The water wasn't cold. Why, we bathed at the other end of the pond late
+last evening! But these wet clothes are precious uncomfortable. I wish
+we were nearer to camp. Good Gracious! What's that?"
+
+He stood stock-still and erect, his flesh shrinking a little, while his
+drenched flannel shirt clung yet more closely and clammily to his skin.
+
+A distant noise was wafted to his ears through the forest behind. It
+began like the gentle, mellow lowing of a cow at evening, swelled into a
+quavering, appealing crescendo cadence, and gradually died away. Almost
+as the last note ceased another commenced at the same low pitch, with
+only the rest of a heart-beat between the two, and surged forth into a
+plaintive yet tempestuous call, which sank as before. It was followed by
+a third, terminating in an impatient roar. The weird solo ran through
+several scales in its performance, rising, wailing, booming, sinking,
+ever varying in expression. It marked a new era in Neal's experience of
+sounds, and left him choking with bewilderment about what sort of
+forest creature it could be which uttered such a call.
+
+He began to get out some bungling description when Cyrus joined him
+shortly afterwards, but the American had had a lively time of it while
+recovering his jack-light and righting the canoe on mid-pond. He was in
+no mood for explanations.
+
+"Keep the yarn, whatever it is, till to-morrow, Neal," he said. "I
+didn't hear anything special. Perhaps I was too far away. I'm so wet and
+jaded that I feel as limp as a washed-out rag. Let's get back to camp as
+fast as we can."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+LIFE IN A BARK HUT.
+
+
+It was two o'clock in the morning when the tired, draggled pair stumbled
+ashore at the place where they embarked, hauled up their birch skiff,
+leaving it to repose, bottom uppermost, under a screen of bushes, and
+then stood for some minutes in deliberation.
+
+"I'm sure I hope we can find the trail all right," said Cyrus. "Yes, I
+see the blazes on the trees. Here's luck!"
+
+He had been turning the jack-lamp on either side of him, trying to
+discover the "blazes," or notches cut in some of the trunks, which
+marked the "blazed trail"--in other words, the spotted line through the
+otherwise trackless forest, which would lead him whither he wanted to
+go.
+
+It required considerable experience and unending watchfulness to follow
+these "blazes"; but young Garst seemed to have the instinct of a true
+woodsman, and went ahead unfalteringly, if vigilantly, while Neal
+followed closely in his tracks.
+
+After rather a lengthy trudge, they reached a point where the ground
+sloped gently upward into a low bluff. Still keeping to the trail, they
+ascended this eminence, finding the forest not so dense, and the walking
+easier than it had been hitherto. Gaining the top, they emerged upon an
+open patch, which had been cleared of its erect, massive pines, and the
+long-hidden earth laid bare to the sky by the lumberman's axe.
+
+Here the eagerly desired sight--that sight of all others to the tired
+camper; namely, the camp itself, with its cheery, blazing
+camp-fire--burst upon their view, sheltered by a group of sapling pines,
+which had grown up since their giant brothers went to make timber.
+
+Now, a Maine camp, as every one knows, may consist of any temporary
+shelter you choose to name, according to the tastes and opportunities
+of its occupants, from a fair white canvas home to a log cabin or a
+hastily erected canopy of spruce boughs. In the present instance it was
+a "wangen," or hut of strong bark, such as is sometimes used by
+lumbermen to rest and sleep in when they are driving their floats of
+timber down one of the rivers of this region to a distant town, which is
+a centre of the lumber trade.
+
+Cyrus and Neal were making across the clearing in the direction of the
+camp-fire with revived spirits, when the American suddenly grabbed his
+friend by the arm, and drew him behind a clump of low bushes.
+
+"Hold on a minute!" he whispered. "By all that's glorious, there's Uncle
+Eb singing his favorite song! It's worth hearing. You never listened to
+such music in England."
+
+"I don't suppose I ever did," answered Neal, suppressed laughter making
+him shake.
+
+Upon a gray pine stump, beside the blaze, which he was feeding with a
+hemlock bough, sat a battered-looking yet lively personage. Had he been
+standing upright upon the remnant of trunk, he would certainly, in the
+bright but changeful firelight, have deceived an onlooker into believing
+him to be a continuation of it; for the baggy tweed trousers which he
+wore on his immense legs, and which partially hid his loose-fitting
+brogans, or woodsman's boots, his thick, knitted jersey, his mop of
+woolly hair, with the cap of coon's fur that adorned it, were a striking
+mixture of grays, all bordering upon the color of the stump. His skin,
+however, was a fine contrast, shining as he bent towards the flame like
+the outside of a copper kettle. In daylight it would be three shades
+darker, because the thick coral lips, gleaming teeth, and prominent,
+friendly eyes of the individual, betrayed him to be in his own words, "a
+colored gen'leman;" that is, a full-blooded negro, and a free American
+citizen.
+
+Beside him, squatting upon his haunches and wagging his shaggy tail, was
+a good-sized dog, not of pure breed, but undoubtedly possessed of fire
+and fidelity, as was shown by the eye he raised to his master. His red
+coat and general formation showed that his father had been an Irish
+setter, though he seemed to have other and fiercer blood in his veins,
+mingling with that of this gentle parent.
+
+To him the negro was chanting a war-song,--some lines by a popular
+writer which he had found in an old newspaper, and had set to a curious
+tune of his own composition, rendering the performance more inspiriting
+by sundry wild whoops, and an occasional whacking of his teeth together.
+
+Here are two verses, under the influence of which the dog worked himself
+up to such excitement that he seemed to feel the ghosts of rabbits
+slain--for he could smell no live ones--hovering near him:--
+
+  "I raise my gun whar de rabbit run--
+    Ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!
+  En de rabbit say:
+    'Gimme time ter pray,
+  Fer I ain't got long fer to stay, to stay!'
+    Oh, ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!
+
+  "Ketch him, oh, ketch him!
+  Run ter de place en fetch him!
+  De bell done chime
+  Fer de breakfast time--
+    Oh, ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!"
+
+"If there are any more verses, Uncle Eb, keep them until we've had
+supper, or breakfast, or whatever you like to call a meal at this
+unearthly hour. I'm so hungry that I could chew nails!" cried Cyrus,
+springing from behind the bushes, and reaching the, camp-fire with a few
+strides, Neal following him.
+
+"Sakes alive! yonkers; is dat you?" cried the darkey, uprearing his
+gray figure. "I'se mighty glad to see you back. Whar's yer meat? Left it
+in de canoe mebbe? De buck too big to drag 'long to camp--eh?"
+
+There was a wicked rolling of Uncle Eb's eyes while he spoke. Evidently
+from the looks of the sportsmen he guessed immediately what had been the
+result of their excursion.
+
+"No luck and no buck to-night!" answered Garst. "But don't roast us,
+Uncle Eb. Get us something to eat quicker than lightning or we'll go for
+you--at least we would if we weren't entirely played out. It isn't
+everybody who can manage a hard shot as cleverly as you do, when he can
+only see the eyes of an animal. And that was the one chance we got."
+
+No man living ever heard a further word from Cyrus as to how his English
+friend bore the scares of a first night's jacking.
+
+"Ya-as, dat's a ticklish shot. Most folks is skeered o' trying it,"
+drawled out Ebenezer Grout, a professional guide as well as "colored
+gen'leman," familiarly called by visitors to this region who hired the
+use of his hut and his services, "Uncle Eb."
+
+"There's some comfort for you," whispered Cyrus slyly into Neal's ear.
+Aloud he said, addressing the guide, "We had a spill-out, too, as a
+crown-all. I'm mighty glad that this is the second of October, not
+November, and that the weather is as warm as summer; otherwise we'd be
+in a pretty bad way from chill. I feel shivery. Hurry up, and get us
+some steaming hot coffee and flapjacks, Uncle Eb, while we fling off
+these wet clothes. The trouble is we haven't got any dry ones."
+
+"Hain't got no oder suits?" queried the woodsman. "Den go 'long, boys,
+and rig yerselves up in yer blankets. Ye can pertend to be Injuns fer
+to-night. Like enough dis ain't de worst shift ye'll have to make 'fore
+ye get out o' dese parts."
+
+As the draggled pair were making towards the hut, which stood about six
+feet from the fire, to follow his advice, its bark door was suddenly
+pushed wide open. Forth stepped, or rather staggered, another boy,
+younger and shorter than Neal. His tumbled fair hair was here and there
+adorned with a green pine-needle, which was not remarkable, considering
+that he had just arisen from a bed of pine boughs. Sundry others were
+clinging to the surface of the warm, fleecy blankets in which he was
+wrapped, and his feet were thrust into a pair of moccasins. He had the
+appearance and voice of a person awaking from sound sleep.
+
+"I say, you fellows, it's about time you got back!" he said, rubbing his
+heavy eyes, and addressing the hunters. "I hope you've had some luck. I
+dreamt that I was smacking my lips over a venison steak."
+
+"Smack 'em w'en you git it, honey!" remarked Uncle Eb, while he mixed a
+plain batter of flour, baking-powder, and cold water, which he dropped
+in big spoonfuls on a frying-pan, previously greased, proceeding to fry
+the mixture over his camp-fire.
+
+The thin, round cakes which presently appeared were the "flapjacks"
+despised by Cyrus as insufficient diet.
+
+Without waiting to answer the new boy's greeting, the hunters had
+disappeared into the bark shanty. When next they issued forth they were
+rigged up Indian fashion in moccasins and blankets, the latter being
+doubled and draped over their underclothing,--of which luckily they had
+a dry supply,--and gathered round their waists with leather straps.
+Knitted caps, usually worn when sleeping, adorned their heads.
+
+"You see, we followed Dol's example and your advice, Uncle Eb," said
+Cyrus, as they seated themselves by the camp-fire. "And I tell you these
+make tip-top dressing-gowns when you're feeling a little bit chilly
+after a drenching. We didn't bring along a second suit of tweeds for the
+simple reason that we mean to do some pretty rough tramping with our
+packs on our backs, and then a fellow is likely to grumble at any
+unnecessary pound of weight he carries."
+
+"Shuah--shuah!" assented Uncle Eb.
+
+"And that is why we left our fishing-rods behind," continued Garst. "You
+see, our main object this trip is neither hunting nor fishing. But a
+creel of gamey trout from Squaw Pond would come in handy now to
+replenish our larder."
+
+"Wal, I b'lieve I'll fix up a rod to-mo-oh an' hook a few, fer de pork's
+givin' out. Hain't got mich use fer trout meself. Dey's kind o'
+tasteless eatin' if a man can git a bit o' fat coon or a fatty [hare],
+let 'lone ven'zon. Pork's a sight better'n 'em to my mind."
+
+While Uncle Eb was giving his views on food, he was hurriedly "bilin'"
+coffee, frying unlimited flapjacks, and breaking up some crystal cakes
+of maple sugar, which he melted into a sirup, and poured over them.
+
+  "De bell done chime
+  Fer de breakfast time!"
+
+he shouted gleefully when all was accomplished. "Heah, yonkers! I guess
+we may call dis meal breakfast jest as well as not, fer it's neah to
+dawn now."
+
+And the trio fell to voraciously, as he handed them each a steaming tin
+mug and an equally steaming plate. The newly awakened youngster, who had
+been cuddling his head sleepily against Neal's shoulder (a glance showed
+that they were brothers), had clamored for his share of the banquet.
+
+"You haven't been lonely, Dol, I hope, have you?" said Cyrus, as a whole
+flapjack, doubled over and drenched in sirup, disappeared down his
+capacious throat.
+
+"Not I," answered Dol (Adolphus Farrar, ladies and gentlemen), shutting
+and opening a pair of steel-gray eyes with a sort of quick snap. "Uncle
+Eb and I sat by the fire until twelve o'clock. He sang songs, and told
+tip-top stories about coon hunts. I tell you it was fun! I'd rather see
+a coon hunt than go out at night jacking, especially if I got a ducking
+instead of a deer, like some bungling fellows I know."
+
+"Don't be saucy, Young England, or I'll go for you when I've finished
+eating," laughed Cyrus good-humoredly. "Who told you what we got?"
+
+Dol winked at Uncle Eb, who had, indeed, entertained him with giggling
+jokes about the unsuccessful hunters while they were stripping off their
+wet garments.
+
+Adolphus, being the youngest of the camping-party, was favored with the
+softest pine-bough bed and the best of the limited luxuries which the
+camp possessed, with unlimited nicknames,--from "Young England" to
+"Shaver" or "Chick," according to the whims of his comrades.
+
+"Say, Uncle Eb, we're having a fine old time to-night--all sorts of
+experiences! I guess you may as well finish that song we interrupted
+while we're finishing our meal."
+
+"All rightee, gen'lemen!" answered the jolly guide and cook.
+
+The dog Tiger had retreated to the back of the camp-fire, where he lay
+blissfully snoozing; but at a booming "Whoop-ee!" from his master, which
+formed a prelude to the following verses, he shot up like a rocket, and
+manifested all his former signs of excitement.
+
+  "Dey's a big fat goose whar de turkey roos'--
+    Ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!
+  En de goose--he say,
+    'Hit'll soon be day,
+  En I got no feders fer ter give away!'
+    Oh, ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!
+
+  "Ketch him, oh, ketch him,
+  Run ter de roos' en fetch him!
+  He ain't gwine tell
+  On de dinner bell--
+    Ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!"
+
+"Scoot 'long to bed now, you yonkers, or ye'll look like spooks
+to-mo-oh! Hit's day a'ready," cried the singer directly he had whooped
+out his last note.
+
+And the "yonkers," nothing loath, for they had finished their repast,
+sprang up to obey him.
+
+"Isn't it a comfort that we haven't any trouble of undressing and
+getting into our bedclothes, fellows?" Cyrus said, as they reached the
+wangen, and prepared to throw themselves upon the fragrant camp-bed of
+fresh green pine-boughs, which made the bark hut smell more healthily
+than a palace.
+
+The natural mattress was wide enough to accommodate three. The boughs
+were laid down in rows with the under side up, and overlapped each
+other. To be sure, an occasional twig might poke a sleeper's ribs, but
+what mattered that? To the English boys especially--having the charm of
+entire novelty--it was a matchless bed, wholesome, restful, and rich
+with balsamic odors hitherto unknown.
+
+The trio were stupidly tired; but on the American continent no happier
+or healthier youths could have been found.
+
+It had, indeed, been a night big with experiences; and there was one
+still to come, which, to Neal Farrar at any rate, was as novel as the
+rest. He had thrown himself upon his bough couch, too weary to offer
+anything but the gladness of his heart for worship, when Cyrus touched
+his arm.
+
+"Look there!" he said. "If a fellow could see that without feeling some
+sensations go through him which he never felt before, he wouldn't be
+worth much!"
+
+He pointed through the open door of the hut at the sky above the
+clearing, over which was stealing a pearly hue of dawn, shot with a
+tinge of rosy light, like the fire in the heart of an opal.
+
+This made a royal canopy over the towering head of Old Squaw
+Mountain,--near by now and plainly visible,--which had not yet lost its
+starry diadem, though the gems were paling one by one. The shoulders of
+the peak wore a mantle of purple, and the forest which clothed its bulk
+was changing from the blackness of a mourning robe to the emerald green
+of a sea-nymph's drapery.
+
+The shutters of Night were rolling back, and young Day was stepping out
+to cast her first smile on a waiting earth.
+
+As the watchers in the hut caught that smile, every thought which rose
+in them was a daybreak song to the God who is light, and the secret of
+every dawning.
+
+With the day-smile kissing their faces they fell asleep, feeling that
+they were wrapped in the embrace of the invisible King.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+WHITHER BOUND?
+
+
+"Where from? Whither bound?" It is not often that a man or boy burns to
+put these questions--which ships signal to each other when they pass
+upon the ocean--to some individual who hurries by him on a crowded
+thoroughfare, whose name perhaps he knows, but whose hand he has never
+clasped, of whose thoughts, feelings, and capabilities he is ignorant.
+
+But just let him meet that same fellow during a holiday trip to some
+wild sea-beach or lonely mountain, let an acquaintance spring up, let
+him observe the habits of the other traveller, discovering a few of his
+weak points and some of his good ones, and then he wishes to ask,
+"Where do you hail from? Whither are you bound?"
+
+Therefore, having encountered three fairly good-looking, jovial,
+well-disposed young fellows amid the solitudes of a Maine forest, having
+spent some eventful hours in their company, learning how they behaved in
+certain emergencies, it is but natural that the reader should wish to
+know their ordinary occupations, with their reasons for venturing into
+these wilds, and the goal they wish to reach, before he journeys with
+them farther.
+
+Just at present, being fast asleep, dreaming, and--if I must say
+it--snoring like troopers, upon their mattresses of pine boughs, they
+are unable to give any information about themselves. But the friend who
+has been authorized to record their travels will be happy to satisfy all
+reasonable curiosity.
+
+To begin, then, with the "boss" of the party, Cyrus Garst, the writer
+would say that he is a student of Harvard University, and a brainy,
+energetic, robust son of America. Among his college classmates he is
+regarded as a bit of a hero; for, in spite of his comparative youth, he
+is an enterprising traveller and a veteran camper, whose camp-fire has
+blazed in some of the wildest solitudes of his native land. For his
+hobby is natural history, and his playground the "forest primeval,"
+where he studies American animals amid the lonely passes which they
+choose for their lairs and beats.
+
+Every year when Harvard's learned halls are closed for the long summer
+vacation,--sometimes at other seasons too,--he starts off on a trip to a
+wilderness region, with his knapsack on his back, his rifle on his
+shoulder, and often carrying his camera as well.
+
+Once in a while he has been accompanied by a bosom friend or two. More
+frequently he has gone alone, hiring the services of a professional
+guide accustomed to the locality he visits. Now, such a guide is the
+indispensable figure in every woodland trip. He is expected to supply
+the main part of his employer's camp "kit"; namely, a tent or some
+shelter to sleep under, cooking utensils, axes, etc., as well as a boat
+or canoe if such be required. And this son of the forest, whose foot can
+make a bee-line to its destination through the densest wooded maze, is
+not only leader, but cook and general-utility man in camp as well. The
+guide must be equally grand-master of paddle, rifle, and frying-pan.
+
+For these tireless woodland heroes Cyrus Garst has a general
+admiration. He has always agreed with them famously--save on one point;
+and he has never had to shorten his wanderings for fear of lengthening
+their fees. For Cyrus has a millionnaire father in the Back Bay of
+Boston, who is disposed to indulge his whims.
+
+The one point of variance is this: while all guides admire young Garst
+as a crack shot with a rifle, he frequently dumfounds them by letting
+slip stunning chances at game, big and little. They call him "a queer
+specimen sportsman,"--understanding little his love for the wild
+offspring of the woods,--because he never uses his gun save when the
+bareness of his larder or the peril of his own life or his chum's
+demands it.
+
+Nevertheless, feeling the need of fresh meat, the naturalist was for the
+moment hotly exasperated because his English comrade, Neal Farrar,
+missed even a poor chance at a buck during the midnight excursion on
+Squaw Pond.
+
+His friends are proud of stating that up to the present Cyrus had
+proceeded well in his friendly acquaintance with wild creatures, his
+desire being to study their habits when alive rather than to pore over
+their anatomy when dead. And he has always reaped a plentiful harvest
+of fun during his trips, declaring that he has "the pull over fellows
+who go into the woods for killing," seeing that he can thoroughly enjoy
+the escape of a game animal if he can only catch a sight of it, and
+perceive how its pluck or cunning enables it to baffle pursuing man.
+There are those who call Cyrus a sportsman of the best type. Perhaps
+they are right.
+
+Yet in the year of our story, when he had just attained his majority,
+this student of forest life is still unsatisfied, because he has not
+been able to obtain a good view of the behemoth of American woods, the
+_ignis fatuus_ of hunters,--the mighty moose.
+
+Once only, when paddling on a still pond with his experienced guide for
+company, the latter suddenly closed the slide of the jack-lamp, hiding
+its light. At the same moment a dark, splendid monster, tall as a horse
+and swinging a pair of antlers five feet broad, suddenly appeared upon
+the bank, near to which the canoe lay in black shadow. The hunters dared
+not breathe. It was at a season of year when the Maine law exacts a
+heavy fine for the killing of a moose; and even the guide had no desire
+to send his bullets through the law, though he might have riddled the
+game without compunction.
+
+For a minute or two the creature halted at the pond's brink, magnified
+in the mirror of moonlit water into a gigantic, wavering shape. Then
+with slow, solemn tread he walked along the bank ahead, gave a loud
+snort something like the snort of a war-horse, made a crunching,
+chopping noise with his jaws, resembling the sound of a dull axe
+striking against wood, plunged into the lake, and swam across to the
+opposite shore.
+
+"If we had fired, he might have come for us full tilt," whispered the
+guide so softly that his words were like a gliding breath. "And then I
+tell you we'd have had a narrow squeak. He'd have kicked the canoe into
+splinters and us out o' time in short order."
+
+"But a moose won't charge unless he's attacked, will he?" asked Cyrus,
+later in the night, when a couple of quacking black ducks which had
+received a dose of lead were lying silent at his feet, and the hunters
+were returning to camp with food.
+
+"Not often," was the reply. "Only at this time o' year, if they've got a
+mate to defend, you can't say for sure what they'll do. They won't
+always fight either, even if they're wounded, when they can get a
+chance to bolt. But a moose, if he has to die, will be sure to die game,
+with his face to his enemy; and so will every wild animal that I know.
+I've even seen a shot partridge flutter up its feathers like a game-cock
+at the fellow who dropped it."
+
+Well, this memorable glimpse of his mooseship was obtained in the year
+before our story. And now, in the beginning of October, young Garst was
+off into Maine wilds again, having arranged to "do" the forest
+thoroughly after his usual fashion, seeing all he could of its countless
+phases of life, and finally to meet this same guide--a dare-devil fellow
+who was reported to have had adventures in moose-hunting such as other
+woodsmen did not dream of--at a log camp far in the wilderness. Thence
+they could proceed to solitudes where the voice of man seldom echoed,
+where the foot of man rarely trod, and where moose signs were pretty
+sure to be found.
+
+But there was one very unusual feature in his present expedition. The
+student of nature, who generally started forth alone, was this year,
+owing to a freak of fate and to his natural good-nature, accompanied by
+two English lads.
+
+Early in the summer of this same year, Francis Farrar, a wealthy
+cotton-merchant of Manchester, England, visited America on a
+business-trip, and became the guest of Cyrus's father. He brought with
+him his two sons, Neal, aged sixteen and a half, and Adolphus,
+familiarly called Dol, who was more than a year younger.
+
+Both boys had been at a large public school, and physically, as well as
+mentally, were well developed. They were accustomed to spending long
+vacations with their father at wild spots on the seashore, or amid
+mountains in England and Scotland. They could tirelessly do a sixty-mile
+spin on their "wheels," were good football players, excellent rowers,
+formed part of the crew of their father's yacht, could skilfully handle
+gun and fishing-rod, but they had never camped out.
+
+They knew none of the delights of sleeping in woodland quarters, with
+only a canvas or bark roof, or perhaps a few spruce boughs, between them
+and the sky--
+
+  "While a music wild and solemn
+    From the pine-tree's height
+  Rolls its vast and sea-like volume
+    On the wind of night."
+
+Small wonder, then, that when they heard Cyrus Garst tell of his
+camping excursions, of his jolly times, long tramps, and hairbreadth
+escapes, their hearts swelled with a tremendous longing to accompany him
+on the trip into northern Maine which he was then projecting for the
+following October.
+
+Now, Cyrus at the first start-off conceived a liking for these English
+fellows, to whom, for his father's sake, he played the part of genial
+host. With a lordly recognition of his superior years he pronounced them
+"first-rate youngsters, with lots of snap in them." And as the
+acquaintance progressed, Neal Farrar, with his erect figure, broad
+chest, musical voice, and wide-apart gray eyes,--so clear and honest
+that their glance was a beam,--proved a personage so likable that the
+student adopted him as "chum," forgetting those five years which had
+been a gulf between them.
+
+Dol, whose eyes were of a more steely hue than his brother's, striking
+fire readily and showing all manner of flinty lights, who had a
+downright talent for mimicry, and a small share of juvenile
+self-importance, came in for regard of a more indulgent and less equal
+nature.
+
+Directly he got an inkling of the desire for a forest trip which
+stirred in the boys' breasts, making them yearn all day and toss all
+night, Cyrus gave them both a cordial invitation to accompany him into
+Maine. Mr. Farrar did not purpose returning to Europe till midwinter.
+His consent was easily obtained. He presented each of his sons with a
+new Winchester repeating rifle, with which they practised diligently at
+a target ere the eventful day of the start dawned, though their leader
+emphatically insisted that the prime pleasures of the trip were not to
+be looked for in the slaughter done by their hands.
+
+Wearing the camper's favorite dress of stout gray tweed, the trio left
+Boston on a lovely September evening towards the close of the month,
+taking a fast night train for Maine, brimful of enthusiasm about the
+wild woods and free camp-life. The hue of their clothes was chosen with
+a view to making their figures resemble the forest trunks, so that they
+would be less likely to attract the notice of animals, and might get a
+chance to creep upon them undetected.
+
+About their waists were their ammunition belts, with pouches well
+stocked. Their large knapsacks contained blankets, moccasins, and
+various other necessaries of a camper's outfit, including heavy knitted
+jerseys for chill days and nights, and rubber boots reaching high on the
+legs for wear in wading and traversing swampy tracts.
+
+About twenty-four hours later they dropped off the rattling, jingling
+stage-coach which bore them over the latter part of their journey, at
+the flourishing village of Greenville, on the borders of the Maine
+wilds.
+
+Here they were greeted by a view, the loveliness of which made the
+English boys, who had never looked on it before, experience strange
+heart-leaps.
+
+A magnificent sheet of water nearly forty miles long and fourteen broad
+lay before them, studded with islands, girt with evergreen forests and
+wooded peaks. Under the rays of the setting sun its bosom was shot with
+arrows of pale, quivering gold. Banners of gold and flame-color floated
+over the crests of the hills, flinging streamers of light down their
+emerald sides.
+
+"Fellows, there is Moosehead Lake; and I guess you'll find few lakes in
+America or elsewhere that can beat it for beauty," said Cyrus, with a
+patriotic thrill in his voice, for he had a feeling that he was doing
+the honors of his country.
+
+His English comrades were warm with admiration, and here, in view of the
+forest-land which was their El Dorado, tingled with anticipation of the
+unknown.
+
+The three rested that night at Greenville, and began their tramping on
+the following morning. They trudged a distance of seven miles or so to
+the camp of Ebenezer Grout, which, as Garst knew, was situated between
+Squaw Pond and Old Squaw Mountain, the latter being one of the finest
+peaks near Moosehead Lake.
+
+"Uncle Eb" was an old acquaintance of Cyrus's, a dusky, lively woodsman,
+who spent a great part of the year in his lone bark hut, with his dog
+Tiger for company. He subsisted chiefly on what he brought down with his
+rifle, and sometimes earned three dollars a day for guiding tourists up
+Old Squaw or through the adjacent forests.
+
+[Illustration: "THERE IS MOOSEHEAD LAKE."]
+
+He was not an ambitious hunter, and rarely pushed far into the solitudes
+of the wilderness in search of moose or other big game. A coon hunt was
+to him the climax of all fun. It was chiefly with a hope that his
+comrades might enjoy some novel entertainment of this kind that Cyrus
+made his first stoppage at Uncle Eb's camp, purposing to sojourn there
+for a few days.
+
+He was not disappointed.
+
+The stupidly tired trio had slept for about two hours, while the reader
+has been receiving information second-hand about their past and future,
+when a scratching, scraping, boring noise on the outside of their bark
+roof temporarily disturbed their slumbers. Dol called out noisily, and,
+as was the way of that youngster on sundry occasions, talked some
+gibberish in his sleep. The scraping instantly ceased.
+
+A renewed and blissful season of snoring. Another awakening. More music
+on the roof, evidently caused by the claws of some wild animal, while
+each of the campers was startled by a loud "Cluck!"
+
+"Lie still, fellows! Don't budge. Let's see what the thing is," breathed
+Cyrus in a peculiarly still whisper which he had learned from his
+moose-hunting guide of whom mention has been made.
+
+Dead silence in the hut. Redoubled scraping and rattling above, with a
+scattering of bark chips.
+
+Then light appeared through a jagged hole just over a string which was
+stretched across one corner of the cabin, and from which dangled sundry
+articles of camp bric-a-brac, mostly of a tinny nature, with Uncle Eb's
+last morsel of "pork.
+
+"By all that's glorious! it's a coon," breathed Cyrus, but so softly
+that his companions did not hear.
+
+As for the two Farrars, they were working up to such a heat of
+excitement that they felt as if life were now only beginning. They had
+heard of the thievish raids made by the black bear on unprotected camps,
+and of his special fondness for pork. Not knowing that there was no
+chance of an encounter with Bruin so near to civilization as this, they
+peered at that hole in the roof, expecting every moment to see a huge,
+black, snarling snout thrust through it.
+
+It was a pointed gray muzzle which warily appeared instead--appeared and
+disappeared on the instant. For at this crisis Tiger's shrill bugle-call
+resounded without, giving warning of an attack on the camp. The thing,
+whatever it was, scrambled from the roof, and with a strange, shrill cry
+of one note made towards the woods. The dog followed it, barking for all
+he was worth.
+
+Now, too, Uncle Eb's booming "Whoop-ee!" was heard.
+
+The hardy old woodsman, after his visitors had gone to roost, instead of
+stretching himself as usual upon his pine mattress, had started off,
+accompanied by Tiger, to visit some traps which he had set in the
+forest, hoping to catch a marten or two. He took the precaution of
+closing the door of the hut when he saw that its inmates were soundly
+sleeping, thinking meanwhile, that, as day was dawning, there was little
+chance of any wild "critter" coming round the camp during his absence.
+
+But a greedy raccoon, which had been prowling near in the woods during
+the night, and had been tantalized to desperation by the smell of the
+late meal, especially by the odor of flapjacks frying in pork fat, had
+stolen from cover after the departure of his natural enemy, the dog.
+
+Finding the coast clear and the camp unguarded, he made himself quietly
+at home, rooted among some potato parings which the guide had thrown
+aside a day or two before, devoured a cold flapjack, and cleaned the
+camp frying-pan as it had never been cleaned before, with his tongue.
+But his appetite was whetted, not glutted. Scent or instinct told him
+that pork, molasses, and other eatables were hidden in the bark hut.
+Here was a golden opportunity for Mr. Coon. No one molested him.
+Meditating a feast, he climbed to the roof, and began cautiously to
+scrape off portions of the bark. The rising sun ought to have warned him
+back to forest depths; but he persisted in his scratching, repeating now
+and again a satisfied cluck.
+
+His hole was made. His keen nose told him that pork was almost within
+reach, when the bugle-call of his enemy--Tiger's challenging bark--smote
+upon his ear. Guide and dog were opportunely returning to camp.
+
+Of course, as soon as the marauder scrambled off the roof, Cyrus and the
+boys sprang from their couch. Barefooted, and in night costume, they
+were already at the door of the hut before Uncle Eb was heard booming,--
+
+"Boys! Boys! Tumble out--tumble out! Dere's a reg'lar razzle-dazzle
+fight goin' on heah. Tiger's nabbed de coon."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+A COON HUNT.
+
+
+A razzle-dazzle fight it surely was! On one side of the camp, between
+the camping-ground, which Uncle Eb had cleared with many a backache, and
+the woods, was a narrow strip covered with a stunted, prickly growth of
+wild raspberry bushes and tiny cherry-trees. These had sprung up after
+the pines had been cut down, as soon as the sun peeped at the
+long-hidden earth.
+
+Into it the bare-legged trio dared not venture, knowing that they would
+get a worse scratching and tearing than if the coon itself mauled them.
+
+But they could see and hear a whirling, howling, clawing, spitting,
+rough-and-tumble conflict going on in the midst of this miniature
+jungle.
+
+"Whew! Whew!" gasped Cyrus. "Here's your first sight of a wild coon,
+boys. I wish to goodness it had been a different sight, but I suppose he
+must pay for his thieving."
+
+"Tiger'll make him do dat. Bet yer life he will! He's death on coons, if
+ever a dog was," yelled Uncle Eb, gambolling with excitement, his eyes
+bulging and widening until they looked like oysters on the shell.
+
+The soft, battered, gray felt hat which replaced his fur cap in the
+daytime surged off his gray wool, and frisked gently away towards the
+camp-fire. There, coming in contact with a red ember, it scorched and
+shrivelled into smoking, smelling ashes, all unnoticed in the tumult of
+the fight.
+
+Whirling round and round, now under, now over, dog and coon rolled
+presently forth from the bushes, nearer to the feet of the spectators.
+Then Neal and Dol could get a clearer view of the strange animal. A
+breeze of exclamations came from them, mingling with the yelping,
+snarling, and clucking of the combatants.
+
+"Good gracious! Look at the stout body and funny little legs of the
+fellow!"
+
+"Doesn't he fight like a spitfire?"
+
+"I'm glad he's not clawing me!"
+
+"He's not much like any picture of a raccoon I ever saw in a Natural
+History!"
+
+"I guess he wouldn't resemble them greatly, especially in that attitude,
+Dol," said Cyrus, as soon as there was a lull in the boys' comments.
+
+The raccoon had now rolled on his back, and was fighting so fiercely
+with teeth and claws that a despairing cry broke from Uncle Eb,--
+
+"Yah! He's makin' Tiger's wool fly!"
+
+It was then that the old guide began to deliberate about rushing forward
+and despatching his coonship with the butt end of his rifle. Cyrus would
+gladly have stopped the tussle long before, for there was too much
+savagery about it to suit him; but he could only have done so by
+stunning or killing one of the combatants.
+
+A heart-rending howl from Tiger. The coon had caught him by his lower
+jaw. Uncle Eb, clutching his empty rifle like a club, was starting to
+the rescue, when the dog with a sudden, desperate jerk freed himself.
+Mad with rage and pain, he tried to seize the raccoon's throat. But his
+enemy managed to elude the strangling grip, and getting on his feet,
+again caught Tiger, this time by the cheek, causing another agonizing
+yelp.
+
+Now, however, the undaunted dog whirled round and round with such
+rapidity as to make Mr. Coon relax his hold, and, gathering all his
+strength, flung the wild animal off to a distance of several feet.
+
+Probably the raccoon felt that he had enough of the conflict, and was
+doubtful about its final issue. He seized the chance for escape. While
+the spectators gasped with excitement, they beheld him, with his head
+doubled under his stomach, roll over and over like a huge gray
+India-rubber ball, until he reached the nearest tree, which happened to
+be one of the young pines that shaded the camp. Quick as lightning he
+climbed up its trunk, uttering a second shrill, far-reaching cry of one
+note.
+
+"Listen! Listen, fellows!" cried Cyrus. "That raccoon is a
+ventriloquist. The cry seemed to come from somewhere far above him. I
+had a tame coon long ago, and I often heard him call like that. I tell
+you he's a ventriloquist, and a mighty clever one too.
+
+"The one piercing note was to warn his mate," went on the naturalist,
+after a moment's pause; "or in all probability, though we have been
+speaking of the animal as 'he,' it is really a female, for I have heard
+that peculiar call given more frequently by a mother to warn her cubs."
+
+All that could now be seen of the animal--on whose gender new light had
+been cast--was a gray ball curled up on a tasselled bough near the top
+of the pine-tree, and a glimpse of a black nose over the edge of the
+limb.
+
+"Wal! 'tain't no matter wedder de critter is a male or a fimmale; I'm
+a-goin' to bring it down from dar mighty quick," said Uncle Eb, fumbling
+with the cartridge-box which was attached to his broad leather belt, and
+preparing to load his rifle, while he cast murderous looks aloft.
+
+"No, you don't, then!" said Cyrus hotly. "The creature has fought
+pluckily, and it deserves to get a fair chance for its life. I'll see
+that it does too. You oughtn't to be hard on it for liking pork, Uncle
+Eb."
+
+"Coons will be gittin' into eatin' order soon," murmured the guide,
+smacking his lips, and handling his gun undecidedly. "Roast coon's a
+heap better'n roast lamb."
+
+"Well, they're not in eating order yet, and won't be till next month,"
+answered Garst. "Come, you've got to let this one go, Uncle Eb, to
+please me."
+
+"Tell ye wot: I'll call Tiger off" (Tiger was alternately licking his
+wounds and baying furiously for vengeance about the tree which sheltered
+his enemy), "den, wen de coon finds de place clear, bime-by he'll light
+down from dat limb, I'll start off de dog, and let 'em finish de game
+atween 'em."
+
+Cyrus considered for a minute, then decided that on the coon's behalf he
+might safely accept the compromise.
+
+"Let's get into our clothes, fellows!" he cried to Neal and Dol. "Now
+we're going to have some fair fun! I guess there won't be any more
+fighting; and I want you to see how cunningly the raccoon will cheat the
+dog and escape, if he gets an even chance."
+
+In five minutes the trio were out of their blankets and in their
+ordinary day apparel. The old guide had hung the wet tweeds to dry by
+the blazing camp-fire before he started out to visit his traps,
+carefully stretching them to prevent their "swunking" (shrinking). Thus
+they were again fit for wear.
+
+A half-hour of waiting ensued, during which every one was on the tiptoe
+of expectation. They had all withdrawn to some distance from the tree.
+Uncle Eb had been obliged to drag Tiger away, and was bathing his cuts
+out of the camp water-bucket in a shady corner. The dog, recognizing
+that he was a patient, submitted without a growl or budge, until his
+master, who had been keeping a keen eye on that pine-tree, suddenly
+loosed him, and started him off afresh with a loud "Whoop-ee!" and a--
+
+  "Ketch him, Tiger! ketch him!"
+
+The coon had "lighted down."
+
+Away went the wild creature into the woods. Away after him, went dog,
+guide, student, and boys, plunging, tumbling, rushing along
+helter-skelter, with a yell on every lip.
+
+"There he is! See him? That gray ball rolling over and over!" shouted
+Cyrus. "I'll tell you what, now; he's going to resort to his clever
+dodge of 'barking a tree.' There never was a general yet who could beat
+a coon for strategy in making a retreat."
+
+The forest surrounding the eminence on which Uncle Eb's camp was
+situated consisted mostly of pines, with here and there the brilliant
+autumn foliage of a maple or birch showing amid the evergreens. The
+trees down the sides of the hill were not densely crowded, but grew in
+irregular clumps instead of an unbroken mass. This, of course, afforded
+a better opportunity for the pursuers to catch glimpses of the fugitive
+animal.
+
+On finding that it was again chased, the raccoon at first took shelter
+in a dense thicket of scrub oak, which formed in places a tangled
+undergrowth. Tiger quickly followed up its trail, and it was driven
+thence.
+
+Then Cyrus and the boys caught sight of it spinning over and over like a
+ball, towards a maple-tree with widely projecting limbs and thick
+foliage; for it knew well that in speed it was no match for the dog, and
+therefore resorted to a neat little stratagem. The next minute, being
+hotly pressed, it scrambled up the friendly trunk.
+
+"He's treed again, yonkers! Come on!" shouted the guide, indifferent to
+the creature's probable gender.
+
+Tiger sat on his haunches at the foot of the maple, setting up a slow,
+steady bark.
+
+"Keep where you are, fellows! Watch the other side of the tree!"
+whispered Cyrus, his face twitching with excitement.
+
+In his character of naturalist he had managed to find out more about
+the coon's various dodges than even the old guide had done.
+
+In breathless wonder the Farrars presently beheld that ingenious raccoon
+steal along to the end of the most projecting limb on a different side
+of the tree from the one it had climbed, so that a screen of boughs and
+the trunk were between it and its adversary.
+
+Then it noiselessly dropped from the tip of the branch to the ground,
+alighting, like a skilled acrobat, on its shoulders, doubled its pointed
+black nose under its stomach, and again rolled over and over for a
+considerable distance, when it got on its short legs and scurried away,
+while Tiger still bayed at the foot of the maple-tree, thinking the
+vanished prey was above.
+
+"That's what I called the coon's dodge of 'barking a tree,'" said Cyrus.
+"Don't you see, when hard pressed, he runs up the trunk, leaving his
+scent on the bark; then he creeps to the other side under cover of the
+foliage, and drops quietly to the ground. So he breaks the scent and
+cheats the dog."
+
+"Good gracious!" exclaimed Neal with an expressive whistle.
+
+"Perhaps it's because of his long gray hairs that he has so much
+wisdom," Dol suggested.
+
+"A bright idea, Chick!" chuckled the student, tapping the boy's
+shoulder.
+
+"We keep on speaking of him as 'he' when you said the thing was probably
+a female," put in Neal.
+
+"That doesn't matter. I'm not certain. Look at old Tiger! He's having
+fits now that he has discovered how he's been tricked."
+
+The dog was circling out from the tree, with wild, uncertain movements,
+nosing everywhere. Presently he struck the scent again, and darted off
+like a streak.
+
+But the raccoon had by this time reached a dark stream of water which
+coursed through the over-arching forest at the foot of the hill, as if
+it was flowing through a tunnel. Here this astute animal crossed and
+recrossed under the gloom of interlocking trees, mid dense undergrowth,
+until its trail was altogether lost.
+
+Tiger, having further "fits," nosing about, darting hither and thither,
+venting short, baffled barks, finally gave up in despair.
+
+The pursuing party turned back to camp.
+
+"Did ye ever see ennyting to ekal de cunnin' o' de critter," said Uncle
+Eb gloomily; "runnin' up dat tree on'y to jump off, so as he'd break de
+scent an' fool de dog? Ye'll learn a heap o' queer tings in dese woods,
+chillun, 'fore ye get t'rough," he added, addressing the English lads.
+
+"We've learned queerer things than we ever imagined or dreamed of,
+already, Uncle Eb," Neal answered.
+
+Meanwhile, Cyrus and Dol had begun to discuss the size of the escaped
+coon.
+
+"I should think it measured about two feet from the tip of its nose to
+the beginning of the tail, and that would add ten or eleven inches.
+Probably it weighed over thirty pounds," said the experienced Garst.
+
+"A fine tail it had too!" answered Dol; "all ringed with black and
+buff--not black and white as the books say. There was hardly an inch of
+white about the animal anywhere. Its thick gray hair was marked here and
+there with black; wasn't it, Cy?"
+
+"Rather with a darker shade of gray, bordering on black. I think old
+Tiger can testify that the creature had capable teeth; and it possesses
+a goodly number of them--forty in all; that's only two less than a bear,
+an animal that might make six of it in size."
+
+"Whew! No wonder it's a good fighter!" ejaculated Dol.
+
+"But the funniest of the coon's or--to give the animal its proper
+name--the raccoon's funny habits is, that while it eats anything and
+everything, it souses all meat in water before beginning a feed. That's
+what it would have done with our bit of pork,--dragged it to a stream,
+and washed it well before swallowing a morsel.
+
+"I caught glimpses of a raccoon chasing a jack-rabbit in this very
+section of the woods, last year," went on the student, seeing that Dol
+was breathlessly listening. "The big animal killed the little one under
+a dead limb; and I traced its tracks through some mud, where it tugged
+the rabbit to the brink of the nearest brook to be dipped and devoured.
+
+"After the meal, Mr. Coon halted on an old bit of stump as gray as
+himself, close to where I lay under cover, trying to get a peep at his
+operations, but, unluckily, in my excitement I touched a bush, and broke
+a twig not as big as my little finger. I tell you he just jumped off
+that stump as if it scorched him, and disappeared."
+
+"What about that tame coon you owned, Cy?" Dol asked. "You haven't got
+him now."
+
+"Bless your heart, I should think not!" Here the student indulged in a
+chuckle of mirth. "That coon was the fun and bane of my life. No fear
+of my being dull while I had him! I had him as a present, when he was
+only a cub, from a man out here who is my special chum among woodsmen,
+Herb Heal, the guide in whose company we're going to explore for moose,
+and the soundest fellow in wind, limb, and temper that ever I had the
+luck to meet. I guess you English boys will say the same when you know
+him.
+
+"Well! when my friend Herb bestowed upon me that baby raccoon, I called
+the little innocent 'Zip,' and kept him in-doors, letting him roam at
+will. But after he grew to manhood, I was obliged to banish him to our
+yard and chain him up; and there his piteous, sky-piercing calls, which
+seemed to come from the roof of a house near him, first showed me what a
+ventriloquist the animal can be."
+
+"Why on earth did you banish him?" asked Neal.
+
+"Because his plan of campaign, when loose, was to follow me about like a
+devoted cat, climbing over me whenever he got the chance, with slobbery
+fondness. But as soon as I was out of the way he'd steal every mortal
+thing I possessed, from my most precious instruments to my latest tie
+and handkerchiefs. I never saw anything to equal his ingenuity in
+ferreting out such articles, and his incorrigible mischief in destroying
+them. I chained him in the yard after he had torn my father's silk hat
+into shreds, and made off with his favorite spectacles. Whether he wore
+them or not I don't know; he chewed up the case; the glasses no man
+thereafter saw. I couldn't endure his piteous cries for reconciliation
+while he was in banishment, so I gave him away to a friend who was
+suffering from an imaginary ailment, and needed rousing.
+
+"Talking of fathers, boys, reminds me that I feel responsible to Francis
+Farrar, Esq., for the welfare of his lusty sons. Neal had a pretty
+tiring time last night, and only about two hours' sleep since. I don't
+suppose any of us are outrageously hungry, seeing that we had some kind
+of breakfast at an unearthly hour. Here we are at camp! I propose that
+we turn in, and try to sleep until noon. What do you say?"
+
+Their leader having wound up his talk, thus, neither of his comrades
+ventured to oppose his suggestion, though they felt little inclined for
+slumber.
+
+"Pleasant day-dreams to you, fellows!" said Cyrus three minutes
+afterwards, flinging off his coat, and throwing himself on his mattress
+of boughs, while he wiped the steady drip of perspiration from his
+forehead and cheeks. "This day is going to be too warm for any more
+rushing. Our variable climate occasionally gives us these hot spells up
+to the middle of October; but they don't last. So much the better for
+us! We don't want sizzling days and oppressive nights, with mosquitoes
+and black flies to make us miserable. October in this country is the
+camper's ideal--month"--
+
+The last sentence was broken by a great yawn, followed presently by a
+snort and an attempt at a shout, which quavered away into a queer little
+whine. Garst had passed into dreamland, where men revel in fragmentary
+memories and pell-mell visions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+AFTER BLACK DUCKS.
+
+
+If Cyrus's dreams were ruffled after the morning's excitement, those of
+his comrades were a perfect chaos.
+
+A slight wind hummed wordless songs through the tasselled tops of the
+pine-trees about the camp. The music was tender and drowsy as a mother's
+lullaby. Contrary to their expectations, Neal and Dol were lulled to
+sleep by it like babies, with a feeling as if some guardian spirit were
+gliding among the tree-tops.
+
+But when slumber held them, when the murmur increased to a surge of
+sound, sank to a ripple and again rolled forth, in their dreams they
+imagined it the scurrying of a deer's hoofs along some lonely forest
+deer-path, the rustling of a buck through bushes, the splashing of a
+mighty moose among lily-pads and grasses at the margin of a dark pond,
+the startled cluck of a coon. In fact, that rolling music of the pines
+was translated into every forest sound which they had heard, or expected
+to hear.
+
+The excitement of wild scenes, new sensations, strange knowledge, still
+thrilled them even in sleep. Their visions were accordingly wild,
+rushing, jumbled, yet all set in a light so bright as to be
+bewildering--a sign that health and happiness as great as human boys can
+enjoy were the possession of the dreamers.
+
+By and by their pulses grew steadier. Out of this confused rush of
+imaginings grew in the mind of each one steady, absorbing dream. Neal
+fancied that he was on the top of Old Squaw Mountain, and that beneath,
+above, around him, sounded the strangely prolonged weird call, which he
+had heard at a distance on the previous night while Cyrus was recovering
+the jack-light. Owing to the ever-changing excitements of camp-life, he
+had not questioned his comrade again about it.
+
+Dol's visions resolved themselves into a mighty coon hunt. He tossed on
+his pine boughs, kicked and jabbered in his sleep, with sundry odd
+little cries and untranslatable mutterings,--
+
+"Go it, Tiger! Go it, old dog! There he is--up the tree! Ah"
+(disgustedly), "you're no good!"
+
+A lull. Then the dreamer rolled out a string of what may be called
+gibberish, seeing that it consisted of fragments of words and was
+unintelligible, followed by,--
+
+"The coon's eating the pork--no, he's b-b-b-barking it! Hu-loo-oo!"
+
+"Oh, say, Chick, give us a chance! We can't sleep with you chirping into
+our ears."
+
+It was Cyrus who spoke, shaking with drowsy laughter, and Cyrus's big
+hand gently shook the dreamer's arm.
+
+"What? what? wh-wh-at?" gasped Dol, awaking. "I wasn't talking out loud,
+was I?"
+
+"Not talking aloud! Well, I should smile!" answered the camp captain.
+"You were making as much noise as a loon, and that's the noisiest thing
+I know. Go to sleep again, young one, and don't have any more crazy
+spells before dinner-time."
+
+Cyrus removed his hand, shut his eyes, and in a minute or two was
+breathing heavily. Neal, who had been aroused too, followed his
+example, laughing and mumbling something about "it's being an old trick
+of Dol's to hunt in his sleep."
+
+But the junior member of the party remained awake. After his dreams had
+been dissipated he cared no more for slumber. When he could venture it
+without disturbing his companions, he rose to a sitting posture, and,
+after squatting for a while in meditation, got on his feet, picked up
+his coat and moccasins, and, stealthily as an Indian, crept out of the
+hut.
+
+The rolling music among the pine-tops had died down; only at long
+intervals a soft, random rustle swept through them. It was nearly
+midday. The camp-fire was almost dead, quenched by the dazzling sunlight
+which fell in patches on the camping-ground, and flooded the clearing
+beyond the shadow of the pines.
+
+Moreover, the camping-ground was deserted. Neither Uncle Eb nor Tiger
+could be seen, though Dol's eyes sought for them wistfully. But
+something caught his attention. It was a ray of light filtering through
+the pine boughs and glinting on the trigger of an old-fashioned
+muzzle-loading shot-gun, which leaned against a corner of the hut. An
+ancient, glistening powder-horn and a coon-skin ammunition pouch hung
+above it.
+
+Dol lifted the antiquated weapon, withdrew to a short distance, and
+examined it closely. He knew it belonged to the guide, but was rarely
+used by him since he had purchased the 44-calibre Winchester rifle, with
+which he could do uncommon feats in shooting.
+
+The shot-gun interested the boy mightily. There was a facsimile of it,
+swathed in green baize, stowed away somewhere in his father's house in
+Manchester. The first time he had ever used fire-arms was on a memorable
+day when his fingers pulled its trigger in his father's garden under
+Neal's direction, and a lean starling fell before his shot. After that
+he had often taken out a fowling-piece of a newer style, and had done
+pretty well with it too.
+
+As he handled the shot-gun, which the guide had bought away back in the
+year '55, musing about it under the pines, the thought suddenly tumbled
+out of a corner of his brain that at present there was a brilliant
+opportunity for him to use the gun and all the shooting skill he
+possessed for the benefit of his comrades and himself.
+
+There was no meat in the camp for dinner or supper save the pork on
+which they had feasted since they arrived there, and that was fast
+giving out. Cyrus, in addition to his knapsack, had hauled over from
+Greenville, where articles of camp fare could be procured in abundance,
+a goodly supply of tea, coffee, condensed milk, flour, salt, sugar,
+etc., in a stout canvas bag, Neal at intervals helping him with the
+burden. For the rest he had trusted to Nature's larder, and such food as
+he might purchase from his guides, desiring to go into the woods as
+"light" as possible.
+
+Uncle Eb had baked bread for his guests after a fashion of his own on
+the camp frying-pan, setting the pan on some glowing coals a foot or so
+from the fire; he had fried unlimited flapjacks, and had cheerfully
+placed what stores he had at their disposal. His three luxuries were
+novelties to the English lads, being pork, maple sugar,--drawn from the
+beautiful maple-trees near his camp,--and a small wooden keg of sticky,
+dark molasses. The sugar was the only one which Dol found palatable; and
+he knew that the Bostonian, Cyrus, shared his feeling. To tell the
+truth, the juvenile Adolphus was not fastidious, but he was suddenly
+seized with an ambitious desire to vary the diet of the camp.
+
+"Uncle Eb said that I could use this 'ole fuzzee,' as he called it,
+whenever I liked," he muttered, looking wistfully at the shot-gun; "and
+I've a big mind to give those lazy fellows in there a surprise. They
+spent the night out jacking, and didn't get any meat because Cyrus let
+Neal do the shooting, and he bungled it. It's my turn next to go after
+deer, but I'm not going to wait for that."
+
+Here his steel-gray eyes fell on the moccasins which he had not yet put
+on, and struck fire instantly. His ambition was doubled. For if there is
+one thing more than another which in the forest will stir the pluck of a
+novice, and make him feel like an old woodsman, it is the sight of his
+Indian footwear. Dol put his on, admired their light, comfortable
+feeling, their soft buckskin, and rashly decided that he could dispense
+with the loose inner soles which Cyrus had fitted into them to protect
+his feet.
+
+Then, being very much of a stranger to American woods, he communed with
+himself after this fashion,--
+
+"Cyrus says that different tribes of Indians wear differently made
+moccasins, and one redskin, if he sees the tracks of another in soft
+mud or snow, can tell what tribe he belongs to by his footmarks. That's
+funny! I suppose if any old brave was knocking about and saw my tracks
+in a boggy spot, he'd think it was a Kickapoo who had passed that
+way--not Dol Farrar of Manchester, England. These are of the shape worn
+by the Kickapoo tribe--so Cy says.
+
+"I'm the kid of the camp, I know," he went on, with another flash in his
+eyes, as if there was a bit of flint somewhere in his make-up which had
+struck their steel. "But I'll be bound I can do as well or better than
+the others can. I'm off now to Squaw Pond. I think I can follow the
+trail easily enough. Uncle Eb showed me yesterday where he had spotted
+some of the trees all the way along to the water. And if I don't shoot a
+couple of black ducks for dinner or supper, I'm a duffer, and not fit
+for camping."
+
+He took down the powder-horn and slung it round him, saw that there was
+plenty of meat in the ragged coon-skin ammunition pouch which hung
+beside it, fastened that to his belt, slipped on his coat, and started
+off, with the "ole fuzzee" on his shoulder.
+
+Never a sound did he make as he crossed the clearing, passing the clump
+of bushes behind which Cyrus and Neal had lingered on the previous night
+to hear Uncle Eb's song. Owing to his Indian footwear, silently as the
+gliding redskin himself he entered the woods at a point where he saw a
+tree with a fresh notch carved in it. He knew this marked the beginning
+of the "blazed trail," and that he must be very wide-awake and show
+considerable "gumption" if he wanted to follow that line to the pond.
+
+Not every tree was spotted. Only at intervals of fifteen or twenty yards
+he came upon a trunk with two small pieces chopped out of it on opposite
+sides. These were Uncle Eb's way-marks. One set of notches would catch
+his eye as he went towards the water, the other would lead him back to
+camp. Once or twice Dol got away from the trail, but he quickly found it
+again; and in due time emerged from the forest twilight into the broad
+glare of the sun, to see Squaw Pond lying before him like a miniature
+mother-of-pearl sea, so protected by its evergreen woods that scarcely a
+ripple stirred it.
+
+He heard the shrill, wild call of a loon, the noisy bird to which Cyrus
+had likened him, and saw its white breast rising above the water, as it
+swam about among the reeds near the opposite bank. The cry was oft
+repeated, making an unearthly din, now joyous, now dreary, among the
+echoes around the lake.
+
+Dol paused for a minute to listen; but he was bent on business, and did
+not want to be very long away from camp lest his absence should cause
+alarm. He took a careful survey of the scene. Not beholding any fleet of
+black ducks as yet, he loaded his gun, and warily proceeded along the
+bank towards the head of the pond.
+
+Keeping a sharp lookout, he by and by detected something moving among
+the water grasses a little way ahead, and heard a hoarse, squalling
+"Quack! quack!"
+
+Immediately afterwards a flock of half a dozen ducks sailed forth from
+their shelter, nodding and quacking inquisitively.
+
+A wild drumming was at Dol's heart, and a reckless singing in his ears,
+as he raised his gun to his shoulder, and fired among them.
+Nevertheless, his aim was sure and deadly. Two quackers were killed with
+one shot! The others rose from the water, and with much fluttering and
+hoarse noise winged their way to safety.
+
+"How'll they be for meat, I wonder? Won't I have a crow over those
+fellows?" shouted Adolphus aloud, with a yell entirely worthy of a
+Kickapoo Indian, when he had recovered from surprise at the success of
+his own shot.
+
+He laid down the gun, pulled off his moccasins and socks, rolled up his
+trousers, and waded in for the prize. Truly luck was with him--so
+far--in his first venture in this region of the unknown. The water was
+so shallow that, having grabbed the ducks, he splashed out of it,
+kicking shiny drops from his toes, without wetting an inch of his
+garments.
+
+"I'm the kid of the camp, I know; but I'll be the first fellow to bring
+any decent meat into it. Hooray!" he whooped again. "Shouldn't wonder if
+these moccasins brought me wonderful luck; one can steal about so
+quietly in them."
+
+He had hit upon the supreme advantage which the Indian footwear
+possesses over every other for the woodsman. A little later he was to
+learn its disadvantage, having, with foreign inexperience, disdained the
+extra soles because they were not "Indian" enough for his taste; for the
+soft buckskin could not protect from roots and stones a wearer whose
+flesh was not hardened to every kind of forest travelling.
+
+But at present Dol bepraised his moccasins; for they had enabled him to
+sneak upon his birds, the wildest of the duck tribe, who generally, at a
+single hoarse "Quack!" from their leader, will cease their antics in
+lake or stream, and disappear like a skimming breeze before a sportsman
+can get a fair shot at them.
+
+For a quarter of an hour Dol Farrar sat by this forest pond engaged in
+the cheerful occupation of "booming himself," as his friend Cyrus would
+have said. He told himself that he had made a pretty smart beginning,
+not alone in shooting a brace of black ducks, but in successfully
+following a difficult trail on his fourth day in the woods. Henceforth,
+he thought, there would be little reason for him to dread the unknown in
+this great wilderness.
+
+He reclothed his legs, gathered the stiffening claws of the defunct
+quackers in his left hand, picked up his empty "ole fuzzee," which had
+done such good service despite its age, and set forth on his return to
+camp.
+
+Retracing his steps along the bank, after some searching he found the
+beginning of the trail, and started along it with a know-it-all,
+cheerful confidence in the little bit of wood-lore which he had
+acquired. Hence he now found it considerably more difficult to follow
+the spotted trees. His brain was excited and preoccupied; and when once
+in fancied security he suffered his eyes and thoughts to stray for a
+minute from the trail, every unfamiliar woodland sight and sound tempted
+them to wander farther.
+
+First it was an old fox, which poked its sharp, inquisitive nose out of
+a patch of undergrowth near at hand. Dol uttered a mad "Whoop-ee!" and
+heedlessly dashed off a few steps in pursuit. Reynard whisked his brush
+as much as to say, "You can't get the better of me, stranger!" and
+defiantly trotted away.
+
+Recovering his senses, the boy managed to recover the trail too, and was
+keeping to it carefully when a second temptation beset him. A chattering
+squirrel, seated on the low bough of a maple-tree, with his fore paws
+against his white breast, his eyes like twinkling beads, and his
+restless little head playing bo-peep with the intruding boy, began to
+scold the latter for venturing into his forest playground.
+
+Dol's first thought was full of delighted interest. His second was a
+sanguinary one; namely, that a pair of ducks would only be one meal for
+four campers who were "camp-hungry," and that Uncle Eb had spoken of
+squirrels as "fust-rate eatin'." He handled his gun uncertainly,
+deliberating whether or not he would load it, and try a shot at the
+bright-eyed chatterbox.
+
+Before he had decided one way or the other, the squirrel, still scolding
+and playing bo-peep, scampered off his bough, and up the trunk of the
+maple. Thence he quickly made good his escape from one tree to another,
+affording a whisking, momentary view now and again of his white breast
+or bushy tail. Dol absolutely forgot the blazed trail, forgot the
+stories which he had heard about forest perils, forgot every earthly
+thing but his admiration for the pretty, tantalizing fellow; though to
+do the lad justice, he soon came to the conclusion that the camp must be
+in a worse strait for want of provisions before he could have the heart
+to shoot him. He gave chase nevertheless, plunging along in a ziz-zag
+way over a carpet of moss and dry pine-needles, and through some dense
+tangles of undergrowth, uttering a welcoming screech whenever he saw
+the bright eyes of the little trickster peering down at him from a
+bough.
+
+He had travelled farther than he knew before his interest in the game
+waned. He began to feel that it was rather beneath the dignity of a
+fellow who wore moccasins, carried coon-skin pouch and powder-horn, and
+who was bound for remote solitudes in search of the lordly moose, to be
+interested in such an insignificant phase of forest life as the doings
+of a red squirrel.
+
+Then he started back to find the trail. He walked a considerable
+distance. He searched hither and thither, straining his eyes anxiously
+through the bewildering gloom of the forest, but never a notched tree
+could he see. Whereupon Dol Farrar called himself some pretty hard
+names. He remarked that he had been a "hair-brained fool" and a
+"greenhorn" ever to leave the spotted track, but that he wasn't going to
+be "downed;" he would search until he found it.
+
+And he certainly was enough of a greenhorn not to know that every step
+he now took was carrying him away from the trail, and plunging him into
+a hopeless, pathless labyrinth of woods. For Dol had lost all knowledge
+of directions, and was completely "turned round;" which means that he
+was miserably lost.
+
+The disaster came about in this way. The forest here was very dense, the
+giant trees interlocked above his head letting so little light filter
+through their foliage that he could scarcely see twenty yards ahead of
+him, and that in a puzzling, shadowy gloom resembling an English
+twilight.
+
+When he ceased chasing the squirrel, he imagined that he retraced his
+steps directly towards the point where he had quitted the trail. In
+reality, seeing nothing to aim for in this bewildering maze of endless
+trees, turned out of his way continually as he dodged in and out around
+massive trunks, he gradually worked farther and farther off the course
+by which he had come, drifting in random directions like a rudderless
+ship on mid-ocean. This helpless state is called, in the phraseology of
+the northern woods, being "turned round."
+
+But Dol Farrar was spared for the present a thorough realization of the
+dreadful mishap which had befallen him. He had a shocked, breathless,
+flurried feeling, as if scales had suddenly fallen from his eyes, and he
+saw the dangers of the unknown as he had not before seen them. But even
+in the midst of abusing himself for his rash self-confidence, he uttered
+a cheerful "Hurrah!"
+
+"Why, good gracious!" he cried. "Here's another trail! Now, where on
+earth does this lead to? I don't see any spotted trees"--looking
+carefully about--"but it's a well-beaten track, a regular plain path,
+where people have been walking. It must lead to our camp. I'll follow it
+up, anyhow. That will be better than dodging around here until I get
+'wheels in my head,' as Uncle Eb says he did once when he lost his way
+in the woods, and kept wandering round and round in a circle."
+
+Puffing with excitement and revived hope, the boy started off on this
+new trail, which he blessed at first--oh, how he blessed it!--as if it
+had been a golden clew to lead him out of his difficulty. To be sure, it
+was not a blazed trail; there were no notches in the trees, but the
+ground showed distinct signs of being frequently and recently travelled
+over. Though footprints were not traceable, moss, earth, and in some
+places the forest undergrowth of dwarfed bushes, were thoroughly pressed
+and trodden.
+
+Dol never doubted but that it was a human trail, a track continually
+used by some woodsman; but he thought that the unknown traveller,
+whoever he was, must have agile legs and a taste for athletics, for many
+times he had to hoist himself, his gun, and the ducks over some big
+windfall which lay right across the way. The dead quackers he pitched
+before him, fearing that by the time he got back to camp--if ever he
+did?--their flesh would be too bruised to look like respectable meat;
+for he was obliged to have one hand free to help him in scrambling over
+each fallen tree.
+
+Once or twice this strange trail led him through thickets where the
+bushes grew so high as to lash his face. He came to regard slippery,
+projecting roots and rough stones, which galled his feet, protected only
+by the thin soles of his moccasins, as matters of course. His wind
+decreased, and his blessings ceased. Yet he followed on, walking,
+walking, interminably walking, with now and again an interval of
+climbing or stumbling headlong, accompanied by ejaculations of
+thankfulness that his gun was not loaded.
+
+His breath came in hot, strangling gasps, the veins in his head were
+swollen and stinging like whipcords, there was a dull, pounding noise in
+his ears, and a drumming at his heart. He confessed that he was
+thoroughly "winded" when he had been following the trail for nearly two
+hours, so he seated himself upon a withered stump beside it to rest.
+
+He had relinquished the idea that the track would bring him out near
+Uncle Eb's camp. Had it led thither, he would have rejoined his comrades
+long before this. His only hope now was that by patiently following it
+on he might reach the camp of some other traveller, or the lonely log
+cabin of a pioneer farmer. He had heard of such farm-settlements being
+scattered here and there on forest clearings.
+
+So presently Dol Farrar got to his feet again, when he had recovered
+breath and strength, and told himself pluckily that "he wasn't going to
+knock under," that "he had been in bad scrapes before now, and had not
+shown the white feather." He gritted his teeth, and resolved that he
+would not show that craven pinion, even in the desperate solitude of
+these baffling woods where no eye could see his weakness. He did not
+want to have a secret, humiliating memory by and by that he had been
+faltering and distracted when his life depended on his wits and
+endurance.
+
+He squared his shoulders sturdily, as if to make the most of the
+budding manhood that was in him, and trudged ahead. And, indeed, he had
+need to take his courage in both hands, and force it to stand by him;
+for he had not gone far when, though the forest still continued dense,
+he became aware that he was beginning a steep ascent. Was the trail
+going to lead him up a mountain-side? The way grew yet more rugged.
+Every step was a misery. Jagged edges of rock and never-ending roots
+seemed to brand themselves with burning friction upon his feet, through
+their soft buckskin covering. He tried to hearten himself into a belief
+that he must soon reach some mountain camp or settlement.
+
+But a bleak horror threw a gray shade upon his face as his staring eyes
+saw that the trail was growing fainter--fainter--fainter. At the foot of
+a steep crag, where a mass of earth, stones, and dead spruce-trees
+showed that there had lately been a landslide on the mountain above, he
+lost it altogether. It had led him to a pile of rubbish.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+A FOREST GUIDE-POST.
+
+
+At the foot of that crag Dol stood still, while a great shiver crept
+from his neck up the back of his head, stirring his hair. He peered in
+every direction; but there was no sign of a camp, nothing to show that
+any human foot before his had disturbed the solitude of this
+mountain-side, and no further marks on the ground, save one impression
+on a bed of earth at his feet where some animal had lately lain.
+
+The disappointment was stupefying.
+
+At last a fog of terror settled down upon him,--a fog which blotted out
+every sight and sound, blotted out even his own thoughts, all except
+one, which, like a danger-signal in a mist, kept booming through his
+brain: "Lost! Lost!"
+
+By and by he was sitting on the piled-up stones and dirt of the slide;
+but he had no remembrance of getting to this resting-place, for he was
+still befogged.
+
+Something snorted close to his right ear,--loud snort, which banished
+stupor, and set his pulses jumping. It was a deer, a beautiful doe in a
+coat of reddish-drab, matching the autumnal tints of the forest,
+wherever maples, birches, and cedars mingled with the evergreens. She
+had bounded upon him suddenly from behind a dead spruce and a mound of
+earth.
+
+It was long since the game on this part of the mountain had been
+disturbed. Madam Doe had in all probability never seen a man before,
+therefore her behavior was not peculiar. A shock of surprise thrilled
+through her graceful body as she vented that snort, when she caught
+sight of the new-fangled gray animal who had intruded upon her world,
+and who sat spell-bound, gazing at her with hopeless eyes, in which
+gradually a light broke.
+
+But she did not fear him,--this creature in gray. She stood stock-still,
+and stared at him, so near that he could see her wink her starry eyes,
+with the white rings round them. She stamped one hoof, kicked an insect
+from her ear with another, snorted again, wheeled around, and at last
+broke away for the thick shelter of the trees, lightly and swiftly as a
+breeze which skims from one thicket to another.
+
+Seeing his mother go for the woods, her spotted fawn, which had been
+frolicking among the branches of the fallen spruce-tree, skipped from
+it, passed Dol with a bound which carried him a few feet, and
+disappeared like a whiff too.
+
+Here was a rouser, indeed, which no boy, unless he was in a far-gone
+state of suffering, could withstand. Dol Farrar forgot his terrible
+predicament. The fog had cleared away from his senses, leaving him free
+to think and act once more.
+
+"Well, I never!" he ejaculated, springing to his feet in amazement.
+"Wasn't she a beauty? And wasn't she a snorter? I didn't think a deer
+could make such a row as that. And to stand still and stare at me! I
+wonder whether she took me for some new-fashioned sort of animal or a
+gray old stump."
+
+It was a few minutes before he again thought of his plight, and then he
+was not overcome. He stood perfectly still, trying to review the
+position coolly, and to get a tight grip of his feelings, so that terror
+might not again master him.
+
+"I'm in a worse scrape than I ever dreamt of," he muttered, puckering
+his forehead to do some tall thinking. "And I must do something to get
+out of it. But what? That's the question.
+
+"I wonder if I loaded this 'ole fuzzee,'"--the lad was making a valiant
+effort to cheer himself by being jocular,--"and blazed away with it for
+a while like mad, whether there is any human being around who would hear
+me. Some fellow might be hunting or trapping in this part of the forest,
+or farther up the mountain. But what a blockhead I am! Why on earth
+didn't I do that before I started on this wretched trail?"
+
+But alas! as this was Dol Farrar's first adventure in American woods, it
+had not occurred to him to do the right thing at the right time. Had he
+fired a round of signal shots when first he lost the line of spotted
+trees, he would probably have been heard at his camp, and would have
+been spared the worst scare he ever had in his life. The negligence was
+scarcely his fault, however; for Cyrus Garst, who had never before
+undertaken the responsibility of entertaining a pair of inexperienced
+boys in woodland quarters, had not, at this early stage of the trip,
+arranged with his comrades to fire a certain number of shots to signify
+"Help wanted!" if one of them should stray, or otherwise get into
+trouble. The idea now cropped up in Dol's perplexed mind, through a
+confused recollection of tales about forest misadventures which Uncle Eb
+had told him by the cheery camp-fire.
+
+So he loaded the old shot-gun. It belched forth fire and smoke into
+space. And the thunder of his shot went rolling off in a reverberating
+din among the mountain echoes, until a hundred tongues repeated his
+appeal for help. Again he loaded rapidly and fired. And yet again, with
+nervous, eager fingers. So on, till he had let off half a dozen shots in
+quick succession.
+
+Then he waited, listening as if every pulse in his body had suddenly
+become an ear.
+
+But when the last growling echo had died away, not a sound broke the
+almost absolute silence on the mountain-side. Evidently not a human soul
+was near enough to hear or understand his signals of distress.
+
+In these bitter minutes some sensations ran through Dol Farrar which he
+had never known before; and, as he afterwards expressed it, "they were
+enough to cover any fellow with goose-flesh."
+
+He felt that he had reached the dreariest point of the unknown, and was
+a lonely, drifting atom in this immense solitude of forest and rock.
+
+Never in his life before or afterwards did he come so near to Point
+Despair as when he stumbled down the mountain, spurning that treacherous
+trail, and going wherever his jaded feet found travelling tolerably
+easy. He had picked up the shot-gun; but the black ducks, the primary
+cause of his misadventure, he clean forgot, leaving them lying amid the
+chaos at the foot of the crag, to have their bones picked by some lucky
+raccoon or fox.
+
+Wandering along in a zigzag way, he by and by reached the base of the
+mountain at a point where there was a break in the forest. A patch of
+dreary-looking swamp was before him, covered with clumps of
+alder-bushes--a true Slough of Despond.
+
+Dol Farrar knew none of the miseries of plunging through an alder-swamp,
+but he luckily recalled in time a warning from Cyrus that a slight
+wetting would render his moccasins useless. While he halted undecidedly
+on its brink, he pulled out his watch; one glance at this, and another
+at the sky, which now lay open like a scroll above him, gave him a
+sickening shock. He had started from camp at noon; now it was after five
+o'clock. Little more than another hour, and not twilight, but the
+blackness of a total eclipse, would reign in the forest.
+
+The blood rushed to his head, and his mouth grew feverish at the
+thought. As he licked his cracking lips, he caught a faint, tinkling,
+rumbling sound of falling water somewhere to the right. Of a sudden his
+sufferings of mind and body were merged into one burning desire to
+drink, and he turned eagerly in that direction.
+
+At the edge of the woods he found a little fairy, foamy waterfall, which
+had tumbled down from the mountain to be lost in the dismal swamp. But
+Dol felt that it had accomplished its mission when he unfastened the tin
+drinking-mug which hung from his belt, and drank--drank--drank! He
+straightened himself again, feeling that some of the bubbling life of
+the mountain torrent had passed into him. His eyes lit on a towering
+pine-tree just beyond it. And then--
+
+Well! if that sky-piercing pine had suddenly changed at a jump into a
+gray post, bearing the inscription, "One mile to Boston," Dol Farrar
+could not have been more astonished and relieved than when he saw for
+the first time a rude forest guide-post.
+
+To the dark, knotted trunk was fastened a piece of light, delicate bark,
+stripped from a white-birch tree. On this was scrawled in big letters,
+by some instrument evidently not intended for penmanship:--
+
+  "FOLLOW THE BLAZED TRAIL AND YOU ARE SAFE."
+
+"Another blazed trail! Hurrah!" shouted Dol. "Won't I follow it? I never
+will follow any other again if I live to be a hundred, and come to these
+woods every year till I die!"
+
+The height of his relief could only be measured by the depth of his past
+misery, which would truly have been enough to set a weaker boy crazy.
+With watering eyes and panting breaths that came near to being sobs of
+gladness, he started upon the new trail. It led him off into the forest
+surrounding the swamp.
+
+The pine that had been chosen for guide-post was the first in the line
+of spotted trees. The others followed it closely, with intervals of
+eight or ten yards between them; and as the notches in their trunks were
+freshly cut, Dol followed the track without any difficulty for twenty
+minutes. He had a suspicion that he was nearing the end of it; though he
+was still in forest gloom, with light coming in meagre, ever-lessening
+streaks through the pine-tufts above. Then he started more violently
+than when the deer snorted near his ear.
+
+Suddenly and shrilly the blast of a horn rang through the darkening
+woodland aisles, followed, after a pause of a minute or two, by a second
+and louder blast.
+
+Then a well-pitched, far-reaching voice sang out:--"Come to supper,
+boys! Come to supper!"
+
+"Good gracious!" said Dol, conscious on the instant that he was as
+hollow as a drum. "There are enough surprises in these forests to raise
+the hair on a fellow's head half a dozen times a day!"
+
+A matter of forty yards more, and a burst of light swam before his eyes.
+He had reached the end of the blazed trail.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+ANOTHER CAMP.
+
+
+"Hello! Come to supper, boys! Come to supper right away!"
+
+Half eagerly, half shrinkingly, Dol emerged from the woods, feeling a
+very torment of hunger quickened in him by the tantalizing sound of that
+oft-repeated invitation.
+
+A sight met him which, because of what went before and all that came
+after, will be forever chief among the forest pictures which rise in
+exciting panorama before his memory, when camping is a thing of the
+past.
+
+A broad dash of evening light, the sun's afterglow, fell upon a patch of
+clearing bordered by clumps of slim, outstanding pines, the scouts of
+their massive brethren. That this was used as a camping-ground the
+first glance revealed. A camp which looked to the tired eyes of the lost
+boy a real "home-camp," though it consisted of rude log cabins, occupied
+it. A couple of birch-bark canoes reposed amid a network of projecting
+roots. Withered stumps and tree-tops littered the ground.
+
+In the foreground of the picture stood a man with a horn in his uplifted
+hand, which he had just taken from his mouth. He was minus a coat; and
+the rough-and-tumble disarray of his attire showed that he had been
+lounging by his camp-fire, or perhaps overseeing the preparation of
+supper. Dol had a vague impression that the individual was not a
+forest-guide like Uncle Eb, nor a rough lumberman such as he had heard
+of. He would have taken him for a pioneer farmer,--not having yet
+encountered such a character,--but there could be no farm on this little
+bit of clearing. And he was too dazed to see that there were signs of a
+cultivated intelligence in the tanned, beaming face under the
+horn-blower's broad-brimmed hat. Indeed, the hat itself, its wearer, log
+huts, canoes, and trees seemed to have a strange propensity to waltz
+before the lad's eyes, and there was a queer waving sensation in his
+own legs, as if they, too, would join in the spinning movement. For as
+he advanced into the light out of the sombre shadows, a dizziness from
+long tramping in the woods, and from a hunger such as he had never
+before experienced, overcame him. He reeled against an outstanding tree,
+troubled by an affliction which Uncle Eb had called "wheels in his
+head."
+
+"Ho! you boys. Where in thunder are you? Come to supper, or the venison
+will be spoiled!" shouted the possessor of the horn again, shutting one
+eye into which a crimson ray was pouring, while he swept the skirts of
+the woods with the other; and there was music as well as bluster in his
+shout.
+
+Lo! the first to answer this fetching invitation was the foot-sore,
+leg-weary boy, pale from exhaustion, with his strange equipment of
+powder-horn, coon-skin pouch, and ancient shot-gun, who, getting partly
+the better of his giddiness, crossed the clearing slowly, as if he was
+groping his way. Within a few feet of the horn-blower he halted; for the
+man had lowered his horn, and was gazing at him with keen, questioning
+eyes. Dol tried to find suitable speech to express his need; but though
+words came with considerable effort, his voice sounded hoarse and creaky
+in his own ears, and threatened to crack off altogether.
+
+He was doing his best to brace up and speak plainly, when his sentence
+was stopped by a noise of pounding footsteps. The next moment he saw
+himself surrounded by three well-grown, daring-looking lads, one about
+his own age, one older, one younger, who were gazing at him with
+critical curiosity. All the pluck in Dol Farrar rose to meet this
+emergency. He felt as if his legs were threatening to smash under him
+like pipe-stems. There was a whirling and buzzing in his head. It seemed
+as if his words had such a long way to travel from his brain to his
+tongue that they got confused and changed before he uttered them.
+
+But through it all he was conscious of one clear thought: that he was an
+Old-World boy on parade before these strapping New-World lads. He set
+his teeth, drove his gun hard against the ground, and, as it were,
+anchored himself to it, while strange, doubting lights came into his
+eyes as he tried to get a grip of his senses.
+
+[Illustration: DOL SIGHTS A FRIENDLY CAMP.]
+
+He succeeded. At last he addressed the gentleman with the horn, knowing
+that he was speaking to the point,--
+
+"Good-evening, sir," he said. "I--I--we're camping out somewhere in the
+woods. I--I got lost to-day. I've walked an awful distance. Perhaps you
+could tell me"--
+
+But the man stepped suddenly forward, with a blaze of welcome in his
+eyes; for he saw the brave effort which the lad was making, and that his
+strength was giving out. He put a kindly arm through Dol's, as if to
+warmly greet a fellow-camper, but really to support him.
+
+"I'll not tell you about anything until you've had a good, square meal,"
+he said. "That's our way in woodland quarters,--to eat first, and talk
+afterwards. If you're lost, you've struck a friend's camp, and at the
+right time too, son; so cheer up! After supper you can tell us your
+yarn, and I guess we can set you right."
+
+Here at last was a surprise of unmixed blessedness for poor Dol; namely,
+the brotherly hospitality which is always extended to a stranger in a
+Maine camp, whether that be the temporary home of a millionnaire or the
+shanty of a poor logger.
+
+His new friend led him into the largest of the cabins, which contained
+a fireplace built of huge stones, where red flames frisked around
+fragrant birch logs, a camp-bed of evergreen boughs about ten feet wide,
+a rude table, a bench, and a few stools of pine-wood.
+
+Over the camp-fire was stooping a bright-eyed, muscular fellow, whose
+dress somewhat resembled Uncle Eb's, but who had no negro blood in his
+veins. He was frying meat; and such tempting whiffs mingled with the
+steam which floated up from his pan, that Dol's nostrils twitched, and
+his hungry longing grew almost unbearable as he inhaled them.
+
+"I guess this chunk of ven'zon is about cooked, Doc," said this
+personage, as Dol's kindly host entered the hut, with him in tow,
+followed closely by the boys of his own camp.
+
+"All right, then! Let's have it!" was the reply. "I'm pretty glad our
+camp-fare is decent to-night, Joe, for we've a visitor here; a hungry
+bird who has strayed from his own camp, and has wandered through the
+forest until he looks like a death's head. But we'll soon fix him up;
+won't we, Joe? Give him a mug of hot tea right away. Hot tea is worth a
+dozen of any other drink in the woods for a pick-me-up."
+
+A spark of fun kindled in Dol's eyes when he heard himself described as
+"a hungry bird." It brightened into an appreciative beam as the reviving
+tea trickled down his throat.
+
+"Eatin's wot he wants, I guess," said Joe, the camp guide and cook,
+placing some meat and a slab of bread of his own baking on a tin plate
+for the guest.
+
+Dol began on them greedily; and though the first mouthful or two
+threatened to sicken him, his squeamishness wore off, and he gained
+strength with every morsel.
+
+"How do you like Maine venison, my boy? Like it well enough to have
+another piece, eh?" asked his host, when he saw that the haggard, gray
+look was leaving the wanderer's face, and that the appalled, dazed
+expression, the result of being lost in the woods, had disappeared from
+his eyes.
+
+"I think it's the best meat I ever tasted," answered Dol heartily. "It's
+so tender, and has a splendid taste."
+
+"Ha! ha! It ought to be prime," chuckled the owner of the camp. "It was
+cut from the quarters of a buck which my nephew here, Royal Sinclair,"
+pointing out the tallest of three lads, "shot four days ago. He was a
+regular crackerjack--that buck! I mean, he was as fine a deer as ever I
+saw; weighed over two hundred pounds, had seven prongs to his horns on
+one side and six on the other. Royal is going to take the antlers home
+with him to Philadelphia. We were mighty glad to get him, too; for we
+have been camping here for five weeks, and were running short of
+provisions. Roy had quite an attack of buck-fever over it, though he
+didn't think he was killing the 'fatted calf', to entertain a visitor;
+did you, Roy?"
+
+"I guess not, Uncle! But I'm pretty glad, all the same," answered Royal,
+with a smiling glance at Dol.
+
+Young Farrar found himself in very pleasant quarters; and, now that he
+was recovering, his laugh rang from one log wall to the other.
+
+"What's 'buck-fever'?" he questioned, while Joe filled his plate with
+more venison.
+
+"A sort of disease of which you'll learn the meaning before you leave
+these woods," answered his host merrily. "It attacks a man when he's out
+after a deer, and makes him feel as if one leg stands firm under him,
+while the other shakes as if it had the palsy.
+
+"Now I guess you'd like to know whose camp you're in, my boy, and then
+you can tell your story. Well, to begin with the most useful member of
+the party. That knowing-looking fellow over there, who cooked your
+supper, is Joe Flint, the best guide that ever pulled a trigger or
+handled a frying-pan in this region--barring one. These three rascals,"
+here the speaker beamed upon the strapping lads, with whom Dol had been
+exchanging sympathetic glances of curiosity, "are my nephews, Royal,
+Will, and Martin Sinclair. And I--I--
+
+"Good gracious! Listen to that, Joe! What's up now? Another fellow lost
+in the woods? Somebody is firing a round with his rifle! Perhaps he
+wants help. Those are signal shots, anyhow!"
+
+The camper whose horn had been Dol's signal of deliverance, broke off
+abruptly in his introductions, just as he had arrived at the most
+interesting point, and was proclaiming his own identity. He rattled off
+his short exclamations in excitement, and dashed out of the cabin,
+followed by Joe, his nephews, and Dol, the latter limping painfully, for
+his feet now felt like hot-water bags.
+
+"That Winchester has spoken eight or ten times," said the leader,
+counting the shots fired by somebody away in the dark recesses of the
+forest from a powerful repeating-rifle. "Let's give the fellow, whoever
+he is, an answer, Joe!"
+
+He seized his own rifle hastily, loaded the magazine with blank
+cartridges, and fired a noisy salute.
+
+In the pause which followed, while all strained their ears to listen,
+the sound of a shrill, distant "Coo-hoo!" the woodsman's hail, reached
+them from the forest.
+
+Joe instantly responded with a vehement "Coo-hoo! Coo-hoo-oo!" the first
+call being short and brisk, the second prolonged into a roar which
+showed the strength of the guide's lungs,--a roar that might carry for
+miles.
+
+Shortly afterwards there was a crashing and tearing amid some
+undergrowth near the edge of the forest. A man bounded forth from the
+pitch-black shadows into the clearing, where a little daylight still
+lingered. As he approached the group, Dol, who was in the background,
+gave a startled, yearning cry; but it was drowned in a loud burst from
+his host.
+
+"Why, Cyrus Garst!" exclaimed the latter, peering into the new-comer's
+face. "How goes it, man? I never expected to see you here. Surely you
+haven't come to grief in the woods? You look scared to death!"
+
+Cyrus--for it was he--grasped the welcoming hand which the owner of this
+camp extended to him. But his dark eyes did not linger a moment meeting
+the other's. They turned hither and thither, flashing in all directions
+restlessly, like search-lights.
+
+"I'm glad to see you, Doc," he said. "I didn't know you were anywhere
+near. But I'm half distracted just now. A youngster belonging to our
+camp is missing. I've been scouring the forest for hours, and firing
+signals, hoping he might hear them. But"--
+
+Here Cyrus caught sight of Dol, who with a cry which in its changing
+inflections was longing, penitent, joyful, was making towards him. The
+Harvard student strode forward, and gripped the boy by his elbows. In
+the dusk their eyes were near together; Garst's were stern, Dol's
+blinking and unsteady.
+
+"Adolphus Farrar," began Cyrus in a voice as if he was making an arrest,
+"have you been here in this camp, or where have you been, while your
+brother and I were searching the woods like maniacs? What unheard-of
+folly possessed you to go off by yourself?"
+
+Dol made a gurgling attempt to answer, but his voice rattled and died
+away in his throat. His eyes grew decidedly leaky.
+
+"Say, Cyrus!" interrupted the man who had befriended him and now proved
+his champion, "let the youngster get breath and tell his story from
+start to finish before you blow him up. I guess he wasn't much to blame;
+and if he was, he has suffered for it. He found his way here not quite
+half an hour ago, so played out from wandering through the forest that
+he was ready to drop in his tracks. And I tell you he showed his grit
+too; for he managed to brace up and keep on his feet, though he was as
+exhausted a kid as ever I saw."
+
+The "kid," forgiving this objectionable term because of the soothing
+allusion to a trying time when he had behaved like a man, winked and
+gulped to get rid of his emotion, and twisted his elbows out of Cyrus's
+hold. The latter lost his angry look, and released them.
+
+"I must fire three shots to let Neal and Uncle Eb know I've found you,"
+he said. "We parted company a while ago, and they're beating about the
+woods in another direction. Whoever first came upon any trace of you was
+to fire his rifle three times."
+
+The signal was instantly given.
+
+More far-reaching "Coo-hoos!" were exchanged. Ere long Neal was beside
+his brother, looking at him with eyes which showed the same tendency to
+leak that Dol's had done a while ago, and battling with a desire to
+squeeze the wanderer in a breathless hug. He relieved his feelings
+instead by "blowing up" Dol with withering fire and a rough choke in his
+voice.
+
+But when, in response to an invitation from the genial camper whom Cyrus
+and Joe called "Doc," the whole party, guides included, had gathered
+around the camp-fire in the big log hut, and Dol told his story from
+start to finish, he became the hero of the evening.
+
+His only fault had been a rash venturing into the unknown; and well it
+was that he had not followed the unknown to his death.
+
+"Why, boy!" exclaimed Cyrus, with a strong shudder, when Dol had
+described the false trail which led him to the foot of the crag, "that
+wasn't a human trail at all. It was a deer-road. The deer spend their
+day up in the mountains, and come down to the ponds at evening to feed
+and drink. Now, a buck or doe in its regular journeys to and fro will
+follow one line, to which it becomes accustomed. Perhaps fifty others,
+seeing the ground trodden, will run in the same track. And there you
+have your well-used path, which looks as if it was made by men's feet!
+
+"You may thank your lucky star, Dol, every hour of this night, that the
+false trail didn't lead you away--away--higher--higher--up the mountain,
+until you dropped in your tracks, and died there alone, as others have
+done before."
+
+A shocked hush fell upon the group around the camp-fire. Even the guides
+were silent. But the fragrant birchen logs sputtered and glowed, darting
+out playful tongues of flame. They seemed to call upon everybody to
+dismiss gloomy thoughts of what might have been; to crack jokes, sing
+songs, tell yarns, and be as merry as befitted men who had a log hut for
+a shelter, fresh whiffs of forest air stealing to them through an open
+doorway, and such a camp-fire.
+
+Joe began to prepare supper for the three who had searched so long and
+distractedly for Dol that they confessed to not having eaten for hours.
+While more venison was being cooked, the juveniles, American and
+English, who had been secretly taking stock of each other, cast aside
+restraint, and became as "chummy" as if they had been acquainted for
+years instead of hours.
+
+Such a carnival of fun and noise was started through their combined
+efforts in the old log camp, that its owner declared he "couldn't hear
+himself think." Seizing his horn, he blew a blast which called for
+order.
+
+"Say, my boy, let me have a look at your feet," he said, cornering Dol.
+"A deer-road isn't a king's highway, as I dare say you've found out to
+your cost. Pull off your moccasins and socks, and let me doctor your
+poor trotters."
+
+Young Farrar very gladly did as he was bidden.
+
+"Humph!" said his friend. "I thought so. They're a mass of bruises and
+blisters. You've been pretty well branded, son. Moccasins aren't much
+use to protect the feet from roots and sharp stones, if you happen to
+strike a bad place in forest travelling, unless you have taken the
+precaution to put double soles in them; didn't you know that? Now, Cyrus
+Garst," turning to the student, "you're all going to camp with us
+to-night. This lad can't tramp any more. As a doctor I forbid it."
+
+"Are you a doctor, sir?" questioned Dol, with a thrill of surprise,
+which he managed to conceal.
+
+"Something of the kind, boy," answered his host, smiling. "I don't look
+much like a city physician, do I? I graduated from a medical college in
+Philadelphia, and took my degree. But I had an enthusiasm for the woods.
+One hour of forest life in dear old Maine was to me worth a year spent
+amid streets, alleys, and sky-scraping buildings; so I fixed my
+headquarters at Greenville, and have spent most of my time in the
+wilderness."
+
+"Where every trapper, guide, and lumberman knows Dr. Phil Buck, whom
+they disrespectfully and affectionately call 'Doc,'" put in Cyrus. "And
+many a poor fellow owes his life or limbs to Doc's knowledge and nursing
+in some hard time of sickness, or after one of the dreadful accidents
+common in the forests."
+
+Dol could well understand this; for he now was benefiting by Dr. Phil's
+lively desire to relieve suffering, and was silently breathing blessings
+on his head. The doctor had bathed his puffy feet in warm water taken
+from Joe's camp-kettle, and was anointing them with a healing salve,
+after which he tucked them into a loose pair of slippers of his own.
+Meanwhile, he chatted pleasantly.
+
+"This isn't the first time that your friend Cyrus and I have run against
+each other in the wilds," he said, "nor the first time that we've camped
+together, either. Bless you! we could make you jump with some of our
+stories. Do you remember that night in '89, Cy, when you, with your
+guide, came upon me lying under a rough shelter of bark and spruce
+boughs, which I had rigged up for myself near Roaring Brook, on the side
+of Mount Katahdin?"
+
+"I guess I do remember it," answered Cyrus, laughing.
+
+"A mighty hungry man I was, too, that evening," went on Doc; "for I had
+no food left but one little package of soup-powder and a few beans. I
+had been trying all day to get a successful shot at a moose or deer, and
+muffed it every time. It wasn't the lucky side of the moon for me. Well,
+you behaved like the Good Samaritan to me, then, Cy; shared your meat
+and all your stuff, and we slept like twin brothers under my shelter."
+
+"Yes; and a bear visited our temporary camp in the night!" exclaimed
+Cyrus, bursting into uproarious mirth over some over-poweringly funny
+recollection; "he made off with my knapsack, which I had left lying by
+the camp-fire. I suppose old Bruin thought he'd find something good in
+it to eat; but he didn't. So he tore my one extra shirt and every
+article in the pack to shreds, and chewed up the handle of my razor, so
+that I couldn't shave again until I got back to civilization, when I was
+as bristly as a porcupine."
+
+"Perhaps Bruin tried to shave himself," suggested Dol.
+
+"At all events, he had wisdom enough not to cut his throat," answered
+the story-teller. "We three--Doc, my guide, and myself--were stupidly
+tired, and slept so soundly that we did not discover the theft nor who
+the marauder was until the following morning. Then we found my knapsack
+gone, and the tracks of a huge bear in some soft earth near our shelter.
+We traced his footprints through a bog until we found the spot, not far
+off, where, overcome by greed or curiosity, he ripped up that strong
+leather knapsack as if it was _papier mach�_ and made hay of its
+contents."
+
+The boys had all crowded near to listen. It was now the social hour for
+campers. By the camp-fire more reminiscences followed; and the two
+guides chimed in it with moose stories, bear stories, panther stories,
+wild tales of every imaginable and unimaginable kind of adventure, until
+the lads thought no mythology which they had ever learned could rival in
+marvels the forest lore.
+
+At this opportune time, Neal suddenly thought of describing, or
+attempting to describe, that strangest of strange calls which he had
+heard, after the capsizing of the canoe, on the preceding night, when
+Cyrus and he were jacking for deer on Squaw Pond.
+
+Joe grunted expressively. "So help me! it was the moose call!" he
+ejaculated. "What say, Doc?"
+
+"I guess it was," answered Dr. Phil. "It was either the cow-moose
+herself calling, or some hunter imitating her with his birch-bark
+trumpet. It's a weird sort of experience, to hear that call for the
+first time; I shouldn't wonder if your heart went whack-whack, lad?"
+
+"I only hope he'll get a chance to hear it again before he goes back to
+England," said Cyrus.
+
+Forthwith, the Harvard man proceeded to explain that he was bent on
+pressing forward for a distance of sixty miles or so, to the heart of
+the wilderness, to search for moose, but that he intended to do the
+journey in a leisurely, zigzag fashion, camping for a couple of nights
+at various points, in order to do the honors of the forest to his
+English comrades.
+
+"So you're English, are you! Ha! Ha! Ho! Ho!" exclaimed the doctor,
+looking at the young Farrars. "Well, I suppose we'll have to put our
+best foot foremost to give you a good time in American woods."
+
+"I think that's what we're having, sir--such a jolly good time that
+we'll never forget it," answered Neal courteously.
+
+"Yes, it's jolly enough now; but I tell you I didn't find it so to-day,"
+grumbled Dol, while his eyes gleamed like polished steel with the light
+of present fun. "But as long as I live I'll remember the sound of your
+horn, Doctor, when I was dead-beat."
+
+"Is that so? Well, I guess I'll have to make you a present of that horn,
+boy, when we part company, and you go back to civilization, and of the
+piece of birch-bark, too, which led you to our camp. 'Twas Joe who fixed
+that to the pine near the swamp; for my lads had a habit of following
+the trail to the alders, looking for moose or deer signs. He scrawled
+his sentence on it with the end of a cartridge. I guess it would be a
+sort of curiosity in England."
+
+Dol whooped his delight.
+
+"I'll put it under a glass shade! I'll"--
+
+While he was casting about in his mind for some way of immortalizing
+that bit of white bark, Doc's genial bluster was heard again,--
+
+"Come! come! you fellows! No more skylarking in this camp to-night! It's
+high time for all campers to be snoring. Turn in! Turn in!"
+
+But nobody was in a hurry to obey the summons to bed. While hands and
+feet were being stretched out to the sizzling birch logs for a final
+toast, Royal Sinclair, who had a trick of speaking very quickly, with a
+slight click in his utterance, as if his tongue struck his teeth, began
+to pour some communications into Neal's ear in rapid dashes of talk,--
+
+"This is just about the jolliest night we ever had in the forest, and
+we've had a staving time all through. We live in Philadelphia, and Uncle
+Phil--we call him 'Doc' like everybody else--brought us out here for our
+summer vacation. This old log camp was built several years ago by a
+hunting-party, of whom he was one. The walls were getting mouldy; but he
+cleaned up the largest of the huts, with Joe's help, and made it our
+headquarters. He never needs a guide himself; not a bit of it! He can
+find his way anywhere through the woods with his compass. But he is a
+good deal away, so he engaged Joe to go out with us.
+
+"He often starts off at a moment's notice, and travels dozens of miles
+on foot, or in a birch canoe, if he hears of a bad accident far away in
+the forest. Sometimes a lumberman or trapper cuts his foot in two, or
+nearly chops off his leg with his axe; and these poor fellows would
+probably die while their comrades were lugging them through the woods on
+a litter, trying to reach a settlement, if it weren't for our Doc.
+
+"Once in a while, when he comes to visit us in Philadelphia, a few
+people call him a crank, because he lives out here and dresses like a
+settler; but I call him a regular brick."
+
+"So do I," said Neal with spirit.
+
+"You're awfully lucky to be able to camp out during October," rattled on
+Roy. "That's the month for moose-hunting, jacking, and all the most
+exciting sort of fun. We have to go home in a day or two, for our
+school has reopened, unless"--
+
+"When Royal Sinclair gets a streak of talking, you might as well try to
+bottle up the Mississippi as to stop him," said Dr. Phil, laughing. "I
+can't hear what he's saying, but I know that his tongue is clicking like
+a telegraph instrument. But I hope it has given its last message for
+to-night. You really must turn in, boys. I let you have an extra social
+hour, because to-morrow will be Sunday, a day of rest after the travels
+and excitements of the week. Think of it, lads! A Sunday in the
+woods--God's first cathedral! May it do us all good!"
+
+The guide, Joe, built up the fire. Fresh birch logs blistered and
+sputtered as creeping curls of bluish flame enwrapped them. Kindling
+rapidly, they threw out fantastic lights, which danced like a regiment
+of red elves around the old log walls of the cabin.
+
+"If a fellow could only drop off to sleep every night in the year seeing
+and smelling such a fire as that!" breathed Neal, as, accepting a share
+of Royal's blankets, he stretched his tired limbs on the evergreen
+mattress.
+
+"Then life would be too jolly for anything," answered Roy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+A SUNDAY AMONG THE PINES.
+
+
+"Men and boys learn a good many wholesome lessons in the forest, one of
+which is that it pays better to take a day of rest in seven if they want
+to make the most of themselves and their opportunities. Therefore, lads,
+we'll do no tramping to-day. And we'll have a bit of a service by and by
+over there under the pines."
+
+So spoke Doctor Phil on the following morning, when the two sets of
+campers, now one joyous, brotherly crowd, were sitting or lounging about
+the pine-wood table, leisurely emptying tin mugs of tea or coffee, and
+eating porridge and rolls of Joe's baking.
+
+"You haven't told us yet, Cyrus," he went on, "what point you're bound
+for. I know you're level-headed, and plan every forest trip beforehand,
+to economize time."
+
+"Yes, a fellow likes to do that; it adds to the pleasures of
+anticipation," Garst answered. "But it's precious little use, after all,
+when you're visiting a region which is as full of surprises as an egg is
+full of meat. However, I have arranged to meet Herb Heal, the guide whom
+I generally employ, at a hunting-camp near Millinokett Lake."
+
+"A good moose country," put in Doc.
+
+"I know it. At all events, it is a good place for a home-camp; one can
+make excursions into the dense forests at the foot of Katahdin, which
+are unrivalled for big game--so Herb says, and he's an authority. These
+English fellows may expect to have an attack of buck-fever, or
+_moose-fever_ rather, which will set their blood on fire. Not that we're
+out chiefly for killing; we're willing to let his mooseship keep a whole
+skin, and go in peace to replenish the forests, unless he grows
+cantankerous and charges us."
+
+"If he happens to be an old bull, and gits his mad up, he may do that;
+it's as likely as not," chimed in Joe Flint, who was listening.
+
+"Well, it there's a man in Maine who can be warranted to start a moose,
+and to follow up his trail until he gets a sight of him, living or dead,
+that man is Herb Heal," said the doctor. "And his adventures go ahead of
+those of any woodsman up to date. You must get him to tell you how he
+swam across a pond at the tail of a bull-moose, holding with his fingers
+and teeth to the creature's long hair, then got astraddle of its back,
+and severed its jugular vein with his hunting-knife. How's that! It was
+the liveliest swim I ever heard of. But I mustn't spoil his yarns. He
+must tell them himself.
+
+"A fine son of the woods is Herb Heal!" went on the speaker, with
+enthusiasm. "I ran across him first five years ago, when he was trapping
+for fur-bearing animals in the dense forests you mentioned near the foot
+of Mount Katahdin. He had a partner with him then, a half-breed Indian,
+whom woodsmen called 'Cross-eyed Chris,' a willing, plucky, honest
+fellow when he was sober. But he loved fire-water. Let him once taste
+spirits, or smell them, and he went clean crazy. He did a dog's trick to
+Herb,--stole all his furs and savings, with a splendid pair of moose
+antlers, while he was away from camp one day, and skipped out of the
+State. Herb swore he'd shoot him. But I don't think he has ever come
+across him since. And if he should, he wouldn't stick to his threat.
+He's not built that way."
+
+There was a general hum of interest over this story, which even Cyrus
+had not heard before.
+
+"Now, how are you going to reach your camp on Millinokett Lake?" asked
+Dr. Phil, when the buzz had subsided. "That's the next question."
+
+"We intend to tramp the entire distance by easy stages, and get there
+about the middle of October," answered young Garst for himself and his
+comrades. "Uncle Eb will go along with us as guide; and he'll supply a
+tent, so that we can rest for two or three nights at a time if we
+choose."
+
+"Hum!" said the doctor doubtfully, laying his hand on Dol's shoulder.
+"This youngster oughtn't to do much tramping for a few days, Cyrus. That
+deer-road did up his feet pretty badly. I'll be travelling in your
+direction myself the day after to-morrow. I want to visit a
+farm-settlement within a dozen miles of the lake, where the farmer has a
+sickly child, the only treasure in his log shanty. The mite frets if
+Doc doesn't come to see her once in a while.
+
+"Therefore, I propose that we join forces, and press forward together. I
+guess I'll keep my nephews out here for a week longer, and take the
+responsibility of their missing that time at school. Now that they have
+fallen in with your friends, it would be a shame to separate Young
+England and Young America without giving them a chance to get friendly."
+
+Here Dr. Phil beamed upon the five boys, who, after one night in the
+forest, sleeping in a light-hearted row on the evergreen boughs, with
+their feet to the fire, had reached a brotherly intimacy which years of
+city life might not have bred.
+
+"I further propose," he went on, "that we hire a roomy wagon and a pair
+of strong horses from a settler who has a clearing about two miles from
+here. There is an old logging-road which runs through the woods towards
+the point for which we're heading. We could follow that for the first
+half of our journey. It isn't a turnpike, you know. In fact, it's only a
+broad track where the underbrush has been cleared away, and the trees
+cut down, with strips of corduroy road sandwiched in. But the lumbermen
+still haul supplies over it to their camps, and I propose that we
+follow their example. We can pile our tent, camp duffle [stores], and
+all our packs into the wagon, together with the hero of the
+deer-road,"--winking at Dol,--"and the rest of us can take turns in
+riding. It will be a big lark for these youngsters to travel over a
+corduroy road. A very bracing ride they'll have in more senses than one;
+but they can spin plenty of yarns about it when they get home."
+
+The "youngsters," one and all, signified their approval of the
+suggestion. Cyrus, who, as a college man, was above this category, was
+pleased to acquiesce too.
+
+"When can we get the wagon, Doctor?" asked Neal, burning to press
+onward.
+
+"Oh! the day after to-morrow, I guess. And now, lads!" Dr. Phil's voice
+was serious, but exultant, "we're a thoroughly happy set of fellows, in
+accord with each other and our surroundings. We feel our brains clear,
+our gladness springing up, and our lungs swelling to double their size
+with the whiffs which reach us from those sky-piercing pines yonder. So
+we will remember that 'the wide earth is our Father's temple.' Over
+there in the woods we will worship him, while millions of forest
+creatures about us, flying, bounding, or building, in obedience to his
+laws, simply worship too."
+
+A music soft, deep, sighing, like the murmur of an organ under the
+fingers of a master musician, rolled through the pine-tops as the band
+of campers, guides included, followed Doc into the forest. They passed
+the clumps of slender trees near the camp, and reached a dimly-lit green
+aisle.
+
+Towering pines, so tall and erect that they seemed shooting upward to
+kiss the clouds, were the pillars of their cathedral. Its roof of
+tasselled boughs was stabbed by flashing needles of sunlight, which let
+in a flickering, mellow radiance, and traced a pattern on the woodland
+carpet. Every whiff of forest air was natural incense.
+
+Dr. Phil stood as if in the audience-chamber of the King, and removed
+his wide-brimmed hat.
+
+"Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be
+honor and glory, for ever and ever. Amen!" he said.
+
+Then Cyrus's voice led the worship.
+
+  "Praise God, from whom all blessings flow!"
+
+he sang, in a strong, glad outburst.
+
+Boys and guides, in a great chorus, swelled the familiar words. Each
+sweetly chirping woodland bird, after its own manner, echoed them. The
+music among the pine-tops mingled with them. The forest fairly rang with
+a magnificent, adoring Doxology.
+
+"We ought to be decent kind of fellows after this," said Cyrus, when the
+little service was over.
+
+And the doctor answered,--
+
+"I tell you, boy, the church was never built where a man feels so ready
+to worship the God-Father in spirit and in truth as he does in the wild
+woods."
+
+And looking on the six fresh, manly faces before him, Dr. Phil saw that
+this happy woodland trip would have grander results than adding to the
+campers' inches and to the breadth of their shoulders. For each one of
+them had realized this morning that behind all strength and beauties of
+forest growth, behind their own souls' gladness, was a Presence which
+they could "almost palpably feel."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+FORWARD ALL!
+
+
+Speculations about the journey, and in especial about the corduroy road,
+were rife in the boys' minds during the forty and odd hours which
+elapsed between the Sunday service and the time of their start.
+
+The travellers met at the settler's cabin early on Tuesday morning,
+having broken camp shortly after daybreak. On Monday evening Cyrus and
+Neal, with Uncle Eb, had returned to the bark hut to pack their
+knapsacks, and make ready for a forward march. On the way thither, it
+being just the hour for the deer to be running,--that is, descending
+from the hills for an evening meal,--Neal got a successful shot at a
+small two-year-old buck. This was a stroke of luck for the campers, and
+a necessary deed of death. It supplied them with venison for their
+journey; and, as Cyrus said, "they had already put a shamefully big hole
+in Dr. Phil's stores, and must procure a respectable supply of meat to
+make up for it."
+
+It also provided Tiger with plenty of bones to crunch during his
+master's absence; for the dog was left behind in charge of the hut, as
+indeed he often was for a week or more while Uncle Eb was away guiding.
+The sportsmen who engaged the latter's services were generally averse to
+the creature's presence with the party, lest he should scare their game.
+
+Cyrus and Neal bade him a pathetic farewell, remembering the exciting
+fun he had given them with the raccoon. Dol sent him lots of approving
+messages, which were duly delivered, with rough pats and shakes, by
+Uncle Eb, who fully believed that the brute understood every word of
+them. Indeed, the sign language of Tiger's expressive tail confirmed
+this opinion.
+
+Dol had remained at the log camp with his new friends, Dr. Phil thinking
+it well that he should rest his feet until the morning of the start. His
+brother promised to bring his knapsack and rifle to the settler's
+cabin. Uncle Eb repossessed himself of his shot-gun, pouch, and
+powder-horn, which he carried back to his hut, and left under Tiger's
+protection, telling Dol that "if he wanted to bag any more black ducks
+he'd have to give 'em a dose wid de rifle, for he warn't a-goin' to lug
+dat ole fuzzee t'rough de woods."
+
+It was the perfection of an October morning, sunshiny and pleasant, with
+a mellow freshness in the air which matched the mellow tints of the
+forest, when the travellers joined forces at the farm-settlement.
+
+Engaged in the thrilling work of felling a pine-tree to extend his
+father's clearing, they found the settler's son, a brawny fellow about
+Cyrus's age, in buckskin leggings and coon-skin cap, who wielded his axe
+with arms which were tough and knotted as pine limbs. He bawled to them
+in the forceful language of the backwoods, which to unaccustomed ears
+sounded a trifle barbaric, to keep out of the way until his tree had
+fallen.
+
+When the pine at last tumbled earthward with a thud which reverberated
+for miles through the forest, he gave a mighty yell, waved his skin cap,
+and came towards the visitors.
+
+"Hulloa, Lin!" boomed the doctor, greeting this native as an old
+acquaintance.
+
+"Hello, Doc!" answered Lin. "By the great horn spoon! I didn't expect to
+see you here. Who are these fellers?"
+
+The doctor introduced his comrades. Lin greeted them with bluff
+simplicity, and called them one and all by their Christian names as soon
+as these could be found out. Doc alone came in for his short title--if
+such it could be called. Luckily the campers of both nationalities, from
+Cyrus downward, were without any element of snobbery in their
+dispositions. It seemed to them only a jolly part of the untrammelled
+forest life that man should go back to his primitive relations with his
+brother man; that in the woods, as Doc said, "manhood should be the only
+passport," and that titles and distinctions should never be thought of
+by guides or anybody else. They were well-pleased to be taken simply for
+what they were,--jolly, companionable fellows,--and to be valued
+according to the amount of grit and good-temper they showed.
+
+And they learned this morning to appreciate the pioneer courage and
+resolute spirit of the rugged settlers who had cleared a home for
+themselves amid the surrounding wilderness of forest and stream. Their
+roughness of speech was as nothing in comparison with their brave
+endurance of hardships, their deeds of heroism, and their free-handed
+hospitality.
+
+Lin led his visitors straight to a log cabin, before which his father, a
+veteran woodsman, who bore the scars of bears' teeth upon his body, was
+digging and planting. This old farmer, too, greeted Doc as a friend, and
+when the wagon was talked about, was quite willing to do anything to
+serve him.
+
+"But ye must have a square meal afore ye travel," he said. "Jerusha! I
+couldn't let ye go without eatin'. Mother!" shouting to his wife, who
+was inside the cabin. "Say, Mother! Ha'n't ye got somethin' fer these
+fellers to munch?"
+
+Forthwith a big, rosy woman, who had herself fought a bear in her time,
+and had shot him, too, before he attacked her farmyard, hustled round,
+and got up such a meal as the travellers had not tasted since they
+entered the woods. They had a splendid "tuck-in," consisting of fried
+ham, boiled eggs, potatoes, hot bread, yellow butter, and coffee. And
+the meal was accompanied with thrilling stories from the lips of the old
+settler about the hardships and desperate scenes of earlier pioneering
+days. Doc coaxed him to relate these for the boys' benefit. And many
+eyes dilated as he told of blood-curdling adventures with the "lunk
+soos," or "Indian devil," the dreadful catamount or panther, which was
+once the terror of Maine woodsmen.
+
+"So help me! I'd a heap sooner meet a ragin' lion than a panther," said
+the old man. "My own father came near to bein' eaten alive by one when I
+was a kid. He was workin' with a gang o' lumbermen in these forests at
+timber-makin', and was returnin' to their camp, when the beast bounced
+out of a thicket all of a suddint. Poor dad was skeered stiff. The thing
+screeched,--a screech so turrible that it was enough to turn a man's
+sweat to ice-water, an' a'most set him crazy. Dad hadn't no gun with
+him; so he shinned up the nighest tree like mad, an' hollered fit to
+bust his windpipe, hopin' t'other fellers at the camp 'ud hear him.
+
+"But the panther made up another tree hard by, an' sprang 'pon him. Fust
+it grabbed dad by the heel. Then it tore a big piece out o' the calf of
+his leg, an' devoured it. Think of it, boys! Them's the sort o' dangers
+that the fust settlers an' lumbermen in these woods had to face.
+
+"Wal, dad reckoned he was a goner, sure. But he managed to cut a limb
+from the tree with his huntin'-knife, an' tied the knife to the end of
+it. With that he fought the beast while his comrades, who had heard his
+mad yells, were gittin' to him. With the fust shot that one of 'em fired
+the catamount made off.
+
+"Dad was the sickest man ye ever saw fer a spell. His wound healed after
+a bit, under the care of an Injun doctor; but his hair, which had been
+soot-black on that evenin' when he was returnin' to camp, was as white
+as milk afore he got about again; an' he was notional and narvous-like
+as long as he lived.
+
+"He said the animal was like a tremenjous big cat, about four feet high
+an' five or six feet in length. It was a sort o' bluish-gray color. An'
+it had a very long tail curled up at the end, which it moved like a
+cat's.
+
+"Boys, that catamount is the only animal that an Indian is skeered of.
+Ask a red man to hunt a moose, a bear, or a wolf, an' he's ready to
+follow it through forest an' swamp till he downs it or drops. But ask
+him to chase a panther, an' he'll shake his head an' say, 'He all one
+big debil!' He calls the beast, in his own lingo, 'lunk soos,' which
+means 'Injun devil;' an' so we woodsmen call it too."
+
+It was at this moment that Lin put his head in at the cabin-door, and
+announced that "the wagon an' hosses war a' ready."
+
+"Wal, boys, I swan! it's many a long year since a panther was seen in
+these forests, so ye needn't feel skeery about meetin' one," said the
+old settler, as he stood outside his log home, and watched his guests
+start. "I'll 'low ye won't find travellin' too easy 'long the ole
+corduroy road. Come again!"
+
+There was much waving of hats as the wagon, a roomy, four-wheeled
+vehicle, moved off, with a creaking in its joints as if it were
+squealing a protest against its load, which consisted of the five lads,
+together with knapsacks, guns, tents, and the camp duffle.
+
+"Forward, all!" shouted Dr. Phil, who had been chosen to act as captain
+of the two companies during the few days while they journeyed together.
+
+Lin, who was charioteer, cracked a long whip above his horses. The boys
+cheered, while Doc, Cyrus, and the two guides fell behind, choosing to
+follow the wagon on foot for the first few miles of the journey.
+
+"Where did you buy that, Lin?" asked Neal, climbing over to a perch
+beside the driver, and pointing to a heavy Colt's revolver which the
+young settler was buckling round his waist.
+
+"Didn't buy it. I traded a calf for it at Greenville more'n a year ago,"
+was the reply. "Fust-rate gun it is, too, I vum! I've stood at our
+cabin-door, and killed many a buck with it. On'y 'tain't much good for
+tackling a bear. Wish't the bears ud get as scarce as the panthers! Then
+we'd be rid o' two master pests. Hello! Don't y'u git to tumbling out
+jist yet! That's on'y a circumstance to the jolts there'll be when we
+strike a bit o' corduroy road."
+
+Lin Hathaway grabbed young Farrar by the elbow while he spoke, and held
+him steady with the horny hand which had swung the axe against the
+doomed pine-tree. For Neal had shown a sudden inclination to pitch
+headlong out of the wagon, as its right wheels were hoisted a foot or
+more above the left ones by rolling over a mossy bump in the ground.
+
+For the first five miles the forest road had been simply constructed
+thus: First, the bushy undergrowth had been cut away and thrown to one
+side, the space cleared being about eight feet wide; then all trees
+growing in the range of this track had been sawn off close to the
+ground, and windfalls which barred the way were removed. It was a rude
+highway, with plenty of deformities, such as ends of rotting stumps,
+twisted roots, ridges and bumps which had never been levelled; yet it
+was beautiful beyond any smooth, well-graded road which the travellers
+had ever seen. As it wound along in graceful curves through the woods,
+it was shaded now by an emerald arch of evergreens, now by a royal
+crimson canopy of maple branches, while patches of buff, orange, and
+dull red commingled where other trees interlaced with these to whisper
+woodland secrets.
+
+But the boys soon understood what Doc meant when he spoke of their
+having "a bracing ride in more senses than one;" for the motion of the
+wagon was a giddy series of jolts and bounces, with just sufficient
+interval between each shock for them to brace themselves, with stiffened
+backbones, for the next upheaval. They had already begun, as Royal said,
+"to have kinks in all their limbs," when Lin suddenly announced,--
+
+"Yon's a bit o' corduroy road, I declar'!"
+
+He pointed with his whip ahead, and the travellers shot out their necks
+to see this novel highway. It extended for about a quarter of a mile
+over a swamp, and spoke volumes for the energy and ingenuity of the
+hardy lumbermen who constructed it.
+
+These brawny heroes, who are fine types of American grit and manhood,
+when clearing a broad track over which their great timber logs could be
+hauled from the depths of the forest to the landing on some big river,
+had found the swampy tracts an impassable obstacle for animals
+trammelled with harness and a heavy load.
+
+They bridged them by laying down logs cut to even lengths in a slightly
+slanting position across the way for the entire extent of miry ground.
+Each piece of timber was tightly wedged in by its fellow; nevertheless,
+there was a space of several inches between their rounded tops. Hence
+the track presented a striped appearance, which suggested to some
+spirited genius among woodsmen its name of "corduroy road."
+
+"Well, Neal, do you think you can tell your folks a thing or two about
+forest travelling when you get back to England?" asked Doc, when the
+order of march was changed, young Farrar and the Sinclairs turning out
+to do their share of tramping, while the doctor, Cyrus, and the guides
+benefited by "a lift."
+
+"I rather think I can," answered Neal; "but goodness! I feel as if there
+were aches and bruises all over me. Once or twice my head seemed jumping
+straight off my shoulders. No more going in a wagon over corduroy roads
+for me! I'd rather be leg-weary any day."
+
+The travellers halted that evening about five o'clock on the banks of a
+lonely stream. The guides pitched the two tents--Joe had provided one
+for his party--facing each other on a patch of clearing, with a space of
+about fifteen feet between them, in the centre of which blazed a roaring
+camp-fire. Now all the axes and knifes among the band were in demand for
+cutting and sharpening stakes and ridge-poles on which to stretch their
+canvas.
+
+Moreover, no evergreen boughs could be procured for beds; and the boys
+had to work with a will, helping Uncle Eb and Joe to cut bundles of the
+long, rank grass that grew by the water to form a bed for their tired
+bodies.
+
+Every one was camp-hungry, as they had not halted for a meal since
+leaving the settlement. After a splendid supper of venison, broiled
+over sizzling logs, bread, and fried potatoes,--for they had added to
+their stores at the farm,--they had a glorious social hour by the
+camp-fire. Joe got off any amount of "ripping" stories; and the sound of
+many a jolly chorus, led by Cyrus, and swelled by the musical efforts of
+the entire crew, mingled with the lonely rustle of the night wind among
+faded and drifting leaves.
+
+When Doc's summons came to turn in, they stretched themselves upon the
+grassy beds, not undressing, as the night was chilly and the temporary
+quarters were not so snug as their previous ones. Still in their warm
+jerseys, trousers, woollen stockings, and knitted caps, with the heat
+from the piled-up camp-fire streaming under the raised flaps of the
+tents, they slept as cosily as if they lay on spring mattresses,
+surrounded by pictured walls.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+BEAVER WORKS.
+
+
+About noon on the following day they were obliged to bid farewell to Lin
+Hathaway, his wagon and horses, as the logging-road went no farther. The
+young settler turned homeward rather regretfully. It might be many
+months again before he got a chance of talking to anybody beyond his
+father and mother, and the boys had brought a dash of outside life into
+his woodland solitude.
+
+The travellers proceeded on foot through a dense forest, which, luckily
+for Dol, had little undergrowth and mostly a soft carpet of moss or dry
+pine needles. Still they had plenty of climbing over windfalls, with
+many rough pokes and jibes from forward boughs and rotten limbs, to rob
+the way of sameness. Through this labyrinth they were safely piloted by
+Uncle Eb and Joe, the latter with his compass in his hand, and the
+former simply studying the "Indian's compass," which is observing how
+the moss grows upon the tree-trunks, there being always a greater
+quantity on the side which faces north.
+
+Before nightfall they reached another log cabin, tenanted by a man who
+had just settled down for the purpose of clearing up a farm. Here they
+were lodged for the night, without trouble of making camp.
+
+The third day of their journey was marked by two sensations. They halted
+for a short rest at a point where there was an extensive break in the
+forest. Scarcely had they emerged from the gloom of a dense growth of
+cedars, when Dol exclaimed.--
+
+"Good gracious! That looks as if people had been building a jolly high
+railroad out here."
+
+On the right rose a bare, steep ridge of sand and gravel, nearly ninety
+feet in height, and closely resembling a railway embankment.
+
+"Well, boy," laughed Dr. Phil, "if that's a railroad, Nature built it,
+and by a mighty curious process too. The sand, rocks, and gravel of
+which it is mostly formed must have been swept here by a great rush of
+waters that once prevailed over this land. We call the ridge a
+'Horseback.' If you like, we'll climb to the top of it, after we've had
+our snack [lunch], and you can get a peep at the surrounding country."
+
+So they did. The top was level, and wide enough for two carriages to
+drive abreast; and the view from it was one which could never be
+forgotten. Around them were millions of acres of forest land, beautiful
+with the contrasts of October; here dipping into a cedar valley, in the
+midst of which they saw the silver smile of a woodland lake, there
+rising into a hill crowned with towering pines, some of them over a
+hundred feet in height.
+
+But, most thrilling sight of all, they beheld, only half a dozen miles
+away, rising in sublime grandeur against the sky, the mountain of
+mountains in Maine,--great Katahdin. They had caught glimpses of its
+curved line of peaks before. Now they saw its forests, and the rugged
+slides where avalanches of bowlders and earth from the top had ploughed
+heavily downward, sweeping away all growth.
+
+Cyrus lifted his hat, and waved it at the distant mass.
+
+"Hurrah!" he cried. "There's the home of storms! There's old Katahdin!
+The Indians named it Ktaadn 'the biggest mountain.'"
+
+"Want to hear the Indian legend about it, lads?" asked Dr. Phil.
+
+A general chirp of assent was his reply, and the doctor began:--
+
+"Well, when the redskins owned these forests, they believed that the
+summit of Katahdin was the home of their evil spirit, or, as they call
+him, 'The Big Devil.' He was named Pamolah. And he was a mighty
+unpleasant sort of neighbor. Once, so tradition says, he ran away with a
+beautiful Indian maiden, and carried her up to his lonely lair among
+those peaks. When her tribe tried to rescue her, he let loose great
+storms upon them, his artillery being thunder, lightning, hail, and
+rain, before which they were forced to flee helter-skelter. An old red
+chief long ago told me the story, and added gravely that 'it was sartin
+true, for han'some squaw always catch 'em debil.'
+
+"The foundation of the legend lies in the fact that there really is a
+very curious granite basin among Katahdin's peaks, and it is the
+birthplace of most storms which sweep over our State. I myself have
+seen clouds forming in it, when I made an ascent of the mountain in my
+younger days, and whirling out in all directions. The roar of its winds
+may sometimes be heard miles away. There are several ponds in the basin;
+one of them, a tiny, clear lake, without any visible outlet, is
+Pamolah's fishing-ground. That's the yarn about the mountain as I heard
+it."
+
+[Illustration: IN THE SHADOW OF THE KATAHDIN.]
+
+"Ain't it a'most time for us to be gittin' down from this Horseback,
+Doc?" asked Joe, who had been listening with the others. "I thought we'd
+reach the farm you're heading for to-night, but we're half a dozen miles
+off it yet; and we can't do more'n another mile or two afore it'll be
+time to halt and make camp. There's some pretty bad travelling and a
+plaguy bit of swamp ahead."
+
+"I guess you're about right, Joe," said Doc, rising with alacrity from
+the stone where he had seated himself while telling his yarn.
+
+Joe's bad travelling meant a great deal of tripping and floundering
+through soft mud and mire, with slippery moss-stones sandwiched in, and
+dwarfed bushes which ran along the ground, and twisted themselves in an
+almost impassable tangle. These had a knack of catching a fellow's feet,
+and causing him to sprawl forward on his face and hands, whereupon his
+knapsack would hit him an astounding thwack on the back.
+
+After three-quarters of an hour of this fun, very muddy, clammy with
+perspiration, and thoroughly winded, the party reached firmer ground,
+and the guides called a halt.
+
+"Guess we'd better rest a bit," said Joe, "afore we go farther. There's
+nothing in forest travelling that'll take the breath out of a man like
+crossing a swamp," eying compassionately the city folk; for he himself
+was as "fit" as when he started. "Then we'd better follow that stream
+till we strike a good place for a camping-ground. What say, Doc?"
+
+Dr. Phil, as captain, signified his assent. After a short
+breathing-spell he again gave the command, "Forward!" And his company
+pushed on into the woods, following the course of a dark stream which
+had gurgled through the swamp.
+
+"There used to be an old beaver-dam somewheres about here," broke forth
+Joe presently, when they had made about a quarter of a mile, the younger
+guide taking the lead, for he was evidently more at home in this part of
+the forest land than his senior, Uncle Eb. "Hullo, now! there it is.
+Look, gentlemen!"
+
+He pointed to a curved bank of brushwood, mostly alder branches, piled
+together in curious topsyturvy fashion, which formed a dam across the
+stream. It bristled with sticks, poking out and up in every direction;
+for the bushy ends of the boughs had been heavily plastered with mud and
+stones, to keep them down.
+
+"That a beaver-dam!" gasped Neal in amazement. "Why, I always had an
+idea that beavers were half human in intelligence, and wove their
+branches in and out in a sort of neat basketwork when making dams.
+That's a funny rough-and-tumble looking old pile."
+
+"It's a good water-tight dam, for all that," answered Cyrus. "And don't
+you begin to underrate Mr. Beaver's intelligence until you see more of
+his works. I've torn the bottom out of a dam like this on a cold, rainy
+night,--beavers like rainy nights for work,--and then hidden myself in
+some bushes to watch the result. It was a trial of strength and
+patience, I assure you, to remain there for six mortal hours,--though I
+had rubber overalls on,--with wet twigs and leaves slapping my face. But
+the sight I saw was more wonderful than anything I could have imagined.
+There was a cloudy, watery moon; and shortly after it rose, five beavers
+appeared upon the dam, scrambling up and down, and examining the great
+hole through which the water was fast leaking out of their pond. Then,
+following a big fellow, who was evidently the boss beaver, they swam to
+the bank. He stationed himself near a tree about twenty inches in
+circumference, and his four boys at once started to fell it. I tell you
+they worked like hustlers, each one sawing on it in turn with his sharp
+teeth, and sometimes two of them together on different parts of the
+trunk.
+
+"At last the tree--it was an ash--fell, toppling into the water just
+where the beavers wanted it. They pushed and tugged it down-stream for
+about ten yards, to the dam, and propped it against the opening which I
+had made. I couldn't see the rest of the operations clearly; but I
+caught glimpses of them, marching about on their hind-legs, carrying mud
+snug up to their chins like this," here Cyrus folded his arms across his
+chest. "And before daybreak that dam was perfectly repaired, with never
+a leak in it.
+
+"You know they build the dams in very shallow water, only a few inches
+deep; and they generally roll in a couple of long logs for a solid
+foundation. It was one of these which I had torn out. Now, Neal, what do
+you say about the beaver's intelligence?"
+
+"If I didn't know you, Cyrus, I'd say you were making up as you went
+along," answered Neal. "It seems one of those things which a fellow can
+scarcely believe in. Hulloa! What's that?"
+
+A loud report, like the bang of a gun, made all the boys, who had been
+standing very quietly, gazing at the dam, suddenly jump.
+
+"It's only a beaver striking the water with his tail," laughed Cyrus.
+"He has been swimming about somewhere up-stream, and has scented us, and
+dived. I have heard one do that a dozen times in the night, if he
+detected the presence of man; but it's very unusual in the daytime, for
+they rarely venture out in broad light. In diving, if suddenly alarmed,
+they strike the surface of the water a tremendous whack with their
+tails, as a signal of alarm, making this report, which in still weather
+resounds for a great distance.
+
+"I'm very glad you heard it, boys; for your chances of seeing the master
+beaver or any of his colony are mighty slim. But we'll probably come on
+their lodge a little higher up."
+
+Above the shallow water where the dam was built, the stream widened into
+a broad, deep pool. About fifty yards ahead, in the centre of this, was
+a tiny island. On its extreme edge Joe pointed out the beaver lodge. It
+was shaped something like a huge beehive, being about a dozen feet in
+diameter and five feet high. The outside seemed to be entirely covered
+with mud and fibrous roots, through which the sticks which formed its
+framework poked out here and there.
+
+"The doors are all underwater," said Cyrus, "and so far down that
+they'll be beneath the ice when the stream freezes in winter. Otherwise
+the beavers could not reach their pile of food-wood, which they keep at
+the bottom, and would starve to death. They are clerks of the weather,
+if you like. They seem to know when the first hard frost is coming, and
+sink their stores a day or two before. Man has not yet discovered their
+mysterious knack of sinking wood, and keeping it stationary through many
+months.
+
+"They feed on the inner bark of poplar, white birch, and willow trees.
+In autumn they fell these along the banks, generally so that they will
+fall into the water, tug and push them down-stream, and float them near
+to their lodges. If the trees are too big to be easily handled, they saw
+them into convenient lengths."
+
+"I call it tough luck, not being able to get a sight of the animals,
+after seeing so much of their works," grumbled Royal.
+
+"Ye might wait here till midnight, and not have any better," said Joe.
+"That fellow's tail was like a fire-alarm to them. They ain't to home
+now, you bet! They've dusted out of their house as if it was on fire;
+and they've either dived to the bottom, or hidden themselves in holes
+along the bank. Guess we'd better be moving on. It's a'most time to
+think about making camp."
+
+"The beavers have been working here!" exclaimed the guide a few minutes
+later, as he strode ahead. "These white birches were felled by 'em; and
+a dandy job they did too."
+
+He pointed to two slim birches which lay prone with their tops in the
+water, and to a third, the trunk of which was partly sawn through in
+more than one place. The ground was strewn with little clippings of
+timber, bearing the saw-marks of the beavers' teeth. The boys gathered
+them up as curiosities.
+
+"Oh, the skilful little animals can beat this work by long odds!"
+exclaimed Doc. "These trunks only measure from eight to twelve inches in
+circumference. I've seen a tree fully two feet round which was felled by
+them. Say, Joe! don't you think we'd better camp to-night somewhere on
+the _br�l�e?_"
+
+"Just what I'm planning, Doc," answered Joe. "We must be pretty near it
+now."
+
+A few minutes afterwards the party filed out of the dense woods, passed
+through a grove of young spruces, forded a brook which emptied itself
+into the stream they were following, and came upon a scene blasted,
+barren, and unutterably dreary.
+
+The band of boys, who, in spite of swamps and jungles, had learned to
+love the forest dearly, for its many beauties, and for the wild
+offspring with which it teemed, sorrowfully gasped, as if they saw the
+skeleton of a friend.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+"GO IT, OLD BRUIN!"
+
+
+Before them lay a ruined tract of country, extending northward farther
+than eye could reach. It is called by Maine woodsmen a _br�l�e_, name
+borrowed from their French-Canadian neighbors, who dwell across the
+boundary line which separates the Dominion from the United States.
+
+The word signifies "burnt tract;" but it gives a feeble idea of the
+fire-smitten, blackened region on which the lads looked.
+
+The forest until now had been a wilderness truly, but a wilderness where
+every kind and size of growth, from the giant pine to the creeping
+wintergreen and shaded mosses, mingled in beautiful confusion. Here it
+became a desert. For the terrible forest fires, the woodsman's tragic
+enemy, had swept over it not long before, devastating an area of many
+square miles. Millions of dollars worth of valuable timber had been
+reduced to rotting embers. Storm-defying pines had crashed to the earth,
+and were overridden by the flames in their wild rush onward. Sometimes
+only a smutty stump showed where they had stood; sometimes, robbed of
+life and every limb, portions of the fire-eaten trunks still remained
+erect,--bare, blackened poles. All smaller growth, and even the surface
+of the ground, parched by summer heats, had burned like tinder. Rocks
+and stones were baked and crumbling.
+
+"Boys, that's the most mournful sight a woodsman can see," said Doc,
+looking away over the wrecked region, touched with golden lights from an
+October sunset. "It makes one who loves the woods feel as if he had lost
+a living friend."
+
+"Well, 'tain't no manner o' use to fret over it," declared Joe
+energetically. "Nature don't waste time in fretting, you bet! She starts
+in and tries to cover the stripped ground, as if she was sort of ashamed
+to have it seen."
+
+The guide pointed earthward. At his feet a dwarfed growth of blueberry
+bushes and tiny trees was already springing up to screen the unsightly,
+ash-strewn land.
+
+"True enough, Joe! Nature is a grand one for remedies," answered the
+doctor. "Still, it will be half a century or more before she can raise a
+timber growth here again. Hulloa! Dol, what are you fellows up to?"
+
+While his elders were studying the _br�l�e_, Dol, who objected to dreary
+sights, had marched down to the brink of the stream, accompanied by
+Royal's young brothers, Will and Martin Sinclair. The little river
+gurgled and frisked along beside the burnt tract, like a line of life
+bordering death. It seemed to the boys to prattle about its victory over
+the flames when it stopped their sweeping course, so that the woods on
+its opposite bank were uninjured, as were those beyond the brook in the
+rear.
+
+"We're studying the ways of the great sea-serpent!" shouted back Dol,
+who was splashing about in a sedgy pool.
+
+By and by when the guides had finished their work of making camp, when
+they had pitched the tents, cut boughs for beds and fuel in the spruce
+grove behind, and were cooking an odorous supper, the three juveniles
+came slowly towards the camp-fire from the water.
+
+"What on earth have you got there, young one?" asked Dr. Phil; for
+Adolphus Farrar was bareheaded, and carried his hat very gingerly, with
+its corners clutched together to form a bag.
+
+"The big sea-serpent himself," answered Dol mysteriously.
+
+Of a sudden he opened his dripping hat, and spilled out a small
+water-snake, about ten inches long, upon the doctor's lap.
+
+There was a great roar of laughter, in which Dol's abettors, Will and
+Martin, joined with cheerful shouts. The little joke had the effect of
+winning everybody's thoughts from roaring flames, wrecked forests, and
+the dreary _br�l�e_. Uncle Eb killed the snake, maintaining that
+water-snakes were "plaguy p'isonous," while Cyrus scouted the idea. The
+supper that evening was a merry enough meal. The camp, lit by the ruddy
+glow from its great fire, looked an oasis of light, warmth, and jollity
+in the black and burnt desert.
+
+The darky, hearing Cyrus declare that he was fearfully hungry, mixed
+some flapjacks to form a second course, after the venison steaks and
+potatoes. He had exhausted his stock of maple sugar, but he produced a
+small wooden keg of the apparently inexhaustible molasses.
+
+"He! he! he! Dat jest touches de spot, don't it?" he chuckled, when,
+having carefully served each member of the party, he seated himself
+about three feet from the camp-fire, with a round dozen of the thin
+cakes for his own eating.
+
+He coated them with the thick molasses, and set the keg down side by
+side with a bag of potatoes which had been brought from the settlement.
+
+There these provisions remained when, earlier than usual, the party
+turned in, and stretched their tired limbs to rest, lying down, as they
+had done before when sleeping under canvas, with all their garments on
+save coats and moccasins. Whether Uncle Eb forgot his "m'lasses," or
+whether he purposely left it without, there not being a spare inch of
+room in the small tents, no one then or afterwards inquired.
+
+As a result of the jolly intimacy that had sprung up between the two
+companies during the few days when they had all things in common, the
+boys disposed of themselves for the night as they pleased. Neal turned
+in with the doctor, Royal, and Joe, the four stretching themselves on
+the evergreen boughs, with their feet to the opening of the tent, and
+their rifles and ammunition within reach. Of course the Winchesters were
+empty, it being a strict rule that firearms should not be brought into
+camp loaded.
+
+The younger Sinclairs, with Cyrus, Dol, and Uncle Eb, occupied the other
+tent.
+
+It seemed to Neal that he had hardly slept one hour,--probably it was
+nearer to three,--during which time he had been dreaming with vague
+foreshadowings of the final and crowning sport of the trip, the grand
+moose-stalking, and of Herb Heal, the mighty hunter, when he was
+awakened by a shrill scream just outside the canvas. He started, with
+his heart going whackety-whack. The cry was sudden and intensely
+startling, appearing twice as loud as it really was when it broke the
+pathetic stillness of the _br�l�e_, where not a tree rustled or twig
+snapped, and the night wind only sighed faintly and fitfully through the
+newly springing growth.
+
+Again sounded that startling screech; and yet again, making a dreary,
+piercing din.
+
+"By all that's funny! it's another coon," gasped Neal; and he gently
+pinched the shoulder of Joe, who lay on his left.
+
+"Joe!" he whispered. "Wake up! There's a raccoon just outside the tent.
+I heard his cry."
+
+The guide was awake and alert in an instant. So, too, was Dr. Phil.
+
+"What's up, boys?" asked the latter, hearing a murmur.
+
+"There's a coon close by," said Neal again. "Listen to him!"
+
+Even while he spoke, young Farrar caught sight of two feathered things
+hopping along the avenue of light which lay between him and the
+camp-fire, the red flare of the flames mingling with the white radiance
+of a cloudless moon. At the same time the screech sounded and resounded.
+
+"Coon!" exclaimed Joe derisively. "That's no coon. It's only a little
+owl. Bless ye! I've had five or six of 'em come right into this tent of
+a night, and ding away at me till I had to talk to 'em with the rifle to
+scare 'em off. I'll give 'em a dose o' lead now if they don't scoot
+mighty quick; that'll stop their song an' dance."
+
+"Their cry is pretty much like a raccoon's, Neal," said Doc. "Only it's
+a great deal weaker. Lie down, boy. Go to sleep, and don't mind them."
+
+The owls perhaps apprehended danger. At all events, they were silent for
+a while; and in three minutes each occupant of the tent was fast asleep
+again, with the exception of Neal. The sharp awakening had upset his
+nerves a bit. He obeyed the doctor, and hugged his blankets round him,
+hoping sleep would return; but he lay with eyes narrowed into two slits,
+peeping at the ruddy camp-fire, involuntarily listening for the
+screeching of the birds, and wishing that he had not been such a
+greenhorn as to disturb his comrades for nothing. Royal, who lay on his
+right, was of a less excitable temperament. Although he had been
+awakened, he was now snoring lustily, insomnia being a rare affliction
+in camps.
+
+"What's that?"
+
+About half an hour had passed when Neal Farrar suddenly and sharply
+rapped out these words close to Joe's ear. He felt certain that he would
+not now bring upon him the woodsman's good-natured scorn for making a
+disturbance about nothing. A heavy, stealthy tread, as of some big
+animal, was crushing the pygmy bushes near the tent. Immediately
+afterwards he saw an uncouth black shape in the lane of light between
+himself and the fire. It disappeared while his heart was giving one
+jump, and he heard a dull, mumbling noise, such as a pig might make when
+rooting amid rubbish, varied with an occasional low growl.
+
+Joe was already awake. His hunter's instinct told him that something
+truly exciting was on now.
+
+"My cracky! I b'lieve it's a bear!" he muttered, forming his words away
+down in his throat, so that Neal only caught the last one. "Keep still
+as death!"
+
+The guide reached out a long arm, and clutched his rifle. Hurriedly he
+jammed half a dozen cartridges into its magazine. Then lightly and
+silently, as if he was made of cork, he got upon his feet, and bounded
+out of the tent, Neal copying his actions nimbly and noiselessly as he
+could; though, in his excitement, he only succeeded in getting two
+cartridges into his Winchester.
+
+Royal's snoring ceased. Doc's eager question, "What's up now, boys?"
+reached the two just as they quitted shelter, and passed into the broad
+moonlight, crossed with red gleams from their fire.
+
+"A bear!" yelled Joe in answer, his rifle and he breaking silence
+together.
+
+Three times the Winchester sharply cracked.
+
+Then with a mad "Halloo!" the guide seized a flaming stick from the
+fire, and, swinging it above his head, started after the big black
+animal of which Neal had caught a glimpse before. He now saw it plainly
+as, already fifty yards ahead, it made off at a plunging gallop across
+the moonlit _br�l�e_.
+
+Young Farrar had been the champion runner of his school, and he blessed
+his trained legs for giving him a prominent part in the wild chase that
+followed. Still imitating the woodsman, he pulled another half-lighted
+stick from the camp-fire, and waved it in a frenzy of excitement, while
+he ran like a buck at Joe's side.
+
+"Tumble out! Tumble out, boys! A bear! A bear!" now rang from one tent
+to another.
+
+In two minutes every camper, in his stocking feet, just as he had risen
+from his bed, was tearing across the _br�l�e_ in the wake of Bruin,
+yelling, leaping, and swinging smouldering firebrands.
+
+It was a scene and a chase such as the boys, in their most far-fetched
+dreams, had never pictured,--the white moonlight glimmering on the
+black stumps and tottering trunks of the ruined tract, the hunted bear
+plunging off among them, frightened by the shouting and the lights, the
+heavy, lumbering gallop enabling it at first to distance its pursuers.
+
+Owing to their fleetness and the odds they had at the start, the guide
+and Neal kept far ahead of their comrades. The noise which Bruin made as
+he lumbered over the pygmy growth, and the charred, rotting timber that
+littered the ground beneath it, were quiet enough to guide Joe
+unerringly in the bear's wake, even when that bulky shape was not
+distinguishable.
+
+"What's this?" screeched the woodsman suddenly, as he stumbled upon
+something at his feet. "By gracious! it's our keg of m'lasses. He made
+off with that, and has dropped it out o' sheer fright, or because he's
+weakening. I know I hit him twice when I fired; but he's not hurt too
+badly to run, or to fight like a fiend if we come to close quarters.
+Like as not 'twill be a narrow squeak with us if we tackle him. If
+you're scared a little bit, Neal, let up, an' I'll finish him alone."
+
+"Scared!" Neal flung the word back with scorn, as if he was returning a
+blow. For the life of him he could not bring out another syllable,
+going at a faster rate than ever he had done in the most stubbornly
+contested handicap. The strong-winded guide rapped out his sentences as
+he ran, apparently without waste of breath.
+
+The feverish enthusiasm of the hunter, which he had never felt before,
+was now alive in Neal. His blood raced through his veins like liquid
+fire. He had been long enough in Maine to know that in wreaking
+vengeance on Bruin for many misdeeds he would be acting in the interests
+of justice. For the black bear is still such a master pest to the
+settlers who are trying to establish their farms amid the forests where
+it roams, that the State has outlawed the beast, and pays a bounty for
+its skin.
+
+Joe thought little about this; for a gentleman whom he had guided early
+in the summer had lately written to him, offering a price of fifteen
+dollars for a good bearskin.
+
+Here was the woodsman's golden opportunity--an opportunity for which he
+had been thirsting since the receipt of that letter.
+
+[Illustration: "GO IT, OLD BRUIN! GO IT WHILE YOU CAN!"]
+
+He already regarded his triumph over the bear as secure, and its hide as
+forfeited. He nearly caused Neal Farrar to burst a blood-vessel from
+the combined effects of struggling laughter and running, when he began
+to apostrophize the flying foe with grim humor, thus:--
+
+"Go it, old Bruin! Go it while ye can! There ain't a hair on yer back
+that b'longs to ye!"
+
+But it soon became evident that the bear couldn't go on much longer at
+this breakneck pace. Its pursuers heard its steps with increasing
+distinctness, and then its labored breathing. They were gaining on it
+fast.
+
+The brute came into full view about forty yards ahead, as it ascended a
+slight elevation, crowned with blasted tree trunks.
+
+"I'll draw bead on him from here," said Joe, stopping short. "Get ready
+to fire, lad, if he turns. It'll take lots o' lead to finish that
+fellow."
+
+Twice Joe's rifle spoke again. One shot took effect. There was a fearful
+growl from the beast, but it was not yet mortally wounded.
+
+Maddened and desperate, it wheeled about, and came straight for its
+pursuers. Again the guide fired. Still the bear advanced, gnashing its
+teeth and mumbling horribly; Neal saw its black shape not thirty yards
+from him.
+
+"Shoot! shoot, boy!" screamed Joe. "Or give me your rifle. I haven't got
+a charge left!"
+
+For half a minute Farrar shook all over as with ague. His nostrils felt
+choked. His mouth was wide open in his efforts to breathe. His heart
+pounded like a sledge-hammer. With that mumbling brute advancing upon
+him, he felt as if he couldn't fire so as to hit a haystack or a flock
+of hens at a barn-door.
+
+Then, suddenly, he was cool again, seeing and hearing with extraordinary
+clearness. The ignominious alternative of giving his rifle to Joe
+produced a revulsion. His fingers were on the trigger, his left hand
+firmly gripped the barrel of his Winchester; he brought it to his
+shoulder.
+
+"Aim low! Try to hit him in the front of the neck where it joins the
+body," said Joe, in tones sharp as a razor, which cut his meaning into
+Neal's brain.
+
+Bruin was only fifteen yards away when Farrar's rifle cracked
+once--twice--sending out its messengers of death.
+
+There was a last terrible growl, a plunge, and a thud which seemed to
+shake the ground under Neal's feet. As the smoke of his shots cleared
+away, Joe beheld him leaning on his rifle, with a face which in the
+moonlight looked white as chalk, and the bear lying where it had fallen
+headlong towards him. It made a desperate struggle to regain its feet,
+then rolled on its side, dead.
+
+One bullet had pierced the spot which Joe mentioned, and had passed
+through the region of the heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+"THE SKIN IS YOURS."
+
+
+A regular war-dance was performed about the slain marauder by the young
+Sinclairs and Dol Farrar, when these laggards in the chase reached the
+spot where he fell. The firebrands had all died out before the enemy
+turned; but in the white moon-radiance the bear was seen to be a big
+one, with an uncommonly fine skin.
+
+Neal took no part in the triumphal capers. He still leaned upon his
+rifle, his breath coming in gusty puffs through his nostrils and mouth.
+Not alone the desperate sensations of those moments when he had faced
+the gnashing, mumbling brute, but the unexpected success of his first
+shot at big game, had unhinged him. By his endurance in the chase, by
+the pluck with which he stood up to the bear, above all, by his being
+able, as Joe phrased it, to "take a sure pull on the beast at a
+paralyzing moment," he had eternally justified his right to the title of
+sportsman in the eyes of the natives. The guides, Joe and Eb, were not
+slow in telling him that he had behaved from start to finish like no
+"greenhorn," but a regular "old sport."
+
+"My cracky! 'twas lucky for me that you had game blood in you, which
+showed up," exclaimed Joe, catching the boy's arm in a friendly grip,
+with an odd respect in his touch, which marked the admission of young
+Farrar into the brotherhood of hunters. "I hadn't a charge left, an' not
+even my hunting-knife. Lots o' city swells 'u'd have been plumb scared
+before a growler like that,"--touching Bruin's carcass with his
+foot,--"even if they had a small arsenal to back 'em up. They'd have
+dropped rifle and cartridges, and hugged the nearest trunk. I've seen
+fellers do it scores o' times, bless ye! after they came out here rigged
+up in sporting-book style, talking fire about hunting bears and moose.
+But that was all the fire there was to 'em."
+
+Yet Neal's triumph over the poor brute, which had raced well for its
+life, was not without a faint twinge of pain; and he was too manly to
+look on this as a weakness. A sportsman he might be, of the sort who can
+shoot straight when necessity demands it, but never of that class who
+prowl through the forests with fingers tingling to pull the trigger,
+dreading to lose a chance of "letting blood" from any slim-legged moose
+or velvet-nosed buck which may run their way. It needed Doc's praise to
+make him feel fully satisfied with his deed.
+
+"It was a crack shot, boy," said the doctor proudly. "And I guess the
+farmer at the next settlement will feel like giving you a medal for it.
+Old Bruin has only got what he gave to every creature he could master."
+
+There being no tree conveniently near to which they could string up the
+dead bear, the guides decided to leave the ugly matter of skinning and
+dissecting him for morning light. The excited party returned to camp,
+but not to sleep. They built up their scattered fire, squatted round it,
+and discoursed of the night's adventure until a clear dawn-gleam
+brightened the eastern sky. Then Uncle Eb and Joe started out again
+across the _br�l�e_. They reappeared before breakfast-time, bringing
+Bruin's skin and a goodly portion of his meat.
+
+Joe laid the hide at Neal's feet.
+
+"There, boy," he said, "the skin is yours. It belongs rightly to the man
+who killed the bear; and I guess the brute wasn't mortally hurt at all
+till your bullet nipped him in the neck."
+
+"But what about the fifteen dollars from that New York man, Joe? You'll
+lose it," faltered young Farrar, with a triumphant heart-leap at the
+thought of taking this trophy back to England, but loath to profit by
+the woodsman's generosity.
+
+"Don't you bother about that; let it go," answered Joe, whose business
+of guiding was profitable enough for him. "'Tain't enough for the skin,
+anyhow. Nary a finer one has been taken out o' Maine in the last five
+years; and mighty lucky you Britishers were to git a chance of a
+bear-hunt at all. Old Bruin must have been powerful hungry to come
+around our camp."
+
+There was a grand breakfast before the travellers broke camp that
+morning. The guides and Doc--who had got accustomed to the luxury during
+visits to settlers and lumber-camps--feasted off bear-steaks. Cyrus and
+the boys, American and English, declined to touch it. The whole
+appearance of Bruin as he lay stretched on the ground the night before
+made their "department of the interior" revolt against it.
+
+When a start was made for the settlement, Joe bundled up the skin, and,
+as a tribute of respect to Neal's "game blood," carried it, in addition
+to his heavy pack, for a distance of four miles over the desolate
+_br�l�e_ and across a soft, miry bog. On reaching the farm clearing, he
+cut the stem of a tall cedar bush, which he bent into the shape of a
+hoop, binding the ends together with cedar bark. He then pricked holes
+all around the edges of the hide with the sharp point of his
+hunting-knife, stretched it to its full extent, and fastened it to the
+hoop, which he hung up to a tree near the settler's cabin, telling Neal
+that in a few days it would be dry enough to pack away in a bag.
+
+But as it was a cumbersome article to carry while tramping a dozen miles
+farther to the camp on Millinokett Lake, the farmer offered to take
+charge of it for its owner until he passed that way again on his return
+journey; an offer which Neal thankfully accepted. The old backwoodsman
+was, truth to tell, delighted to see hanging up near his cabin door the
+skin of an enemy who had ofttimes plundered him so unmercifully.
+
+He made the travellers royally welcome, let them have the roomy kitchen
+of his log shanty to sleep in, with a soft bed of hay. Here he lay with
+them, while his wife and sickly little girl occupied an adjoining space
+about twelve feet square, which had been boarded off. This was all the
+accommodation the log home afforded.
+
+The forest child was a puzzle to the lads. To them she looked as if the
+soul of a grandmother had taken possession of a thin, long-limbed body
+which ought to belong to a girl of ten. Her pinched features and
+over-wise eyes told a tale of suffering, and so did her high-pitched,
+quivering voice, as it made elfishly sharp remarks about the boys until
+they blenched before her.
+
+This was the little one of whom the doctor had said "that she fretted if
+he did not come to see her once in a while." And with Doc she was a
+different being. Her voice softened, her eyes became childlike, and thin
+tinkles of laughter broke from her as she clung to him, and received
+certain presents of medicines and picture-books which he had brought
+for her in a corner of his knapsack.
+
+For two nights the travellers slept in a row on their hay bed; for two
+long-remembered days the five boys roamed the country round the
+clearing, starting deer, catching glimpses of a wildcat, a marten or
+two, and of another coon. Then came, to use Dol's expression, "the
+beastly nuisance of saying good-by."
+
+Dr. Phil was obliged to return to Greenville; and he declared that now
+he must surely start his nephews homeward, for Royal expected to
+graduate from the High School during the following year, and to let him
+waste more time from study would be questionable kindness. Joe Flint of
+course would go back with his party. And here Cyrus paid Uncle Eb's fees
+for guiding, and dismissed him too.
+
+Only a dozen miles of tolerably easy travelling now separated Garst and
+his English comrades from the camp on Millinokett Lake, where they were
+to meet the redoubtable Herb Heal. The settler, knowing this tract of
+country as thoroughly as he knew his own few fields, offered to lead our
+trio for the first half of their onward march; and as they could follow
+a plain trail for the remainder of the way, they had no further need of
+their guide's services. They promised to visit Eb at his bark hut on
+their return journey, to bid him a final farewell, and hear one more
+stave of:--
+
+  "Ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!"
+
+"Good-by, you lucky fellows!" said Royal Sinclair huskily, as he gripped
+Neal's hand, then Dol's, in a brotherly squeeze when the hour of parting
+came. "I wish I was going on with you. We've had a stunning good time
+together, haven't we? And we'll run across each other in these woods
+some time or other again, I know! You'll never feel satisfied to stay in
+England, where there's nothing to hunt but hares and foxes, after
+chasing bears and moose."
+
+"Oh! we'll come out here again, depend upon it," answered Neal. "Drop me
+a line occasionally, won't you, Roy? Here's our Manchester address."
+
+"I will, if you'll do the same."
+
+"Agreed. Good-by again, old fellow!"
+
+"I've got the slip of birch-bark and the horn safe in my knapsack, Doc,"
+Dol was saying meanwhile, feeling his eyes getting leaky as he bade
+farewell to the doctor. "I--I'll keep them as long as I live."
+
+Doctor Phil had been as good as his word. He had made Joe rip the slip
+of white bark, with the rude writing on it, off the pine-tree near the
+swamp, and had presented it to Dol ere the boy quitted his camp.
+
+"Well, confusion to partings anyhow!" broke in Joe. "Don't like 'em a
+bit. Hope you'll get that bear-skin safe to England, Neal. When you show
+it to your folks at home, tell 'em Joe Flint said he knew one Britisher
+who would make a woodsman if he got a chance. Don't you forgit it."
+
+"Good-by," said the doctor, as he clasped in turn the hands of the
+departing three. "Good luck to you, boys! Keep your souls as straight as
+your bodies, and you'll be a trio worth knowing. We'll meet again some
+day; I'm sure of it."
+
+Martin and Will were chirping farewells, and lamenting that they would
+have no more chances of studying water-snakes in sedgy pools with Dol.
+Amid cheers and waving of hats the campers separated.
+
+"Forward, Company Three!" cried Cyrus encouragingly, stepping briskly
+ahead, his comrades following. "Now for a sight of the 'Jabberwock' of
+the forest, the mighty moose. Hurrah for the wild woods and all
+woodsmen!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+A LUCKY HUNTER.
+
+
+Amid cracking of jokes, and noise which would have disgraced a squad of
+Indians, "Company Three," as Cyrus dubbed his reduced band, reached the
+crowning-point of their journey, the log camp on the shore of
+Millinokett Lake.
+
+During the first half-dozen miles of the way, though each one manfully
+did his best to be lively, a sense of loss made their fun flat and
+pointless. Royal's tear-away tongue, his brothers' racket, Joe's racy
+talk, Uncle Eb's kind, dark face, and more than all, Doc's
+companionship, which was as tonic to the hearts of those who travelled
+with him, were missed.
+
+But spirits must be elastic in forest air. When they halted at noon to
+eat their "snack" on the side of a breezy knoll, with a tiny brook
+purling through a pine grove beneath them, with Katahdin's rugged sides
+and cloud-veiled peaks looming in majesty to the north, the thought of
+what lay behind was inevitably lost in what lay before. Enthusiasm
+replaced depression.
+
+"It's no use grizzling because we can't have those fellows with us all
+the time," remarked Neal philosophically. "'Twas a big piece of luck our
+running against them at all. And I've a sort of feeling that this won't
+be the end of it; we'll come across them again some day or other."
+
+"And at all events we'll probably get a sight of Doc at Greenville as we
+go back," said Dol, to whom this was no small comfort.
+
+"Well, needless to say, I'd have been glad of their company for the rest
+of the trip. But still, if they had taken a notion to come on with us,
+it would have reduced to nothing our chances of seeing a moose. We're a
+big party already for moose-calling or stalking--three of us, with
+Herb;" this from Cyrus.
+
+"Now, fellows, don't you think we'd better get a move on us?" added the
+leader. "We've half a dozen miles to do yet; but the trail begins right
+here, and is clearly blazed all the way to our camp. Let's keep a stiff
+upper lip, and the journey will soon be over."
+
+It was very delightful to sit there in the crisp October air, with the
+brook seemingly humming tender legends of the woods, which witless men
+could not translate, with an uncertain breeze playing through the newly
+fallen maple-leaves, now turning them one by one in lazy curiosity, then
+of a sudden making them caper and swirl in a scarlet merry-go-round.
+Still, the young Farrars were not loath to move on. Now that they were
+nearing the climax of their journey, their minds were full of Herb Heal.
+Their longing to meet this lucky hunter grew with each mile which drew
+them nearer to him.
+
+They pressed hard after their leader, looking neither right nor left,
+while he carefully followed the trail; and one hour's tramping brought
+them to the shores of Millinokett Lake.
+
+Here, despite their eagerness to reach their new camp, they were forced
+to stop and admire the great sheet of forest-bound water, smiling back
+the sky in tints of turquoise and pearl, dotted with apparently
+countless islets, like specks upon the face of a mirror.
+
+The irregular shores of the lake were broken by "logons," narrow little
+bays curving into the land, shining arms of water, sometimes bordered by
+evergreens, sometimes by graceful poplars and birches. From the opposite
+bank the woods stretched away in undulating waves of ridge and valley to
+the foot of Mount Katahdin, which still showed grandly to the northward.
+
+"Millinokett Lake," said Cyrus, prolonging the syllables with a soft,
+liquid sound. "It's an Indian name, boys; it signifies 'Lake of
+Islands.' Whatever else the red men can boast of, the music of their
+names is unequalled. I don't know exactly how many of those islets there
+are, but I believe Millinokett has over two hundred of them anyhow. Our
+camp is on the western shore. Shall we be moving?"
+
+After skirting the water for another mile or two, the travellers reached
+a broad, open tract, bare of timber. At the farther end of this clearing
+were two log cabins, low, but very roomy, situated at a distance of a
+few hundred yards from the lake, with a background of splendid firs and
+spruces, the lively green of the latter making the former look black in
+contrast.
+
+"Is that our camp? How perfectly glorious!" boomed Neal and Dol
+together.
+
+"It's our camp, sure enough," answered Garst, with no less enthusiasm.
+"At least the first cabin will be ours. I don't know whether there are
+any hunters in the other one just now."
+
+The log shanties had been put up by an enterprising settler to
+accommodate sportsmen who might penetrate to this far part of the wilds
+in search of moose or caribou. Cyrus had arranged for the use of one
+during the months of October and November. Here it was that Herb Heal
+had engaged to await him. And as he had commissioned this famous guide
+to stock the camp with all such provisions as could be procured from
+neighboring settlements, such as flour, potatoes, pork, etc., he
+expected to slide into the lap of luxury.
+
+In one sense he did. When the trio, their hearts thumping with
+anticipation, reached the low door of the first cabin, they found it
+securely fastened on the outside, so that no burglar-beast could force
+an entrance, but easily opened by man. Cyrus hurriedly undid the bolts,
+and stepped under the log roof, followed by his comrades. The camp was
+in beautiful order, clean, well-stocked, and provided with primitive
+comforts. An enticing-looking bed of fresh fir-boughs was arranged in a
+sort of rude bunk which extended along one side of the cabin, having a
+head-board and foot-board. The latter was fitted to form a bench as
+well. A man might perch on it, and stretch his toes to the fire in the
+great stone fireplace only two feet distant.
+
+The boys could well imagine that this would make an ideal seat for a
+hunter at night, where he might lazily fill his pipe and tell big yarns,
+while the winter storm howled outside, and snow-flurries drifted against
+his log walls. But they looked at it wistfully now, for it was empty.
+There was no figure of a moccasined forest hero on bench or in bunk.
+There was no Herb Heal.
+
+"Bless the fellow! Where on earth is he?" Garst exclaimed. "He's been
+here, you see, and has the camp provisioned and ready. Perhaps he's only
+prowling about in the woods near. I'll give him a 'Coo-hoo!'"
+
+[Illustration: "HERB HEAL."]
+
+He stepped forth from the cabin to the middle of the clearing, and sent
+his voice ringing out in a distance-piercing hail. He loaded his rifle
+and blazed away with it, firing a volley of signal-shots.
+
+Neither shout nor shots brought him any answer.
+
+The second cabin was likewise empty, and, judging from the withered
+remains of a bed, had evidently been long unused.
+
+"Well, fellows!" said the leader, with manifest chagrin, "we'll only
+have to fix up something to eat, make ourselves comfortable, and wait
+patiently until our guide puts in an appearance. Herb Heal never broke
+an engagement yet. He's as faithful a fellow as ever made camp or
+spotted a trail in these forests. And he promised to wait for me here
+from the first of October, as it was uncertain when I might arrive. I'm
+mighty hungry. Who'll go and fetch some water from the lake while I turn
+cook?"
+
+Dol volunteered for this business, and brought a kettle from the cabin.
+He found it near the hearth, on which a fire still flickered, side by
+side with a frying-pan and various articles of tinware. Cyrus rolled up
+his sleeves, took the canisters of tea and coffee with other small
+stores from his knapsack, proceeded to mix a batter for flapjacks, and
+showed himself to be a genius with the pan.
+
+The meal was soon ready. The food might be a little salt and greasy; but
+camp-hunger, after a tramp of a dozen miles, is not dulled by such
+trifles. The trio ate joyously, washing the fare down with big draughts
+of tea, rather fussily prepared by Neal, which might have "done credit
+to many a Boston woman's afternoon tea-table"--so young Garst said.
+
+Yet from time to time longing looks were cast at the low camp-door. And
+when daylight waned, when stars began to glint in a sky which was a
+mixture of soft grays and downy whites like a dove's plumage, when the
+islets on Millinokett's bosom became black dots on a slate-gray sheet,
+and no laden hunter with rifle and game put in an appearance, even Cyrus
+became fidgety and anxious.
+
+"I hope the fellow hasn't come to grief somewhere in the woods," he
+said, while a shiver of apprehension shot down his back. "But Herb has
+had so many hairbreadth escapes that I believe the animal has yet to be
+born which could get the better of him. And he can find his way anywhere
+without a compass. Every handful of moss on a trunk or stone, every
+turn of a woodland stream, every sun-ray which strikes him through the
+trees, every glimpse of the stars at night, has a meaning for him. He
+reads the forest like a book. No fear of his getting lost anyhow. Come,
+boys, I guess we'd better build up our fire, make things snug for the
+night, and turn in."
+
+Rather dejectedly the trio set about these preparations. In twenty
+minutes' time they were stretched side by side in the wide bunk, with
+their blankets cuddled round them, already venting random snores.
+
+"Hello! So you've got here at last, have you?"
+
+The exclamations were loud and snappy, and awoke the sleeping campers
+like the banging of rifle-shots. With jumping pulses they sprang up,
+feeling a wave of cold air sweep their faces; for the cabin-door, which
+they had closed ere lying down, was now ajar.
+
+The camp was almost in darkness. Only one dull, red ray stole out from
+the fire, on which fresh logs had been piled. But while the young
+Farrars rubbed their sleep-dimmed eyes, and slowly realized that the
+woodsman whom they had been expecting had at last arrived, a strangely
+brilliant illumination lit up the log walls.
+
+This sudden and bewildering light showed them the figure of a hunter in
+mud-spattered gray trousers, with coarse woollen stockings of lighter
+hue drawn over them above his buckskin moccasins. His battered felt hat
+was pushed back from his forehead, a guide's leathern wallet was slung
+round him, and the rough, clinging jersey he wore, being stretched so
+tightly over his swelling muscles that its yarn could not hold together,
+had a rent on one shoulder.
+
+His slate-gray eyes with jetty pupils, which were miniatures of
+Millinokett Lake at this hour, gazed at the awakened trio in the bunk,
+with a gleam of light shooting athwart them, like a moonbeam crossing
+the face of the lake.
+
+The hunter held in his hand a big roll of the inflammable paper-like
+bark of the white birch-tree, which he had brought in with him to kindle
+his fire, expecting that it had gone out during his absence. Seeing a
+glow still on the hearth, and feeling instantly that the cabin was
+tenanted, he had applied a match to his bark, causing the vivid flare
+which revealed him to the eyes of those who had longed for his
+presence.
+
+"Herb Heal, man, is it you?" shouted Cyrus, his voice like a midnight
+joy-chime, as he sprang from the fir-boughs and gripped the woodsman's
+arm. "I'm delighted to see you, though I was ready to swear you wouldn't
+disappoint us! I didn't fasten the cabin-door, for I thought you might
+possibly get back to camp during the night."
+
+"Cyrus, old fellow, how goes it?" was Herb's greeting. "I had a'most
+given up looking for you. But I'm powerful glad you've got here at
+last."
+
+The hunter's voice had still the quick snap and force which made it
+startling as a rifleshot when he entered the cabin.
+
+"These are my friends, Neal and Adolphus Farrar," said Cyrus,
+introducing the blanketed youths, who had now risen to their feet.
+"Boys, this is Herb Heal, our new guide, christened Herbert Healy--isn't
+that so, Herb?"
+
+"I reckon it is;" answered the young hunter, laughing. "But no woodsman
+could spring a sugary, city-sounding name like that on me. I've been
+Herb Heal from the day I could handle a rifle."
+
+He nodded pleasantly as he spoke to the strange lads, and began to chat
+with them in prompt familiarity, looking straight and strong as a young
+pine-tree in the halo of his birch torch. Garst, whose inches his
+juniors had hitherto coveted, was but a stripling beside Herb Heal.
+
+"Is this your first trip into Maine woods, younkers?" he asked. "Well, I
+guess you've come to the right place for sport. I'm sorry I wasn't on
+hand to welcome you when you arrived. A pretty forest guide you must
+have thought me. But I guess I'll show you a sight to-morrow that'll
+wipe out all scores."
+
+There was such triumph in the hunter's eye that the voices of the trio
+blended into one as they breathlessly asked,--
+
+"What sight is it?"
+
+"A dead king o' the woods, boys," answered Herb Heal, his voice
+vibrating. "A fine young bull-moose, as sure as this is a land of
+liberty. I dropped him by a logon on the east bank of Fir Pond, about
+four miles from here. I started out early, hoping to nab a deer; for I
+had no fresh meat left, and I didn't want to have a bare larder when you
+fellows came along. But the woods were awful still. There didn't seem to
+be anything bigger than a field-mouse travelling. Then all of a sudden
+I heard a tormented grunting, and the moose came tearing right onto me.
+I was to leeward of him, so he couldn't get my scent. A man's gun
+doesn't take long to fly into position at such times, and I dropped him
+with two shots. There he lies now by the water, for I couldn't get him
+back to camp till morning. He's not full-grown; but he's a fine fellow
+for all that, and has a dandy pair of antlers. By George! I'd give the
+biggest guide's fees I ever got if you fellows had been there to hear
+him striking the trees with 'em as he tore along. He was a buster.
+
+"But you'll see him to-morrow anyhow, and have a taste of moose-meat for
+the first time in your lives, I guess."
+
+Here Herb waved the fag-end of his bark roll, threw it down as it
+scorched his horny fingers, and stamped upon it.
+
+The interior of the log cabin, ere it was extinguished, was a scene for
+a painter,--the lithe, muscular figure, tanned face, and gleaming eyes
+of the lucky hunter shown by the flare of his birch torch, and the three
+staring listeners, with blankets draped about them, who feared to miss
+one point of his story.
+
+Cyrus was grinding his teeth in vexation that he had narrowly missed
+seeing the moose alive. The two Farrars were burning with excitement at
+the thought of beholding the monarch of the forest at all, even in
+death. For they had heard enough wood-lore to know that the bull-moose,
+with his extreme caution, is like a tantalizing phantom to hunters.
+Continually he lures them to disappointment by his uncouth noises, or by
+a sight of his freshly made tracks, while his sensitive ears and
+super-sensitive nose, which can discriminate between the smell of man
+and every other smell on earth, will generally lead him off like a
+wind-gust before man gets a sight of him.
+
+"I'm sorry to keep you awake, boys," said Herb Heal, making for the
+fire, after he had finished his story; "but I haven't had a bite since
+morning, and I'm that hungry I could chaw my moccasins. I'll get
+something to eat, and then we'll turn in. We'll have mighty hard work
+to-morrow, getting the moose to camp."
+
+Herb was not long in making ready the stereotyped camp-fare of flapjacks
+and pork. To light his preparations, he took a candle out of a precious
+bundle which he had brought from a town a hundred miles distant, and
+set it in a primitive candlestick. This was simply a long stick of white
+spruce wood, one end of which was pointed, and stuck into the ground;
+the other was split, and into it the candle was inserted, the elasticity
+of the fresh wood keeping the light in place.
+
+The tired hunter did not dawdle over his supper. In a quarter of an hour
+he had finished it, and was building up the fire again. Then he
+stretched himself beside the trio in the rude bunk, drawing one thin
+blanket over him. Neal, who lay on his right, was conscious of some
+prickings of excitement at having such a bedfellow on the
+fir-boughs,--the camper's couch which levels all. There flashed upon the
+fair-haired English boy a remembrance of how Cyrus had once said that
+"in the woods manhood is the only passport." He thought that, measured
+by this standard, Herb Heal had truly a royal charter, and might be a
+president of the forest land; for he looked as free, strong, and
+unconquerable as the forest wind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+A FALLEN KING.
+
+
+The hunter was the only one who slept soundly that night on the fragrant
+boughs. Nevertheless, the moose was on his mind. Again in his dreams he
+imagined himself back by the quiet, shining logon, listening to the ring
+of the antlers as they struck the trees, and to the heaving snorts and
+deep grunts of the noble game as it tore through the forest to its
+death.
+
+The moose was on the minds of his companions too. Again and again they
+awoke, and pictured him lying by the pond, where he had fallen,--a dead
+monarch. They tossed and grumbled, longing for day.
+
+Neal and Dol surprised themselves and their elders by being up and
+dressed shortly after five, before a streak of light had entered the
+cabin. But their guide was not much behind them. Herb had the camp-fire
+going well, and was preparing breakfast before six o'clock. The campers
+tucked away a substantial meal of fried pork, potatoes, and coffee. The
+first glories of the young sun fell on their way as they started across
+the clearing and away through the woods beyond, towards the distant pond
+where the hunter had got his moose.
+
+Lying amid the small growth and grasses, by a lonely, glinting logon,
+they found the conquered king, sleeping that sleep from which never sun
+again would wake him. A bullet-hole, crusted with dark blood, showed in
+his side. The slim legs were bent and stiff, and the mighty forefeet
+could no more strike a ripping blow which would end a man's hunting
+forever. The antlers which had made the forest ring were powerless horn.
+
+"Do you know, boys," said Herb, as he stooped and touched them,
+fingering each prong, "I've hunted moose in fall and winter since I was
+first introduced to a rifle. I've still-hunted 'em, called 'em, and
+followed 'em on snowshoes; but I never felt so thundering mean about
+killing an animal as I did about dropping this fellow. After his antics
+in the woods, when he tramped out onto the open patch where I was
+waiting under cover of those shrubs, I popped up and covered him with my
+Winchester. He just raised the hair on his back and looked at me, with a
+way wild animals sometimes have, as if I was a bad riddle. Like as not
+he'd never seen a human being before, and a moose's eyes ain't good for
+much as danger-signals. It's only when he hears or smells mischief that
+he gets mad scared.
+
+[Illustration: A FALLEN KING.]
+
+"Well, I was out for meat, and bound to have it; so I pulled the
+trigger, and killed him with two shots. When the first bullet stung him
+he reared up, making a sharp noise like a wounded horse. Then he swung
+round as if to bolt; but the second went straight through his heart, and
+he fell where you see him now. I made sure that he was past kicking, and
+crept close to his head, thinking he was dead. He wasn't quite gone,
+though; for he saw me, and laid back his ears, the last pitiful sign a
+moose makes when a hunter gets the better of him. I tell you it made me
+feel bad--just for a minute. I've got my moose for this season, and I'm
+sort o' glad that the law won't let me kill another unless it's a
+life-saving matter."
+
+"How tall should you say this fellow was when alive?" asked Cyrus,
+stroking the creature's shaggy hair, which was a rusty black in color.
+
+"Oh! I guess he stood about as high as a good-sized pony. But I've shot
+moose which were taller than any horse. The biggest one I ever killed
+measured between seven and eight feet from the points of his hoofs to
+his shoulders, and the antlers were four feet and nine inches from tip
+to tip. He was a monster--a regular jing-swizzler! A mighty queer way I
+got him too! I'll tell you all about it some other time."
+
+"Oh! you must," answered Garst. "You'll have to give us no end of
+moose-talk by the camp-fire of evenings. These English fellows want to
+learn all they can about the finest game on our continent before they go
+home."
+
+"Why, for evermore!" gasped Herb, in broad amazement. "Are you
+Britishers? And have you crossed the ocean to chase moose in Maine
+woods? My word! You're a gamy pair of kids. We'll have to try to
+accommodate you with a sight of a moose at any rate--a live one."
+
+Though they would gladly have appropriated the compliment, the "gamy
+kids" were obliged to acknowledge that hunting had not been in their
+thoughts when they traversed the Atlantic. But they avowed that they
+were the luckiest fellows alive, and that the American forest-land, with
+its camps and trails and wild offspring, was such a glorious old
+playground that they would never stop singing its praises until a swarm
+of boys from English soil had tasted the novel pleasures which they
+enjoyed.
+
+"Now, then, gentlemen!" said the guide, "I haven't much idea that we'll
+be able to haul this moose along to camp whole. If I skin and dress him
+here, are you all ready to help in carrying home the meat?"
+
+The trio briskly expressed their willingness, and Herb began the
+dissecting business; while from a tree near by that strange bird which
+hunters call the "moose-bird" screamed its shrill "What cheer? What
+cheer?" with ceaseless persistence.
+
+"Oh, hold your noise, you squalling thing!" said the guide, answering it
+back. "It's good cheer this time. We'll have a feast of moose-meat
+to-night, and there'll be pickings for you."
+
+He then explained, for the benefit of the English lads, that this bird,
+whose cry is startlingly like the hunters' translation of it, haunts the
+spot where a moose has been killed, waiting greedily for its meal off
+the creature after men have taken their share of the meat. Herb declared
+that it had often followed him for hours while he was stealthily
+tracking a moose, to be in at the death. And now it kept up the din of
+its unceasing question until he had finished his disagreeable work.
+
+As the party started back to camp, each one weighted with forty pounds
+or more of meat, Herb carrying a double portion, with the antlers hooked
+upon his shoulders, they heard the moose-bird still insatiably shrieking
+"What cheer?" over its meal.
+
+"Say, boys," said the guide, as he stalked along with his heavy load,
+never blenching, "if you want to get a pair o' moose-antlers, now's your
+time. I ain't a-going to sell these, but I'll give 'em outright to the
+first fellow who can learn to call a moose successfully while he's
+hunting with me. I know what sort of sportsman Cyrus Garst is. He'll go
+prowling through the woods, starting moose and coolly letting 'em get
+off without spilling a drop of blood, while he's watching the length of
+their steps. I b'lieve he'd be a sight prouder of seeing one crunch a
+root than if he got the finest head in Maine. So here's your chance for
+a trophy, boys. I guess 'twill be your only one."
+
+"Hurrah! I'm in for this game!" cried Neal.
+
+"I too," said Cyrus.
+
+"I'm in for it with a vengeance!" whooped Dol. "Though I'm blessed if
+I've a notion what 'calling a moose' means."
+
+"How much have you larned, anyhow, Kid, in the bit o' time you've been
+alive?" asked the woodsman, with good-humored sarcasm.
+
+"Enough to make my fists talk to anybody who thinks I'm a duffer,"
+answered Dol, squaring his shoulders as if to make the most of himself.
+
+"Good for you, young England!" laughed Cyrus.
+
+Herb turned his eyes, and regarded the juvenile Adolphus with amused
+criticism.
+
+"Britisher or no Britisher, I'll allow you're a little man," he
+muttered. "Keep a stiff upper lip, boys; we're not far from camp now."
+
+A word of cheer was needed. Not one of the trio had growled at their
+load, but the flannel shirts of the two Farrars clung wetly to their
+bodies. Their breath was coming in hard puffs through spread nostrils. A
+four-mile tramp through the woods, heavily laden with raw meat, was a
+novel but not an altogether delightful experience.
+
+However, the smell of moose-steak frying over their camp-fire later on
+fully compensated them for acting as butcher's boys. When the taste as
+well as the smell had been enjoyed, the rest which followed by the
+blazing birch-logs that evening was so full of bliss that each camper
+felt as if existence had at last drifted to a point of superb content.
+
+Their camp-door stood open for ventilation; and a keen touch of frost,
+mingling with the night air which entered, made the fragrant warmth
+delightful.
+
+When supper was ended, and the tin vessels from which it had been eaten,
+together with all camp utensils, were duly cleaned, Herb seated himself
+on the middle of the bench, which he called "the deacon's seat," and
+luxuriously lit his oldest pipe. His brawny hands had performed every
+duty connected with the meal as deftly and neatly as those of a
+delicate-fingered woman.
+
+"Well, for downright solid comfort, boys, give me a cosey camp-fire in
+the wilderness, when a fellow is tired out after a good day's outing.
+City life can offer nothing to touch it," said Cyrus, as he spread his
+blankets near the cheerful blaze, and sprawled himself upon them.
+
+Neal and Dol followed his example. The three looked up at their guide,
+on whose weather-tanned face the fire shed wavering lights, in lazy
+expectation.
+
+"Now, Herb," said Garst, "we want to think of nothing but moose for the
+remainder of this trip; so go ahead, and give us some moose-talk
+to-night. Begin at the beginning, as the children say, and tell us
+everything you know about the animal."
+
+Herb Heal swung himself to and fro upon his plank seat, drawing his pipe
+reflectively, and letting its smoke filter through his nostrils, while
+he prepared to answer.
+
+"Well," he said at last, slowly, "it seems to me that a moose is a
+troublesome brute to tackle, however you take him. It's plaguy hard for
+a hunter to get the better of him, and if it's only knowledge you're
+after, he'll dodge you like a will-o'-the-wisp till you get pretty mixed
+in your notions about his habits. I guess these English fellows know
+already that he's the largest animal of the deer tribe, or any other
+tribe, to be seen on this continent, and as grand game as can be found
+on any spot of this here earth. I hain't had a chance to chase lions an'
+tigers; but I've shot grizzlies over in Canada,--and that's scarey work,
+you better b'lieve!--and I tell you there's no sport that'll bring out
+the grit and ingenuity that's in a man like moose-hunting. Now, boys,
+ask me any questions you like, an' I'll try to answer 'em."
+
+"You said something to-day about moose 'crunching twigs,'" began Neal
+eagerly. "Why, I always had a hazy idea that they fed on moss
+altogether, which they dug up in the winter with their broad antlers."
+
+"Land o' liberty!" ejaculated the woodsman. "Where on earth do you city
+men pick up your notions about forest creatures--that's what I'd like to
+know? A moose can't get its horns to the ground without dropping on its
+knees; and it can't nibble grass from the ground neither without
+sprawling out its long legs,--which for an animal of its size are as
+thin as pipe-stems,--and tumbling in a heap. So I don't credit that yarn
+about their digging up the moss, even when there's no other food to be
+had; though I can't say for sure it's not true. In summer moose feed
+about the ponds and streams, on the long grasses and lily-pads. They're
+at home in the water, and mighty fine swimmers; so the red men say that
+they came first from the sea.
+
+"In the fall, and through the winter too, so far as I can make out, they
+eat the twigs and bark of different trees, such as white birches and
+poplars. They're powerful fond of moose-wood--that's what you call
+mountain ash. I guess it tastes to them like pie does to us."
+
+"Well, Dol, I feel that you're twitching all over with some question,"
+said Cyrus, detecting uneasy movements on the part of the younger boy
+who lay next to him. "What is it, Chick? Out with it!"
+
+"I want to hear about moose-calling," so spoke Dol in heart-eager tones.
+
+The guide swung his body to the music of a jingling laugh.
+
+"Oh; that's it; is it?" he said. "You're stuck on winning those antlers;
+ain't you, Dol? Well, calling is the 'moose-hunter's secret,' and it's
+a secret that he don't want to give away to every one. When a man is a
+good caller he's kind o' jealous about keeping the trick to himself. But
+I'll tell you how it's done, anyhow, and give you a lesson sometime.
+Sakes alive! if you Britishers could only take over a birch-bark
+trumpet, and give that call in England, you'd make nearly as much fuss
+as Buffalo Bill did with his cowboys and Injuns. Only 'twould be a
+onesided game, for there'd be no moose to answer."
+
+The young Farrars were silent, breathlessly waiting for more. The
+camp-firelight showed their absorbed faces; it played upon bronzed
+cheeks, where the ruddy tints of English boyhood had been replaced by a
+duller, hardier hue. On Neal's upper lip a fine, fair growth had
+sprouted, which looked white against his sun-tinged skin. As for Cyrus,
+he had never brought a razor into the woods since that memorable trip
+when the bear had overhauled his knapsack; so the Bostonian's chin was
+covered with a thick black stubble.
+
+Neither of the youths, however, was at present giving a thought to his
+hirsute adornment, about which questionable compliments were frequently
+bandied. Their minds were full of moose, and their ears alert for the
+guide's next words.
+
+"P'raps you folks don't know," went on the woodsman, "that there are
+four ways o' hunting moose. The first and fairest is still-hunting 'em
+in the woods, which means following their signs, and getting a shot in
+any way you can, _if_ you can. But that's a stiff 'if' to a hunter. Nine
+times out o' ten a moose will baffle him and get off unhurt, even when a
+man has tracked him for days, camping on his trail o' nights. The
+snapping of a twig not the size of my little finger, or one tramping
+step, and the moose'll take warning. He'll light out o' the way as
+silently as a red man in moccasins, and the hunter won't even know he's
+gone.
+
+"The second way is night-hunting, going after 'em in a canoe with a
+jack-light; same thing as jacking for deer. I guess you've tried that,
+so you'll know what it's like--skeery kind o' work."
+
+Neal nodded an eloquent assent, and Herb went on:--
+
+"The third method is a dog's trick. It's following 'em on snowshoes over
+deep snow. I've tried that once, and I'm blamed if I'll ever try it
+again. It's butchery, not sport. The crust of snow will be strong enough
+for a man to run on, but it can't support the heavy moose. The
+creature'll go smashing through it and struggling out, until its slim
+legs are a sight to see for cuts and blood. Soon it gets blowed, and can
+stumble no farther. Then the hunter finishes it with an axe."
+
+Disgust thickened the voices of the listening three, as with one accord
+they raised an outcry against this cruel way of butchering a game
+animal, without giving it a single chance for its life. When their
+indignation had subsided, the hunter went on to describe the fourth and
+last method of entrapping moose--the calling in which Dol was so
+interested.
+
+"P'raps you won't think this is fair hunting either," he said; "for it's
+a trick, and I'll allow that there's times when it seems a pretty mean
+game. Anyhow, I'd rather kill one moose by still-hunting than six by
+calling. But if you want to try work that'll make your blood race
+through your body like a torrent one minute, and turn you as cold as if
+your sweat was ice-water the next, you go in for moose-calling. I guess
+you know all about the matter, Cyrus; but as these Britishers do not,
+I'll try and explain it to' em.
+
+"Early in September the moose come up from the low, swampy lands where
+they have spent the summer alone, and begin to pair. Then the
+bull-moose, as we call the male, which is generally the most wide-awake
+of forest creatures, loses some of his big caution, an' goes roaming
+through the woods, looking for a mate. This is the time for fooling him.
+The hunter makes a horn out o' birch-bark, somewheres about eighteen
+inches long, through which he mimics the call of the cow-moose, to coax
+the bull within reach of his rifle-shots."
+
+"What is the call like?" asked Neal, his heart thumping while he
+remembered that strange noise which had marked a new era in his
+experience of sounds, as he listened to it at midnight by Squaw Pond.
+
+"Sho! a man might keep jawing till crack o' doom, and not give you any
+idea of it without you heard it," answered Herb Heal, the dare-all
+moose-hunter. "The noise begins sort o' gently, like the lowing of a
+tame cow. It seems, if you're listening to it, to come
+rolling--rolling--along the ground. Then it rises in pitch, and gets
+impatient and lonely and wild-like, till you think it fills the air
+above you, when it sinks again and dies away in a queer, quavery sound
+that ain't a sigh, nor a groan, nor a grunt, but all three together.
+
+"The call is mostly repeated three times; and the third time it ends
+with a mad roar as if the lady-moose was saying to her mate, '_Come_
+now, or stay away altogether!'"
+
+"Joe Flint was right, then!" exclaimed Neal, in high excitement. "That's
+the very noise I heard in the woods near Squaw Pond, on the night when
+we were jacking for deer, and our canoe capsized."
+
+"P'raps it was," answered Herb, "though the woods near Squaw Pond ain't
+much good for moose now. They're too full of hunters. Still, you might
+have heard the cow-moose herself calling, or some man who had come
+across the tracks of a bull imitating her."
+
+"But if the bull has such sharp ears, can't he tell the real call from
+the sham one?" asked Dol.
+
+"Lots of times he can. But if the hunter is an old woodsman and a clever
+caller, he'll generally fool the animal, unless he makes some awkward
+noise that isn't in the game, or else the moose gets his scent on the
+breeze. One whiff of a man will send the creature off like a wind-gust,
+and earthquakes wouldn't stop him. And though he sneaks away so
+silently when he _hears_ anything suspicious, yet when he _smells_
+danger he'll go through the forest at a thundering rush, making as much
+noise as a demented fire-brigade."
+
+"Good gracious!" ejaculated Neal and Dol together.
+
+"Is the moose ever dangerous, Herb?" asked the former.
+
+"I guess he is pretty often. Sometimes a bull-moose will turn on a
+hunter, and make at him full tilt, if he's in danger or finds himself
+tricked. And he'll always fight like fury to protect his mate from any
+enemy. The bulls have awful big duels between themselves occasionally.
+When they're real mad, they don't stop for a few wounds. They prod each
+other with their terrible brow antlers till one or the other of 'em is
+stretched dead. If a moose ever charges you, boys, take my advice, and
+don't try to face him with your rifles. Half a dozen shots mightn't stop
+him. Make for the nearest tree, and climb for your lives. Fire down on
+him then, if you can. But once let him get a kick at you with his
+forefeet, and one thing is sure--_you'll_ never kick again. Are you
+tired of moose-talk yet?"
+
+"Not by a jugful!" answered Cyrus, laughing. "But tell us, Herb, how are
+we to proceed to get a sight of this 'Jabberwock' alive?"
+
+"If to-morrow night happens to be dead calm, I might try to call one
+up," answered the guide. "There's a pretty good calling-place near the
+south end of the lake. As this is the height of the season, we might get
+an answer there. We'll try it, anyhow, if you're willing."
+
+"Willing! I should say we are!" answered Garst. "You're our captain now,
+Herb, and it's a case of 'Follow my leader!' Take us anywhere you like,
+through jungles or mud-swamps. We won't kick at hardships if we can only
+get a good look at his mooseship. Up to the present, except for that one
+moonlight peep, he has always dodged me like a phantom."
+
+"Are you going to be satisfied with a look?" The guide's eyes narrowed
+into two long slits, on which the firelight quivered, as he gazed
+quizzically down upon Cyrus. "If the moose comes within reach of our
+shots, ain't anybody going to pump lead into him? Or is he to get off
+again scot-free? I've got my moose for this season, and I darsn't send
+my bullets through the law by dropping another, so I can't do the
+shooting."
+
+"My friends can please themselves," said the Bostonian, glancing at the
+English lads. "For my own part I'll be better pleased if Mr. Moose
+manages to keep a whole skin. Our grand game is getting scarce enough; I
+don't want to lessen it. I once saw the last persecuted deer in a
+county, after it had been badgered and wounded by men and dogs, limp off
+to die alone in its native haunts. The sight cured me of bloodthirst."
+
+"I guess 'twould be enough to cure any man," responded Herb. "And we
+don't want meat, so this time we won't shoot our moose after we've
+tricked him. Good land! I wouldn't like any fellow to imitate the call
+of my best girl, that he might put a bullet through me. Come, boys, it's
+pretty late; let's fix our fire, and turn in."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+MOOSE-CALLING.
+
+
+Nothing was talked about among the campers on the following day but the
+forthcoming sport of the evening--moose-calling.
+
+Herb Heal had decided that his call should be given from the water, his
+"good calling-place" being an alder-fringed logon at the loneliest
+extremity of the lake.
+
+During the afternoon he took Neal and Dol with him into a grove of
+poplars and birches which bordered one end of the clearing, leaving
+Cyrus lounging by the camp-fire. Here the woodsman began the exciting
+work of preparing his birch-bark horn, that primitive but potent trumpet
+through which he would sigh, groan, grunt, and roar, imitating each
+varying mood of the cow-moose. To her call he had often listened as he
+lay for hours on a mossy bed in the far depths of the forest, learning
+to interpret the language of every woodland creature.
+
+Unsheathing his hunting-knife, and selecting a sound white-birch tree,
+Herb carefully removed from it a piece of bark about eighteen inches in
+length and six in width. This he carefully trimmed, and rolled into a
+horn as a child would twist paper into a cornucopia package for sweets,
+tying it with the twine-like roots of the ground juniper. The tapering
+end of the trumpet, which would be applied to the caller's lips,
+measured about one inch across; its mouth measured five.
+
+Returning to camp, Herb dipped the horn in warm water and then let it
+dry, saying that this would produce a mellow ring. He stoutly refused
+all appeals from the boys to give them a few illustrations of
+moose-calling there and then, with a lesson in the art, declaring that
+it would spoil the night's sport, and that they must first hear the call
+amid proper surroundings. From time to time he impressed upon them that
+they were going to engage in an expedition which required absolute
+silence and clever stratagem to make it successful. He vowed to wreak a
+woodsman's vengeance on any fellow who balked it by shaking the boat, or
+by moving body or rifle so as to make a noise.
+
+A light, humming breeze had been blowing all day; but as the afternoon
+waned, it died down. The evening proved clear, chilly, and still.
+
+"Is this a likely night for calling, Herb?" asked Cyrus anxiously,
+taking a survey of sky and lake from the camp-door about an hour before
+the start.
+
+"Fine," answered Herb with satisfaction. "Guess we'll get an answer
+sure, if there's a moose within hearing. There ain't a puff of wind to
+carry our scent, and give the trick away. But rig yourselves up in all
+the clothing you've got, boys; the cold, while we're waiting, may be
+more than you bargain for."
+
+The guide had a light boat on the lake, moored below the camp. At six
+o'clock he seated himself therein, taking the oars in his brawny hands.
+Cyrus and Neal took their places in the stern; while Dol disposed of
+himself snugly in the bow, right under a jack-lamp which Herb had
+carefully trimmed and lit. But he had closed its sliding door, which,
+being padded with buckskin, could be opened and shut without a sound, so
+that not a ray of light at present escaped.
+
+"Moose won't stand to watch a jack as deer do," he said. "Twill only
+scare 'em off. They're a heap too cute to be taken in by an onnatural
+big star floating over the water. But 'taint the lucky side of the moon
+for us. She'll rise late, and her light'll be so feeble that it wouldn't
+show us an elephant clearly if he was under our noses. So if I succeed
+in coaxing a bull to the brink of the water, I'll open the jack, and
+flash our light on him. He'll bolt the next minute as quick as greased
+lightning on skates; but if you only get a short sight of him, I promise
+that 'twill be one you'll remember."
+
+"And if he should take a notion to come for us?" said Cyrus.
+
+"He won't, if we don't fire. The boat will be lying among the black
+shadows, snug in by the bank, and he'll see nothing but the dazzling
+light. But you fellows must keep still as death. Off we go now, boys,
+and mum's the word!"
+
+This was almost the last sentence spoken. Not a syllable moved the lips
+of any one of the four, as the boat glided away from camp towards the
+south end of the lake, the oars making scarcely a sound as Herb handled
+them. By and by he ceased rowing for an instant, took his pipe from his
+mouth, knocked out its ashes, and put it in his pocket with a wise look
+at his companions, murmuring, "Don't want no tobacco incense floating
+around!"
+
+At the same time, from a distant ridge upon the eastern shore, covered
+with evergreens which stood out like dark steeples against the evening
+sky, came a faint, dull noise, as if some belated woodsman was driving a
+blunt axe against a tree. The sound itself would scarcely have awakened
+a hope of anything unusual in the minds of the inexperienced; but,
+combined with the guide's aspect as he pocketed his pipe, it made Cyrus
+and his comrades sit suddenly erect, listening as if ears were the only
+organs they possessed.
+
+The queer, dull noise was once repeated. Then again there was silence
+almost absolute, Herb's oars moving with the softest swish imaginable,
+as the boat skimmed along the lonely, curved bay which he had chosen for
+a calling-place. It came to a stop amid shadows so dense and black that
+they seemed almost tangible, close to a bank fringed with overhanging
+bushes, having a background of evergreens. These last, in the
+fast-gathering darkness, looked like a sable array of mourners in whose
+ranks a pale ghost or two mingled, the spectres being slim white-birch
+trees.
+
+The opposite bank presented a similar scene.
+
+It was amid such surroundings that Neal Farrar heard for the second time
+in his life the weird sound of the moose-hunter's call. He was a strong,
+well-balanced young fellow; yet here again he knew the sensation as if
+needles were pricking him all over, which he had felt once before in
+these wilds, while his heart seemed to be performing athletic sports in
+his body.
+
+Cyrus and Dol confessed afterwards that they were "all shivers and
+goose-flesh" as the call rose upon the night air.
+
+After he had shipped his oars, and laid them down, Herb Heal noiselessly
+turned his body to face the bow, and took up the birch-bark horn which
+lay beside him. He breathed into it anxiously once or twice, then
+paused, drew in all the air which his big lungs could contain, put the
+trumpet again to his lips with its mouth pointing downward, and began
+his summons.
+
+The first part of the call lasted half a minute, or so, without a break.
+During its execution the hunter moved his neck and shoulders first to
+the left, then to the right, and slowly raised the horn above his head,
+the rolling, plaintive sounds with which he commenced gathering power
+and pitch with the ascending motion. As the birch trumpet pointed
+straight upward, they seemed to sweep aloft in a surging crescendo, and
+boom among the tree-tops.
+
+Carrying his head again to the left and right, Herb gradually lowered
+the horn until it was once more pointed towards the bottom of the boat,
+having in its movements described in the air a big figure of eight. The
+call sank with it, and died away in a lonely, sighing, quavering grunt.
+
+Two seconds' pause, two slow, great throbs of the boys' hearts, so loud
+that they threatened to burst the stillness.
+
+Then the call began again, low and grumbling. Again it rose, swelled,
+quavered, and sank, full of lonely longing.
+
+A third time it surged up, and ended abruptly in a wild, ear-splitting
+roar, which struck the tops of distant hills, and rolled off in
+thunder-like echoes among them.
+
+Silence followed. Not a gasp came from Herb after his efforts. Cyrus and
+the Farrars tried to still their heaving chests, while each quick breath
+was an expectation.
+
+An answer! Surely it was an answer! The boys never doubted it; though
+the responding sound they caught was only a repetition of that far-away
+chopping noise, which resembled the heavy thud of an axe against wood.
+This came nearer--nearer. It was followed once by a sort of short, sharp
+bark.
+
+Then the motionless occupants of the boat heard random, guttural grunts,
+a smashing of dead branches, crashing of undergrowth, and the proud ring
+of mighty antlers against the trees. The lord of the forest, a big
+bull-moose, was tearing recklessly through the woods towards the lake,
+in answer to the call of his imaginary mate.
+
+To say that the hearts of our trio were performing gymnastic feats
+during these awfully silent minutes of waiting, is to say little. All
+the repressed motion of their bodies seemed concentrated in these
+organs, which raced, leaped, stopped short, and pounded, vibrating to
+such questions as:--
+
+"Will he come? Where shall we first see him? How near is he now? Does he
+suspect the trick? Will he give us the slip after all?--_Has he gone_?"
+
+For of a sudden dead stillness reigned in the forest. No more trampling,
+grunting, and knocking of antlers. The spirits of the three sank to
+zero. Their breathing became thick. The blood, which a moment before had
+played like wildfire in their veins, now stirred sluggishly as if it was
+freezing. Disappointment, blank and bitter, shivered through them from
+neck to foot.
+
+So passed quarter of an hour. A filmy mist rose from the surface of the
+water, and drifted by their faces like the brushing of cold wings. For
+lack of motion hand and feet felt numb. Mid the pitch-black shadows,
+snug in by the bank, no man could see the face of his fellow, though the
+trio would have given a fortune to read their guide's. Not a word was
+spoken. Once, when a deep breath of impatience escaped him, Neal heard
+the folds of his coat rub each other, and clenched his teeth to stop an
+exclamation at the sound, which he had never noticed before.
+
+Nearly twenty minutes had elapsed since the last noise had been heard in
+the woods, when Herb took up the horn which he had laid down, and put
+it to his mouth. Again the call rolled up. It was neither loud nor long
+this time, ending with a quick, short roar.
+
+As it ceased the guide plunged his arm into the water and slowly
+withdrew it, letting drops dribble from his fingers.
+
+The novices could only suspect that this manoeuvre was another lure for
+the bull-moose, if he chanced to be still within hearing. Its success
+took their breath away.
+
+The wary bull which had answered, having doubtless harbored a suspicion
+that all was not exactly right with the first call, had halted in his
+on-coming rush, with head upreared, and nostrils spread, trying to catch
+any taint in the air which might warn him of danger. But in the dead
+calm the heavy evergreens stirred not; no whiff reached him. The second
+call upset his prudence. Then he heard that splash and dribble in the
+water, and imagined that his impatient mate was dipping her nose into
+the lake for a cool drink.
+
+A snort! A bellowing challenge quite indescribable! On he came again
+with a thundering rush!
+
+Bushes were thrashed and spurned by his sharp hoofs. Branches snapped.
+Trees echoed as his antlers struck them.
+
+A musk-rat leaped from the bank ahead, and dived to reach his hole in
+the bank. Under cover of the noisy splash which the little creature
+made, one whisper was hissed by Herb's tongue into the ears of his
+comrades. It was:--
+
+"Gee whittaker! he's a big one! Listen to them shovels against the
+trees!"
+
+A minute later, with a deep gulp of intense excitement, and a general
+racket as if an engine had broken loose from brakes and checks, and was
+carrying all before it, the monarch of the woods crashed through the
+alders and halted, with his hoofs in the water, scarcely thirty yards
+from where the boat lay in shadow.
+
+This was a supreme moment for our travellers. Leaning forward, fearful
+lest their heart-beats should betray them, they could barely distinguish
+the outlines of the moose, as he stood with his enormous nose high in
+air, giving vent to deep gulps and grunts, and looking to right and left
+in bewilderment for that cow which he had heard calling.
+
+For fully five minutes he stood thus, badly puzzled, now and again
+stamping a hoof, and scattering spray in rising wrath. Then Herb bent
+forward, shot out a long arm, and silently opened the jack.
+
+Meteor-like its silver light flashed forth, to reveal a sight which
+could never be wiped from the memories of the beholders, though it
+affected each of them differently.
+
+Herb Heal involuntarily gripped the loaded rifle which lay beside
+him,--he was too wary a woodsman to be unprepared for emergencies; but
+he did not cock it, for he remembered the law, and the bargain which he
+had made about to-night.
+
+Cyrus's eyes gleamed like fires in a face pale from eagerness, as he
+strove in a minute of time to take in every feature of the monster
+before him, from hoof to horn.
+
+Neal sat as if paralyzed.
+
+Dol--well, Dol lost his head a bit. A deep, throaty gulp, which was a
+weak reproduction of the sound made by the moose, as if the boy and the
+animal were sharing the same throes of excitement, burst from him. There
+was a rattle and struggle of his vocal organs, which in another second
+would have become a shout, had not Herb's masterful left hand gripped
+him. Its touch held in check the speech which Dol could no longer
+control.
+
+The moose was a big one, "about as big as they grow," as the guide
+afterwards declared. Under the jack-light he looked a regular behemoth.
+He must have been over seven feet high at the shoulders, for he was
+taller than the tallest horse the boys had ever seen. His black mane
+bristled. His antlers were thrown back. His great nose, with its dilated
+nostrils, looked as if it were drinking in every scent of the night
+world. His eyes had a green glare in them, as for ten seconds he gazed
+at the strange light which had suddenly burst into view, its silver
+radiance so dazzling him that he saw not the screened boat beneath.
+
+At the rash noise which Dol made his ears twitched. He splashed a step
+forward as if to investigate matters, seeing which, Herb held his
+Winchester in readiness to fly to his shoulder at a moment's notice. But
+the moose evidently regarded the jack-lamp as a supernatural, terrible
+phenomenon. He shrank from it as man might shrink beneath a flaming
+heaven.
+
+With one more despairing look right and left for that phantom cow which
+had deluded him, he wheeled around, and crashed back into the forest,
+tearing away more rapidly than he came.
+
+"He's off now, and Heaven knows when he'll stop!" said Herb, breaking
+the weird spell of silence. "Not till he reaches some lair where nary a
+creature could follow him. Well, boys, you've seen the grandest game on
+this continent, the king o' the woods. What do you think of him?"
+
+All tongues were loosened together. There was a general shifting of
+cramped bodies, accompanied by a gust of exclamations.
+
+"He was a monster!"
+
+"He was a behemoth!"
+
+"Oh! but you're a conjurer, Herb. How on earth did you give such a
+fetching call?"
+
+"I could never have believed that those sounds came from a human throat
+and a birch-bark horn, if I hadn't been sitting in the boat with you!"
+
+When there was a break in the excited chorus, Herb, without answering
+the compliments to his calling powers, asked quietly,--
+
+"Didn't you think we'd lost him, boys, when he stopped short in the
+middle of his rush, and you heard nothing?"
+
+"We just did," answered Cyrus. "That was the longest half-hour I ever
+put in. What made him do it?"
+
+"I guess he was kind o' criticising my music," said the guide, laughing.
+"Mebbe I got in a grunt or two that wasn't natural, and the old boy
+wasn't satisfied with his sweetheart's voice. He was sniffing the air,
+and waiting to hear more. But 'twasn't more 'n twenty minutes before I
+gave the second call, though no doubt it seemed longer to you. A man
+must be in good training to get the better of a moose's ears and nose."
+
+"I'm going to get the better of them before I leave these woods!" cried
+Dol, who was still puffing and gasping with intense excitement. "I'll
+learn to call up a moose, if I crack my windpipe in doing it."
+
+"Hurrah for the Boy Moose-Caller!" jeered Cyrus, with a teasing laugh,
+which Neal echoed.
+
+But Herb Heal, who had from the beginning regarded "the kid of the camp"
+with favor, suddenly became his champion.
+
+"Don't let 'em down you, Dol," he said. "I hate to hear a youngster, or
+a man, 'talk fire,' as the Injuns say, which means _brag_, if he's a
+coward or a chump; but I guess you ain't either. Here we are at camp,
+boys! I tell you the home-camp is a pleasant sort of place, after
+you've been out moose-calling!"
+
+Thereupon ensued loud cheers for the home-camp, the boys feeling that
+they were letting off steam, and atoning for that long spell of silence,
+which had been a positive hardship. In the midst of an echoing hubbub
+the boat was hauled up and moored, and the party reached their log
+shelter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+HERB'S YARNS.
+
+
+The following day was spent by our trio in exploring the woods near
+Millinokett Lake, in listening to more moose-talk, and in attempting the
+trick of calling. Herb gave them many persistent lessons, making the
+sounds which he had made on the preceding night, with and without the
+horn, and patiently explaining the varied language of grunts, groans,
+sighs, and roars in which the cow-moose indulges.
+
+Perhaps the woodsman expended extra pains on the teaching of his
+youngest pupil, whom he had championed. And certainly Dol's own talent
+for mimicry came to his aid. No matter to what cause the success was
+due, each one allowed that Dol made a brilliant attempt to get hold of
+"the moose-hunter's secret," and give a natural call.
+
+The boy had been a genius at imitating the voices of English birds and
+animals; many a trick had he played on his schoolfellows with his carols
+and howls. And his proficiency in this line was a good foundation on
+which to work.
+
+"You'll get there, boy," said Herb, surveying him with approval, as he
+stood outside the camp-door with the moose-horn to his lips. "Make
+believe that there's a moose on the opposite shore of the lake now, and
+give the whole call, from start to finish."
+
+Whereupon Dol slowly carried his head to left and right, as he had seen
+the guide do on the previous night, raising and lowering the horn until
+it had described an enormous figure of eight in the air, while he
+groaned, sighed, rasped, and bellowed with a plaintive intensity of
+expression, which caused his brother and his friend to shriek with
+laughter.
+
+"You'll get there, Kid," repeated the woodsman, with a great triumphant
+guffaw. "You'll be able to give a fetching call sooner than either of
+the others. But be careful how you use the trick, or you'll be having
+the breath kicked out of you some day by a moose's forefeet."
+
+For days afterwards, the birch-bark horn was rarely out of Dol Farrar's
+hands. The boy was so entranced with the new musical art he was
+mastering, which would be a means of communication between him and the
+behemoth of the woods, that he haunted the edges of the forest about the
+clearing, keeping aloof from his brother and friend, practising
+unceasingly, sometimes under Herb's supervision, sometimes alone. He
+learned to imitate every sound which the guide made, working in touching
+quavers and inflections that must tug at the heart-strings of any
+listening moose. He learned to give the call, squatting Indian fashion,
+in a very uncomfortable position, behind a screen of bushes. He learned
+to copy, not the cow's summons alone, but the bull's short challenge
+too; and to rasp his horn against a tree, in imitation of a moose
+polishing its antlers for battle.
+
+And now, for the first time, Dol Farrar of Manchester regarded his
+education as complete. He was prouder of this forest accomplishment,
+picked up in the wilds, than of all triumphs over problems and 'ologies
+at his English school. He had not been a laggard in study, either.
+
+But the finishing of Dol's education had one bad result. If there
+happened to be another moose travelling through the adjacent forests, he
+evidently thought that all this random calling was too much of a good
+thing, had his suspicions aroused, and took himself oft to wilder
+solitudes. Though the guide tried his powers in persuasive summons every
+night at various calling-places, he could not again succeed in getting
+an answer.
+
+At last, on a certain evening, after supper, a solemn camp-council was
+held around an inspiring fire, and Herb Heal suggested that if his party
+were really bent on seeing a moose again, before they turned their faces
+homeward, they had better rise early the following morning, shoulder
+their knapsacks, and set out to do a few days' hunting amid the dense
+woods near the base of Katahdin.
+
+"I killed the biggest bull-moose I ever saw, on Togue Ponds, in that
+region," said the guide meditatively; "and I got him in a queer way. I
+b'lieve I promised to tell you that yarn."
+
+"Of course you did!"
+
+"Let's have it!"
+
+"Go ahead, Herb! Don't shorten it!"
+
+Thus encouraged by the eager three, the woodsman began:--
+
+"It is five years now, boys, since I spent a fall and winter trapping in
+them woods we were speaking of--I and another fellow. We had two
+home-camps, which were our headquarters, snug log shelters, one on Togue
+Ponds, the other on the side of Katahdin. As sure as ever the sun went
+down on a Saturday night, we two trappers met at one or other of these
+home-camps; though during the week we were mostly apart. For we had
+several lines of traps, which covered big distances in various
+directions; and on Monday morning I used to start one way, and my chum
+another, to visit these. Generally it took us five or six days to make
+the rounds of them. While we were on our travels we'd sleep with a
+blanket round us, under any shelter we could rig up,--a few
+spruce-boughs or a bark hut. When the snow came, we were forced to
+shorten our trips, so as to reach one of the home-camps each night.
+
+"Well, it was early in the season, one fine fall evening, that I was
+crossing Togue Ponds in a canoe. I had been away on the tramp for a'most
+a week; and though I had a rifle and axe with me, I had nary an ounce
+of ammunition left. All of a sudden I caught sight of a moose, feeding
+on some lily-roots in deep water. Jest at first I was a bit doubtful
+whether it was a moose or not; for the creature's head was under, and I
+could only see his shoulders. I stopped paddling. I tried to stop
+breathing. Next, I felt like jumping out of my skin; for, with a big
+splash, up come a pair of antlers a good five feet across, dripping with
+water, and a'most covered with green roots and stems, which dangled from
+'em.
+
+"Good land! 'twas a queer sight. 'Herb Heal,' thinks I, 'now's your
+chance! If you can only manage to nab that moose-head, you'll get two
+hundred dollars for it at Greenville, sure!' And mighty few cents I had
+jest then.
+
+"I could a'most have cried over my tough luck in not having one dose of
+lead left. But the bull's back was towards me. The water filled his ears
+and nose, so that he couldn't hear or smell. And he was having a
+splendid tuck-in. It was big sport to hear him crunch those lily-roots."
+
+"I should think it was!" burst out Cyrus enviously. "But did you have
+the heart to kill him in cold blood, in the middle of his meal?"
+
+"I did. I guess I wouldn't do it now; anyhow, not unless I was very
+badly off for food. But I had an old mother living at Greenville that
+time,"--here there was the least possible tremble in the woodsman's
+voice,--"and while I paddled alongside the moose, without making a
+sound, I was thinking that the price I'd be sure to get from some city
+swell for the head would come in handy to make her comfortable. The
+creature never suspicioned danger till I was close to him, and had my
+axe lifted, ready to strike. Then up came his head. Out went his
+forefeet. Over spun the canoe. There was as big a commotion as if a
+whale was there.
+
+"I managed to keep behind the brute so as to dodge his kicks; and
+gripping the axe in one hand, I dug the other into his long hair. He was
+mad scared. He started to swim for the opposite shore, which was about
+half a mile distant, with me in tow, snorting like a locomotive. As his
+feet touched ground near the bank, I jumped upon his back. With one blow
+of the axe I split his spine. Perhaps you'll think that was awful cruel,
+but it wasn't done for the glory of killing."
+
+"And what became of the head? Did you sell it?" asked Dol, who was, as
+usual, the first to break a breathless silence.
+
+There was no reply. Herb feigned not to hear.
+
+"Did you get two hundred dollars for the head?" questioned the impetuous
+youngster again, in a higher key, his curiosity swelling.
+
+"I didn't. It was stole."
+
+The answer was a growl, like the growl of a hurt animal whose sore has
+been touched. The tone of it was so different from the woodsman's
+generally strong, happy-go-lucky manner of speech, that Dol blenched as
+if he had been struck.
+
+"Who stole it?" he gasped, after a minute, scarcely knowing that he
+spoke aloud.
+
+Unnoticed in the firelight, Cyrus clapped a strong hand over the boy's
+mouth, to stifle further questions.
+
+"Keep still!" he whispered.
+
+But Herb, who was, as usual, perched upon the "deacon's seat," leaned
+forward, with a laugh which was more than half a snarl.
+
+"Who stole it?" he echoed. "Why, the other fellow--my chum; the man whom
+I carried for a mile on my back, through a snow-heaped forest, the first
+time I saw him, when I had lugged him out of a heavy drift. _He_ stole
+it, Kid, and a'most everything I owned with it."
+
+[Illustration: THE CAMP ON MILLINOKETT LAKE.]
+
+With a savage kick of his moccasined foot, the woodsman suddenly
+assaulted a blazing log. It sent a shower of sparks aloft, and caused a
+bright flame to shoot, rocket-like, from the heart of the fire, which
+showed the guide's face. His fine eyes reminded Cyrus of Millinokett
+Lake when a thunder-storm broke over it. Their gray was dark and
+troubled; the black pupils seemed to shrink, as if a tempest beat on
+them; fierce flashes of light played through them.
+
+Muttering a half-smothered oath, Herb flung himself off his bench,
+stamped across the cabin to the open camp-door, and passed into the
+darkness outside.
+
+The boys, who had been stretched out in comfortable positions, drew
+themselves bolt upright, and sat aghast. They stared towards the
+camp-door, murmuring disjointedly. Into the mind of each flashed a
+remembrance of some story which Doctor Phil had told about a thieving
+partner who once robbed Herb Heal.
+
+"You've stirred up more than you bargained for, Dol," said Cyrus. "I
+wish to goodness you hadn't been so smart with your questions."
+
+But the words were scarcely spoken when the guide was again in their
+midst, with a smile on his lips.
+
+"It's best to let sleeping dogs lie, young one," he said, looking down
+reassuringly on Dol, who was feeling dumfounded. "I guess you all think
+I'm an awful bearish fellow. But if you had lived the lonely life of a
+trapper, tramping each day through the dark woods till you were
+leg-weary, visiting your steel traps and deadfalls, all to get a few
+furs and make a few dollars; and turned up at camp one evening to find
+that your partner had skipped with every skin you had procured, I reckon
+'twould take you a plaguy long time to get over it."
+
+"I'm pretty sure it would, old man," said Cyrus.
+
+"And I minded the loss of the furs a sight less than I minded losing
+that moose-head," continued Herb, taking his perch again upon the
+"deacon's seat." "The hound took 'em all. Every woodsman in Maine was
+riled about it at the time, and turned out to ketch him; but he gave 'em
+the slip. Now, boys, I've got to feeling pretty chummy with you. Cyrus
+is an old friend; and, to speak plain, I like you Britishers. I don't
+want you to think that I bust up your fun to-night for nothing. I'll
+tell you the whole yarn if you want to hear it."
+
+The looks of the trio were sufficient assent.
+
+"All right, boys. Here goes! Since I was a kid in Maine woods I've
+worked at a'most everything that a woodsman can do. Six year ago I was a
+'barker' in a lumber-camp on the Kennebec River. A 'barker' is a man who
+jumps onto a big tree after a chopper has felled it, and strips the bark
+off with his axe, so that the trunk can be easily hauled over the snow.
+Well, it's pretty hard labor, is lumbering. But our camp always got
+Sunday for rest.
+
+"Well, I was prowling about in the woods by myself one Sunday afternoon,
+when an awful snow-storm come on, a big blizzard which staggered the
+stripped trees like as if 'twould tumble 'em all down, and end our work
+for us. I was bolting for camp as fast as I was able, when I tripped
+over something which was a'most covered over in a heavy drift. 'Great
+Scott!' says I, 'it's a man!' And 'twas too. He was near dead. I hauled
+him out, and set him on his legs; but he couldn't walk. So I threw him
+across my shoulders, same way as I carry a deer. He didn't weigh near as
+much as a good buck, for he was little more'n a kid and awful lean. But
+'twas dreadful travelling, with the snow half blinding and burying you.
+I was plumb blowed when I struck the camp, and pitched in head foremost.
+
+"For an hour we worked over that stranger to bring him round, and we
+succeeded. We saw at once that he was a half-breed. When he could use
+his tongue, he told us that his father was a settler, and his mother a
+Penobscot Indian. He was sick for a spell and wild-like, then he talked
+a lot of Indian jargon; but when he got back his senses, he spoke
+English fust-rate. Chris Kemp he said was his name. And from the start
+the lumbermen nicknamed him 'Cross-eyed Chris; for his eyes, which were
+black as blackberries, had a queer squint in 'em.
+
+"Well, in spite of the squint, I took to Chris, and he to me. And the
+following year, when I decided to give up lumbering, and take to
+trapping fur-bearing animals in the woods near Katahdin, he joined me.
+We swore to be chums, to stick to each other through thick and thin, to
+share all we got; and he made one of his outlandish Indian signs to
+strengthen the oath. A fine way he kept it too!
+
+"Now, if I'm too long-winded, boys, say so; and I'll hurry up."
+
+"No, no! Tell us everything."
+
+"Spin it out as long as you can."
+
+"We don't mind listening half the night. Go ahead!"
+
+At this gust of protest Herb smiled, though rather soberly, and went
+ahead as he was bidden.
+
+"We made camp together--him and me. We had two home-camps where I told
+you, and met at the end of each week, bringing the skins we had taken,
+which we stored in one of 'em. We got along together swimmingly for a
+bit. But Chris had a weakness which I had found out long before. I guess
+he took it from his mother's people. Give him one drink of whiskey, and
+it stirred up all the mud that was in him. There's mud in every man, I
+s'pose; and there's nothing like liquor for bringing it to the surface.
+A gulp of fire-water changed Chris from an honest, right-hearted fellow
+to a crazy devil. This had set the lumbermen against him. But I hoped
+that in the lonely woods where we trapped he wouldn't get a chance to
+see the stuff. He did, though, and when I wasn't there to make a fight
+against his swallowing it.
+
+"It happened that one week he got back to our camp on Togue
+Ponds,--where most of our stuff was stored, and where I kept that
+moose-head, waiting for a chance to take it down to Greenville,--a day
+or two sooner'n me. And the worst luck that ever attended either of us
+brought a stranger to the camp at the same time, to shelter for a night.
+He was an explorer, a city swell; and I guess he didn't know much about
+Injuns or half-breeds, for he gave Chris a little bottle of fiery
+whiskey as a parting present. The man told me about it afterwards, and
+that he was kind o' scared when the boy--for he wasn't much
+more--swallowed it with two gulps, and then followed him into the woods,
+howling, capering, and offering to sell him my grand moose-head, and all
+the furs we had, for another drink of the burning stuff. I guess that
+stranger felt pretty sick over the mischief he had done. He refused to
+buy 'em. But when I got back to camp next day, to find the skins gone,
+antlers gone, Chris gone; when I ran across the traveller and ferreted
+out his story,--I knew, as well as if I seen it, that my partner had
+skipped with all my belongings, to sell 'em or trade 'em at some
+settlement for more liquor. We had a couple of big birch canoes,--one of
+'em was missing too,--and a river being near, the thing could be easy
+managed.
+
+"I'll allow that I raged tremendous. The losses were bad; but to be
+robbed by your own chum, the man you had saved and stuck to, the only
+being you had said a word to for months, was sickening. I swore I'd
+shoot the hound if I found him. I spread the news at every camp and
+farm-settlement through the forest country, and we had a rousing hunt
+after the fellow; but he gave us the slip, though I heard of him
+afterwards at a distant town, where he sold the furs."
+
+"I suppose he left the State," said Cyrus.
+
+"I guess he did. But for a big while I used to think he'd come back to
+our camp some day, and let me have it out with him; for he wasn't a
+coward, and we had been fast chums."
+
+"And he didn't?"
+
+"Not as I know of. The next year I gave up trapping, which was an awful
+cruel as well as a lonely business, and took to moose-hunting and
+guiding. I haven't been anear the old camps for ages."
+
+"Perhaps you will come across him again some day," suggested Dol, with
+unusual timidity.
+
+"P'raps so, Kid. And, faith, when I think of that, it seems as if there
+were two creatures inside o' me fighting tooth and claw. One is all for
+hammering him to a jelly. The other is sort o' pitiful, and says, 'Mebbe
+'twasn't out-an'-out his fault.' Which of them two'll get the best of
+it, if ever I'm face to face with Cross-eyed Chris, I dunno."
+
+Cyrus Garst rose suddenly. He kicked the camp-fire to make a blaze, then
+looked the woodsman fair in the eyes.
+
+"I know, Herb," he said; "the spirit of mercy will conquer."
+
+"Glad you think so!" answered Herb. "But I ain't so sure. Sho! boys,
+I've kept you up till near midnight with my yarns. We must go to roost
+quick, or you'll never be fit to light out for Katahdin to-morrow."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+TO LONELIER WILDS.
+
+
+Before daybreak next morning Herb Heal was astir. Apparently even a
+short night's sleep had driven from him all disturbing memories. He
+whistled and hummed softly, like the strong, hopeful fellow he was,
+controlling his notes so that they should not awaken his companions,
+while he hauled out and overlooked the canvas for a tent, to see if it
+was sound. Next he surveyed the camp-stores, and put up a supply of
+flour, pork, and coffee in a canvas bag, enough for four persons to
+subsist upon with economy during an excursion of six or seven days. For
+he knew that his employers would follow his suggestion, and be eager to
+start for the woods near Katahdin soon after they got their eyes open.
+
+He had been doing his work with a candle held in his brown fingers; but
+as dawn-light began to enter the cabin, he quenched its dingy, yellow
+flicker, opened the camp-door, and surveyed the morning sky.
+
+"It'll be a good day to start out, I guess," he muttered. "Let's see,
+what time is it?"
+
+The stars had not yet paled, and Herb forthwith fell to studying them;
+for they were his jewelled time-piece, by which he could tell the hour
+so long as they shone. Watch he had none.
+
+While he gazed aloft at the glinting specks, he unconsciously began to
+croon, in a powerful bass voice, with deep gutturals, some words which
+certainly weren't woodsman's English.
+
+  "_N'loan pes-saus, mok glint ont-aven,
+  Glint ont-aven, nosh morgan_."
+
+"What on earth is that outlandish thing you're singing, Herb?" roared
+Neal Farrar from the bunk, awakened by the sounds. "Give us that stave
+again--do!"
+
+The guide started. He had scarcely been aware of what he was humming,
+and his laugh was a trifle disconcerted.
+
+"So you're waking up, are ye?" he said. "Tain't time to be stirring yet;
+I ought to be kicked for making such a row."
+
+"But what's that you were singing?" reiterated Neal. "The words weren't
+English, and they had a fine sort of roll."
+
+"They're Injun," was the answer. "I guess 'twas all the talking I done
+last night that brung 'em into my head. I picked 'em up from that fellow
+I was telling you about. He'd start crooning 'em whenever he looked at
+the stars to find out the hour."
+
+"Are they about the stars?"
+
+"I guess so. A city man, who had studied the redskins' language a lot,
+told me they meant:--
+
+  'We are the stars which sing,
+  We sing with our light.'"[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Mr. Leland's translation.]
+
+Then Herb chanted the two lines again in the original tongue.
+
+"There was quite a lot more," he said; "but I can't remember it. I
+learned some queer jargon from Chris, and how to make most of the signs
+belonging to the Indian sign-talk. The fellow had more of his mother
+than his father in him. I guess I'd better give over jabbering, and cook
+our breakfast."
+
+It was evident that Herb did not want to dwell upon his reminiscences.
+And Neal had tact enough to swallow his burning curiosity about all
+things Indian. He asked no more questions, but rolled off the
+fir-boughs, and dressed himself.
+
+Cyrus and Dol sprang up too. All three were soon busy helping forward
+preparations for the start. They packed their knapsacks with a few
+necessaries; and after a hearty breakfast had been eaten,--their last
+meal off moose-steaks for a while, as Herb informed them he "could not
+carry any fresh meat along,"--the guide's voice was heard shouting:--
+
+"Ready, are ye, boys? Got all yer traps? Here, Cyrus, jest strap this
+pack-basket on my shoulders. Now we're off!"
+
+The pack contained the tent, the camp-kettle, and frying-pan, together
+with the aforementioned provisions, a good axe, etc. It was an
+uncomfortable load, even for a woodsman's shoulders. But Herb strode
+ahead with it jauntily. And many times during that first day's tramp of
+a dozen miles, his comrades--as they trudged through rugged places after
+him, spots where it was hard to keep one's perpendicular, and feet
+sometimes showed a sudden inclination to start for the sky--threw
+envious glances at his tall figure, "straight as an Indian arrow," his
+powerful limbs, and unerring step. Even the horny, capable hands came in
+for a share of the admiration.
+
+"I guess anything that got into your grip, Herb, would find it hard to
+get out again without your will," said Cyrus, studying the knotted fists
+which held the straps of the pack-basket.
+
+"Mebbe so," answered the guide frankly. "I've a sort of a trick of
+holding on to things once I've got 'em. P'raps that was why I didn't let
+go of Chris in that big blizzard 'till I landed him at camp. But I
+hope"--here Herb's shoulders shook with heaving laughter, and the
+cooking utensils in his pack jingled an accompaniment--"I hope I ain't
+like a miserly fellow we had in our lumber-camp. He was awful pious
+about some things, and awful mean about others. So the boys said, 'he
+kept the Sabbath and everything else he could lay his hands upon.' He
+used to get riled at it.
+
+"Not that I've a word to say against keeping Sunday," went on Herb, in a
+different key. "Tell you what, out here a fellow thinks a heap of his
+day o' rest, when his legs can stop tramping, and his mind get a chance
+to do some tall thinking. Now, boys, we've covered twelve good miles
+since we left Millinokett Lake, and you needn't go any farther to-day
+unless you've a mind to. We can make camp right here, near that stream.
+It will be nice, cold drinking-water, for it has meandered down from
+Katahdin."
+
+He pointed to a brook a little way ahead, shimmering in the rays of the
+afternoon sun, of which they caught stray peeps through the gaps in an
+intervening wall of pines and hemlocks. A few minutes brought them to
+its brink. Tired and parched from their journey, each one stooped, and
+quenched his thirst with a delicious, ice-cold draught.
+
+"Was there ever a soda-fountain made that could give a drink to equal
+that?" said Cyrus, smacking his lips with content. "But listen to the
+noise this stream makes, boys. I guess if I were to lie beside it for an
+hour, I'd think, as the Greenlanders do, that I could hear the spirits
+of the world talking through it."
+
+"That's a mighty queer notion," answered Herb; "and I never knew as
+other folks had got hold of it. But, sure's you live! I've thought the
+same thing myself lots o' times, when I've slept by a forest stream.
+Who'll lend a helping hand in cutting down boughs for our fire and bed?
+I want to be pretty quick about making camp. Then we'll be able to try
+some moose-calling after supper."
+
+At this moment a peculiar gulping noise in Neal's throat drew the eyes
+of his companions upon him. His were bright and strained, peering at the
+opposite bank.
+
+"Look! What is it?" he gasped, his low voice rattling with excitement.
+
+"A cow-moose, by thunder!" said Herb. "A cow-moose and a calf with her!
+Here's luck for ye, boys!"
+
+One moment sooner, simultaneously with Neal's gulp of astonishment,
+there had emerged from the thick woods on the other bank a brown,
+wild-looking, hornless creature, in size and shape resembling a big
+mule, followed by a half-grown reproduction of herself.
+
+Her shaggy mane flew erect, her nostrils quivered like those of a
+race-horse, her eyes were starting with mingled panic and defiance.
+
+A snort, sudden and loud as the report of a shot-gun, made the four
+jump. Neal, who was standing on a slippery stone by the brink, lost his
+balance and staggered forward into the water, kicking up jets of shining
+spray. The snort was followed by a grunt, plaintive, distracted, which
+sounded oddly familiar, seeing that it had been so well imitated on
+Herb's horn.
+
+And with that grunt, the moose wheeled about and fled, making the air
+swish as she cut through it, followed by her young, her mane waving like
+a pennon.
+
+"Well, if that ain't bang-up luck, I'd like to know what is," said the
+guide, as he watched the departure. "I never s'posed you'd get a chance
+to see a cow-moose; she's shyer'n shy. Say! don't you boys think that
+I've done her grunt pretty well sometimes?"
+
+"That you have," was the general response. "_We_ couldn't tell any
+difference between your noise and the real thing."
+
+"But she wasn't a patch on the bull-moose in appearance," lamented Dol.
+
+"No more she was, boy. Most female forest creatures ain't so
+good-looking as the males! And that's queer when you think of it, for
+the girls have the pull over us where beauty is concerned. We ain't in
+it with 'em, so to speak."
+
+There was a big gale of laughter over Herb Real's gallant admiration for
+the other sex, and the sigh which accompanied his expression of it. He
+joined in the mirth himself, though he walked off to make camp,
+muttering:--
+
+"Sho! You city fellows think that because I'm a woodsman I never heard
+of love-making in my life."
+
+"Perhaps there is a little girl at some settlement waiting for a home to
+be fixed up out of guide's fees," retorted Cyrus.
+
+And the three shouted again for no earthly reason, save that the
+stimulus of forest air and good circulation was driving the blood with
+fine pressure through their veins, and life seemed such a glorious,
+unfolding possession--full of a wonderful possible--that they must hold
+a sort of jubilee.
+
+Herb, who perhaps in his lonely hours in the woods did cherish some
+vision such as Cyrus suggested, was so infected with their spirit, that,
+as he swung his axe with a giant's stroke against a hemlock branch, he
+joined in with an explosive:--
+
+"Hurrup! Hur-r-r-rup!"
+
+This startled the trio like the bursting of a bomb, and trebled their
+excitement; for their guide, when abroad, had usually the cautious,
+well-controlled manner of the still-hunter, who never knows what chances
+may be lurking round him which he would ruin by an outcry.
+
+"Quit laughing, boys," he said, recovering prudence directly he had let
+out his yell. "Quit laughing, I say, or we may call moose here till
+crack o' doom without getting an answer. I guess they're all off to the
+four winds a'ready, scared by our fooling."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+TREED BY A MOOSE.
+
+
+"I told you so, boys," breathed the guide two hours later, with an
+overwhelming sigh of regret, after he had given his most fetching calls
+in vain. "I told you so. There ain't anything bigger'n a buck-rabbit
+travelling. That tormented row we made scared every moose within
+hearing."
+
+Herb was standing on the ground, horn in hand, screened by the great
+shadows of a clump of hemlocks; the three were perched upon branches
+high above him, a safe post of observation if any moose had answered.
+
+"You may as well light down now," he continued, turning his face up,
+though the boys were invisible; "I ain't a-going to try any more music
+to-night. I guess we'll stretch ourselves for sleep early, to get ready
+for a good day's work to-morrow. An eight-mile tramp will bring us to
+the first heavy growth about the foot of Katahdin, and I'll promise you
+a sight of a moose there."
+
+His companions dropped to earth; and the four sought the shelter of
+their tent, which had been pitched a few hundred yards from the
+calling-place. Some dull embers smouldered before it; for Herb, even
+while preparing supper, had kept the camp-fire very low, lest any
+wandering clouds of smoke should interfere with the success of his
+calling.
+
+Now he heaped it high, throwing on without stint withered hemlock boughs
+and massive logs, which were soon wrapped in a sheet of flame, making an
+isle of light amid a surrounding sea of impenetrable darkness.
+
+Many times during the night the watchful fellow arose to replenish this
+fire, so that there might be no decrease in the flood of heat which
+entered the tent, and kept his charges comfortable. Once, while he was
+so engaged, the placid sleepers whom he had noiselessly quitted were
+aroused to terror--sudden, bewildering night-terror--by a gasping cry
+from his lips, followed by the leaping and rushing of some brute in
+flight, and by a screech which was one defiant note of unutterable
+savagery.
+
+"Good heavens! What's that?" said Cyrus.
+
+"Is it--can it--could it be a panther?" stammered Dol.
+
+"Get out!" answered Neal contemptuously. "The panthers have got out long
+ago, so every one says."
+
+"A lynx! A Canada lynx, boys, as sure as death and taxes!" panted Herb
+Heal, springing into the tent on the instant, with a burning brand in
+his hand. "'Tain't any use your tumbling out, for you won't see him.
+He's away in the thick of the woods now."
+
+Cyrus gurgled inarticulate disappointment. At the first two words he had
+sprung to his legs, having never encountered a lynx.
+
+"The brute must have been prowling round our tent," went on Herb, his
+voice thick from excitement. "He leaped past me just as I was stooping
+to fix the fire, and startled me so that I guess I hollered. He got
+about half a dozen yards off, then turned and crouched as if he was
+going to spring back. Luckily, the axe was lying by me, just where I had
+tossed it down after chopping the last heap of logs. I caught it up,
+and flung it at him. It struck him on the side, and curled him up. I
+thought he was badly hurt; but he jumped the next moment, screeched, and
+made off. A pleasant scream he has; sounds kind o' cheerful at night,
+don't it?"
+
+No one answered this sarcasm; and Herb flung himself again upon his
+boughs, pulling his worn blanket round him, determined not to relinquish
+his night's sleep because a lynx had visited his camp. The city fellows
+sensibly tried to follow his example; but again and again one of them
+would shake himself, and rise stealthily, convinced that he heard the
+blood-curdling screech ringing through the silent night.
+
+It was nearly morning before fatigue at last overmastered every
+sensation, and the three fell into an unbroken sleep, which lasted until
+the sun was high in the sky. When they awoke, their sense of smell was
+the first sense to be tickled. Fragrant odors of boiling coffee were
+floating into the tent. One after another they scrambled up, threw on
+their coats, and hurried out to find their guide kneeling by the
+camp-fire on the very spot from which he had hurled his axe at the lynx
+a few hours before. But now his right hand held a green stick, on which
+he was toasting some slices of pork into crisp, appetizing curls.
+
+"'Morning, boys!" he said, as the trio appeared. "Hope your early rising
+won't opset ye! If you want to dip your faces in the stream, do it
+quick, for these dodgers are cooked."
+
+The "dodgers" were the familiar flapjacks. Herb set down his stick as he
+spoke to turn a batch of them, which were steaming on the frying-pan,
+tossing them high in air as he did so, with a dexterous turn of his
+wrist.
+
+The boys having performed hasty ablutions in the stream, devoted
+themselves to their breakfast with a hearty will. There was little
+leisure for discussing the midnight visit of the lynx, or for anything
+but the joys of satisfying hunger, and taking in nutrition for the day's
+tramp, as Herb was in a hurry to break camp, and start on for Katahdin.
+The morning was very calm; there seemed no chance of a wind springing
+up, so the evening would probably be a choice one for moose-calling.
+
+In half an hour the band was again on the march, the business of
+breaking camp being a swift one. The tent was on Herb's shoulders; and
+naught was left to mark the visit of man to the humming stream but a
+bed of withering boughs on which the lynx might sleep to-night, and a
+few dying embers which the guide had thrashed out with his feet.
+
+No halt was made until four o'clock in the afternoon. Then Herb Heal
+came to a standstill on the edge of a wide bog. It lay between him and
+what he called the "first heavy growth;" that is, the primeval forest,
+unthinned by axe of man, which at certain points clothes the foot of
+Katahdin.
+
+The great mountain, dwelling-place of Pamolah, cradle of the flying
+Thunder and flashing Lightning, which according to one Indian legend are
+the swooping sons of the Mountain Spirit, now towered before the
+travellers, its base only a mile distant.
+
+"I've a good mind to make camp right here," said Herb, surveying the bog
+and then the firm earth on which he stood. "We may travel a longish ways
+farther, and not strike such a fair camping-ground, unless we go on up
+the side of the mountain to that old home-camp I was telling you about,
+which we built when we were trapping. I guess it's standing yet, and
+'twould be a snug shelter; but we'd have a hard pull to reach it this
+evening. What d'ye say, boys?"
+
+"I vote for pitching the tent right here," answered Cyrus.
+
+The English boys were of the same mind, and the guide forthwith
+unstrapped his heavy pack-basket. As he hauled forth its contents, and
+strewed them on the ground, the first article which made its appearance
+was the moose-horn; it had been carefully stowed in on top. Dol snatched
+it up as a dog might snatch a bone, and touched it with longing in every
+finger-tip.
+
+"There's one bad thing about this place," grumbled Herb presently,
+surveying the landscape wherever his eye could travel, "there isn't a
+pint of drinking-water to be seen. There may be pools here and there in
+that bog; but, unless we want to keel over before morning, we'd better
+let 'em alone. Say! could a couple of you fellows take the camp-kettle,
+and cruise about a bit in search of a spring?"
+
+"I volunteer for the job!" cried Dol instantly, with the light of some
+sudden idea shining like a sunburst in his face.
+
+"You don't budge a step, old man, unless I go with you," said Cyrus.
+"Not much! I don't want to patrol the forests like a lunatic for five
+mortal hours in search of you, and then find you roasting your shins by
+some other fellow's camp-fire. One little hide-and-seek game of that
+kind was enough."
+
+"Well! the fact that I did bring up by Doc's camp-fire shows that I am
+able to take care of myself. If I get into scrapes, I can wriggle out of
+them again," maintained the kid of the camp, with a brazen look, while
+his eyes showed flinty sparks, caused by the inspiring purpose hidden
+behind them, which had little to do with water-carrying.
+
+"Why can't you both go without any more palaver?" suggested Herb, as he
+started away towards a belt of young firs to cut stakes for the tent.
+"Cruise straight across the bog, mark your track by the bushes as you go
+'long, don't get into the woods at all, and 'twill be plain sailing. I
+guess you'll strike a spring before very long."
+
+Cyrus caught up the camp-kettle, and stepped out briskly over the
+springy, spongy ground. Dol Farrar followed him. The two were half-way
+across the bog before the elder noticed that the younger was carrying
+something. It was the moose-horn.
+
+"If we run across any moose-signs, I'm going to try a call," said Dol,
+his strike-a-light eyes fairly blazing while he disclosed his purpose.
+"You may laugh, Cy, and call me a greenhorn; but I bet you I'll get an
+answer, at least if there's a bull-moose within two miles."
+
+"That's pretty cheerful," retorted the Boston man; "especially as
+neither of us has brought a rifle. Mr. Moose may be at home, and give
+you an answer; but there's no telling what sort of temper he'll be in."
+
+"I left my Winchester leaning against a tree on the camping-ground,"
+said the would-be caller regretfully. "But you know you wouldn't fire on
+him, Cy, unless he came near making mince-meat of us. If he should
+charge, we could make a dash for the nearest trees. Let's risk it if we
+run across any tracks!"
+
+"And in the meantime, Herb will be wondering where we are, vowing
+vengeance on us, and waiting for the kettle while we're waiting for the
+moose," argued Garst. "It won't do, Chick. Give it up until later on. We
+undertook the job of finding water, and we're bound to finish that
+business first."
+
+"If I wait until later on, I may wait forever," was the boy's gloomy
+protest. "Tonight, when Herb is there, Neal and you will just sit on me,
+and be afraid of my making a wrong sound, and spoiling the sport.
+
+"And I _know_ we'll see moose-tracks before we get back to camp!" wound
+up the young pleader passionately. "I've been working up to it all day.
+I mean I've felt as if something--something fine--was going to happen,
+which would make a ripping story for the Manchester fellows when we go
+home. Do let me have one chance, Cy,--one fair and honest chance!"
+
+There was such a tremendous force of desire working through the English
+boy that it set his blood boiling, and every bit of him in motion. His
+eyes were afire, his eyelids shut and opened with their quick snap, his
+lips moved after he had finished speaking, his fingers twitched upon the
+moose-horn.
+
+He was a picture of heart-eagerness which Cyrus could not resist, though
+he shook with laughter.
+
+"I'll take mighty good care that the next time I go to find water for
+the camp-supper, I don't take a crank with me, who has gone mad on
+moose-calling," he said. "See here! If we do come across moose-signs,
+I'll get under cover, and give you quarter of an hour to call and listen
+for an answer--not a second longer. Now stop thinking about this fad,
+and keep your eyes open for a spring."
+
+But, unfortunately, this seemed to be a thirsty and tantalizing land for
+travellers. The soft sod under their feet oozed moisture; slimy,
+stagnant bog-pools appeared, but not a drop of pure, gushing water, to
+which a parched man dare touch his lips.
+
+They crossed the wide extent of bog, Cyrus breaking off stunted bushes
+here and there to mark his pilgrimage; they reached the dense
+timber-growth at the base of the mountain, longing for the sight of a
+spring as eagerly as ever pilgrims yearned to behold a healing well; but
+their search was unsuccessful.
+
+Decidedly nonplussed, Dol all the time keeping one eye on the lookout
+for water and the other for moose-signs, they took counsel together, and
+determined to "cruise" to the right, skirting the foot of Katahdin,
+hoping to find a gurgling, rumbling mountain-torrent splashing down.
+Having travelled about half a mile in this new direction, with the giant
+woods which they dared not enter rising like an emerald wall on the one
+hand, and the dreary bog-land on the other, they at last, when patience
+was failing, came to a change in the landscape.
+
+The desired water was not in view yet; but the bog gave way to fairer,
+firmer ground, covered with waving grasses, studded with rising knolls,
+and having no timber growth, save stray clumps of birches and hemlocks,
+several hundred yards apart.
+
+"Now, this is jolly!" exclaimed Dol. "This looks a little bit like an
+English lawn, only I'm afraid it's not a likely place for moose-tracks.
+But I'm glad to be out of that beastly bog."
+
+"Confusion to your moose-tracks," ejaculated Cyrus, half exasperated. "I
+wish we could find a well. That would be more to the purpose. Listen,
+Dol, do you hear anything?"
+
+"I hear--I hear--'pon my word! I _do_ hear the bubbling and tinkling of
+water somewhere! Where on earth is it? Oh! I know. It comes from that
+knoll over there--the one with the bushes."
+
+Dol Farrar, as he finished his jerky sentences, pointed to an eminence
+which was two or three hundred yards from where they stood, and a like
+distance from the wall of forest.
+
+"Well! It's about time we struck something at last," grumbled Garst.
+"Catch me ever coming on a water pilgrimage again! I'll let Herb fill
+his own kettle in future. Now, I believe that fellow could smell a
+spring."
+
+"Just as I smelt this one!" exclaimed Dol triumphantly. "I told you
+'twas on the side of the knoll. And here it is!"
+
+"Bravo, Chick! You've got good ears, if you are crazy upon one subject."
+
+And so speaking, Cyrus, with a chuckle of joy, unslung the tin
+drinking-cup which hung at his belt, filled and refilled it, drinking
+long, inspiriting draughts before he prepared to fill the camp-kettle.
+
+"The best water I ever tasted, Dol!" he exclaimed, smacking his lips.
+"It's ice-cold. There's not much of it, but it has quality, if not
+quantity."
+
+The long-sought well was, in truth, a tiny one. It came bubbling up,
+clear and pellucid, from the bowels of the earth, and showed its
+laughing face amid a cluster of bushes--which all bent close to look at
+it lovingly--half-way up the knoll. A wee stream trickled down from
+it,--dribble--dribble--a rivulet that had once been twice its present
+size, judging from the wide margin of spattered clay at each side.
+
+Dol had been following his companion's example, and drinking joyfully
+before thinking of aught else. When the moment came for him to
+straighten his back, and rise upon his legs, instead of this natural
+proceeding, he suddenly crouched close to the ground, his breath coming
+in quick puffs, his eyes dilating, a froth of excitement on his lips.
+
+"What on earth are you staring at?" asked Cyrus. "You look positively
+crazy."
+
+For answer, the English boy shot up from his lowly posture, seized his
+companion by the arm, making him drop the camp-kettle, which he was just
+filling, and forced him to scan the soft clay by the rivulet.
+
+"Look there--and there!" gurgled Dol, his voice sounding as if he was
+being choked by suppressed hilarity. "I told you we'd find them, and you
+didn't believe me! Aren't those moose-tracks? They're not deer-tracks,
+anyhow; they're too big. I may be a greenhorn, but I know that much."
+
+"They _are_ moose-tracks," Cyrus answered slowly, almost unbelievingly,
+though the evidence was before him. "They certainly are moose-tracks,"
+he repeated, "and very recent ones too. A moose has been drinking here,
+perhaps not half an hour ago. He can't be far away."
+
+Garst was now warming into excitement himself. His bass tones became
+guttural and almost inarticulate, while he lowered them to prevent their
+travelling. On the reddish clay at his feet were foot-marks very like
+the prints of a large mastiff. He studied them one by one, even tracing
+the outline with his forefinger.
+
+"Then I'm going to call," whispered Dol, his words tremulous and
+stifled. "Lie low, Cy! You promised you'd give me a fair chance; you'll
+have to keep your word."
+
+"I'll do it too," was the answering whisper. "But let's get higher up on
+the knoll, behind those big bushes at the top. And listen, Dol, if a
+moose makes a noise anywhere near, we must scoot for the trees before he
+comes out from cover. I've got to answer to your father for you."
+
+It was an intense moment in Dol Farrar's life; sensation reached its
+highest pitch, as he crouched low behind a prickly screen, put the
+birch-bark horn to his mouth, and slowly breathed through it with the
+full power of his young lungs, marvellously strengthened by the forest
+life of past weeks.
+
+There was a minute's interval while he removed it again, and drew in all
+the air he could contain. Then a call rose upon the evening air, so
+touching, so plaintive, with such a rising, quavering impatience as it
+surged out towards the woods,--whither the boy-caller's face was
+turned,--that Cyrus could scarcely suppress a "Bravo!"
+
+The summons died away in a piteous grunt. A second time the call rose
+and fell. On the third repetition it broke off, as usual, in an abrupt
+roar, which seemed to strike the tops of the giant trees, and boom among
+them.
+
+A froth was on Dol Farrar's lips, his eyes were reddened, he puffed hard
+through spread nostrils, like a young horse which has been trying its
+mettle for the first time, as he lowered that moose-horn, lifted his
+head, and cocked his ears to listen.
+
+Two soundless minutes passed. Dol, who, if he had mastered the hunter's
+call, had certainly not mastered his patience, put the bark-trumpet
+again to his lips, determined to try the effect of a surpassingly
+expressive grunt.
+
+But he never executed this false movement, which would have given away
+the trick at once.
+
+A bellow--a short, snorting, challenging bellow--burst the silence,
+coming from the very edge of the woods. It brought Cyrus to his feet
+with a jump. It so startled the ambitious moose-caller, that, in rising
+hurriedly from his squatting position, he lost his balance, and rolled
+over and over to the bottom of the knoll, smashing the horn into a
+hundred pieces.
+
+He picked himself up unhurt, but with a sensation as if all the bells in
+Christendom were doing a jumbled ringing in his head. And loud above
+this inward din he heard the sound, so well remembered, as of an axe
+striking repeatedly against a tree, the terrible chopping noises of a
+bull-moose, not two hundred yards away.
+
+No sooner had he scrambled to his legs, than Garst was at his side,
+gripping his arm, and forcing him forward at a headlong run.
+
+"You've done it this time with a vengeance!" bawled the Bostonian. "He's
+coming for us straight! And we without our rifles! The trees! The trees!
+It's our only chance!"
+
+With the belling still in his head, and so bewildered by his terrible
+success that he felt as if his senses were shooting off hither and
+thither like rockets, leaving him mad, Dol nevertheless ran as he had
+never run before, shoulder to shoulder with his comrade, dashing wildly
+for a clump of hemlocks over a hundred yards distant. Yet, for the life
+of him, he could not help glancing back once over his shoulder, to see
+the creature which he had humbugged, luring it from its forest shelter,
+and which now pursued him.
+
+The moose was charging after them full tilt, gaining rapidly too, his
+long thin legs, enormous antlers, broad, upreared nose, and the green
+glare in his starting eyes, making him look like some strange animal of
+a former earth. Dol at last trembled with actual fear. He gave a
+shuddering leap, and forced his legs, which seemed threatened with
+paralysis, to wilder speed.
+
+"Climb up that hemlock! Get as high as you can!" shrieked Cyrus,
+stopping to give him an upward shove as they reached the first friendly
+trunk.
+
+Dol obeyed. Gasping and wild-eyed, he dug his nails into the bark,
+clambering up somehow until he reached a forked branch about eight feet
+from the ground. Here strength failed. He could only cling dizzily,
+feeling that he hung between life and death.
+
+The moose was now snorting like a war-horse beneath. The brute stood off
+for a minute, then charged the hemlock furiously, and butted it with
+his antlers till it shook to its roots, the sharp prongs of those
+terrible horns coming within half an inch of Dol's feet.
+
+With a gurgle of horror the boy tried to reach a higher limb, and
+succeeded; for at the same moment a timely shout encouraged him. Cyrus
+was bawling at the top of his voice from a tree ten feet distant:--
+
+"Are you all right, Dol? Don't be scared. Hold on like grim death, and
+we can laugh at the old termagant now."
+
+"I'm--I'm all right," sang out Dol, though his voice shook, as did every
+twig of his hemlock, which the moose was assaulting again. "But he's
+frantic to get at me."
+
+"Never mind. He can't do it, you know. Only don't you go turning dizzy
+or losing your balance. Ha! you old spindle-legged monster, stand off
+from that tree. Take a turn at mine now, for a change. You can't shake
+me down, if you butt till midnight."
+
+Garst's last sentences were hurled at the moose. The Bostonian, having
+reached a safe height, thrust his face out from his screen of branches,
+waving first an arm, and then a leg, at the besieging foe, hoping that
+the force of those battering antlers would be directed against his
+hemlock, so that his friend's nerves might get a chance to recover.
+
+The ruse succeeded. The moose, reminded that there was a second enemy,
+charged the other tree; stood off for a minute to get breath, then
+charged it again, snorting, bellowing, and knocking his jaws together
+with a crunching, chopping noise.
+
+"Ha! that's how he makes the row like a man with an axe--by hammering
+his jaws on each other. Well, well! but this is a regular picnic, Dol,"
+sang out Cyrus jubilantly, caring nothing for the shocks, and forgetting
+camp, water, peril, everything, in his joy at getting a chance to
+leisurely study the creature he had come so far to visit.
+
+"I owe you something for this, little man!" he carolled on in triumph,
+as he watched every wild movement of the moose. "This is a show we'll
+only see once in our lives. It's worth a hundred dollars a performance.
+Butt and snort till you're tired, you 'Awful Jabberwock!'"--this to the
+bull-moose. "We've come hundreds of miles to see you, and the more you
+carry on the better we'll be pleased."
+
+Indeed, the wrathful king of forests seemed in no hurry to cut short his
+pantomime. He ramped and raged, tearing from one tree to another,
+expending paroxysms of force in vain attempts to overturn one or the
+other of them. The ground seemed to shake under his thundering hoofs.
+His eyes were full of green fire; his nostrils twitched; the black
+tassel or "bell" hanging from his shaggy throat shook with every angry
+movement; his muffle, the big overhanging upper lip, was spotted with
+foam.
+
+As he gulped, grunted, snorted, and roared, his uncouth, guttural noises
+made him seem more than ever like a curious creature of earth's earliest
+ages.
+
+"We came pretty near to being goners, Dol, I tell you!" carolled Cyrus
+again from his high perch in the hemlock, carrying on a by-play with the
+enemy between each sentence. "How in the name of wonder did you manage
+such a call? It would have moved the heart-strings of any moose. I was
+lying flat, you know, peeping through a little gap in the bushes, and
+you had scarcely taken the horn from your mouth when I saw the old
+fellow come stamping out of the woods. My! wasn't he a sight? He stood
+for a minute looking about for the fancied cow; then he bellowed, and
+started towards the knoll. I knew we had better run for our lives. As
+soon as he saw us he gave chase."
+
+"And 'the fancied cow' should go tumbling down the knoll like a rolling
+jackass, and smash that grand horn to bits!" lamented Dol, who now sat
+serenely on his bough, with a firm clasp of the hemlock trunk, and a
+reckless enjoyment of the situation which far surpassed his companion's.
+
+Cyrus began to have an occasional twinge of uneasiness about the
+possible length of the siege, after his first exuberance subsided; but
+the younger boy, his short terror overcome, had no misgivings. He
+coquetted with the moose through a thick screen of foliage, shook the
+branches at him, gibed and taunted him, enjoying the extra fury he
+aroused.
+
+But suddenly the old bull, having kept up his wild movements for nearly
+an hour, resolved on a change of tactics. He stood stock-still and
+lowered his head.
+
+"Goodness! He has made up his mind to 'stick us out!'" gasped Cyrus.
+
+"What's that?" said Dol.
+
+"Don't you see? He's going to lay siege in good earnest--wait till we're
+forced to come down. Here's a state of things! We can't roost in these
+trees all night."
+
+The hemlocks were throwing ever-lengthening shadows on the grass. A slow
+eclipse was stealing over everything. The motionless moose became an
+uncouth black shape. Garst muttered uneasily. His fingers tingled for
+his rifle--a very unusual thing with him. His eyes peered through the
+creeping darkness in puzzled search for some suggestion, some
+possibility of escape.
+
+"If it were only myself!" he whispered, as if talking to his hemlock.
+"If it were only myself, I wouldn't care a pin. 'Twould do me no great
+harm to perch here for hours. But an English youngster, on his first
+camping-trip! Why, the chill of a forest night might ruin him. He
+wouldn't howl or make a fuss, for both those Farrar boys have lots of
+grit, but he'd never get over it. Dol!" he wound up, raising his voice
+to a sharp pitch. "Say, Dol, I'm going to try a shout for help. Herb
+must be getting anxious about us by this time. If we could once make him
+hear, he could try some trick to lure this old curmudgeon away, or creep
+up and shoot him. Something must be done."
+
+Fetching a deep breath, Cyrus sent a distance-piercing "Coo-hoo!"
+ringing through the night-air. He followed it with another.
+
+But, so far as he could hear, the hails fetched no answer, save from the
+moose-jailer. The brute was stirred into a fresh tantrum by the noise.
+He charged the hemlocks once more, butted and shook them like a
+veritable demon.
+
+When his paroxysm had subsided, and he stood off to get breath, Garst
+hailed again.
+
+Glad sound! An answer this time! First, a shrill, long "Coo-hoo!" Next,
+Herb's voice was heard pealing from far away in the bog: "What's up,
+boys? Where in the world are you?"
+
+"Here in the trees--treed by a bull-moose!" yelled Cyrus. "He's the
+maddest old monster you ever saw. Could you coax him off, or sneak up
+and shoot him? He means to keep us prisoners all night."
+
+There was no wordy answer. But presently the treed heroes heard an odd,
+bird-like whistle. Dol thought it came from a feathered creature; his
+more experienced companion guessed that the guide's lips gave it as a
+signal that he was coming, but that he didn't want to draw the moose's
+attention in his direction just yet.
+
+Such a quarter of an hour followed! With the fresh spurt of anger the
+bull-moose became more savage than ever. He grunted, tramped, and
+hooked the trees with his horns, so that the pair who were perched like
+night-birds on the branches had to hold on for dear life, lest a
+surprising shock should dislodge them. Whenever the creature stood off,
+to gather more fury, they could have counted their heart-beats while
+they listened, breathlessly anxious to, know what action the approaching
+woodsman would take.
+
+Once Cyrus spoke.
+
+"Dol Farrar," he said, "I guess this caps all the adventures that you or
+I have had up to date. No wonder you felt all day as if you were working
+up to something. I'll believe in presentiments in future."
+
+The words had scarcely passed his lips, when there was the sharp bang!
+bang! of a rifle not twenty yards distant. A bright sputter of fire cut
+the darkness beneath the hemlocks.
+
+The moose's blind rage threatened to be his own undoing. While he was
+fighting an imaginary danger, ears and nostrils half-choked by fury,
+through the calm night Herb Heal, Winchester in hand, had crept
+noiselessly on, till he reached the very trees which sheltered his
+friends.
+
+Once, twice, three times the rifle snapped. The first shot missed
+altogether. At the second, the moose rose upon his hind-legs, with a
+sharp sound of fright and pain, quite unlike his former noises. Then he
+gave a quick jump.
+
+"Great Governor's Ghost! he's gone;" yelled Cyrus, who had swung himself
+down a few feet, and was hanging by one arm, in his anxiety to see the
+result of the firing. "You needn't shoot again, Herb! He's off! Let him
+go!"
+
+"I guess that second shot cut some hair from him, and drew blood too,"
+answered Herb, his deep voice giving the pair a queer sensation as they
+heard it right beneath. "It was too dark to see plain, but I think he
+reared; and that's a sign that he was hurt, little or much. Don't drop
+down for a minute, boys, till we see whether he has bolted for good."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+TRIUMPH.
+
+
+He had bolted for good, vanished into the mysterious deeps of the
+primeval forest, whether hurt unto death, or merely "nipped" in a
+fore-leg, as Herb inclined to think, nobody knew.
+
+"It's too dark to see blood-marks, if there are any, so we can't trail
+him to-night. If he's hit bad--but I guess he ain't--we can track him in
+the morning," said the guide; as, after an interval of listening, the
+rescued pair dropped down from their perches. "Did he chase you, boys?
+Where on earth did you come on him?"
+
+Talking together, their words tumbling out like a torrent let loose,
+Cyrus Garst and Dol Farrar gave an account of the past two
+hours--strangest hours of their lives--filling up the picture of them
+bit by bit.
+
+"Whew! whew! You did have a narrow squeak, boys, and a scarey time; but
+I guess you had a lot of fun out of the old snorter," said Herb, his
+rare laugh jingling out, starting the forest echoes like a clang of
+bells. "You've won those antlers, Dol--won 'em like a man. Blest, but
+you have! I promised 'em to the first fellow who called up a moose; and
+nary a woodsman in Maine could have done it better. I'm powerful glad
+'twasn't your own death-call you gave. I'll keep my eye on you now till
+you leave these woods. Where's the horn?"
+
+"Smashed to bits," answered Dol regretfully.
+
+"And the camp-kettle?"
+
+"Lying by the spring, over there on the knoll, unless the moose kicked
+it to pieces," said Cyrus.
+
+"My senses! you're a healthy pair to send for water, ain't ye? Let's
+cruise off and find it. I guess you'll be wanting a drink of hot coffee,
+after roosting in them trees for so long."
+
+Garst led the way to the spring. Its pretty hum sounded like an angel's
+whisper through the night, after the tumult of the past scene. Herb
+fumbled in his leather wallet, brought out a match and a small piece of
+birch-bark, and kindled a light. With some groping, the kettle was
+found; it was filled, and the party started for camp.
+
+"I heard the distant challenge of a bull-moose a couple of hours ago,"
+said the guide, as they went along. "I never suspicioned he was
+attacking you; but after the camp was a' ready, and you hadn't turned
+up, I got kind o' scared. I left Neal to tend the fire and toast the
+pork, and started out to search. I s'pose I took the wrong direction;
+for I hollered, and got no answer. Afterwards, when I was travelling
+about the bog, I heard a 'Coo-hoo!' and the noises of an angry moose.
+Then I guessed there was trouble."
+
+"Won't Neal look blue when he hears that he was toasting pork while we
+were perched in those trees, with the moose waltzing below!" exclaimed
+Dol. "Well, Cy, I've won the antlers, and I've got my ripping story for
+the Manchester fellows. I don't care how soon we turn home now."
+
+"You don't, don't ye?" said the guide. "Well, I should s'pose you'd want
+to trail up that moose to-morrow, and see what has become of him."
+
+"Of course I do! I forgot that."
+
+And Dol Farrar, who had thought his record of adventure and triumph so
+full that it could hold no more, realized that there is always for
+ambition a farther point.
+
+Neal did feel a little blue over the thought of what he had missed. But,
+being a generous-hearted fellow, he tasted his young brother's joy, when
+the latter cuddled close to him upon the evergreen boughs that night,
+muttering, as if the whole earth lay conquered at his feet:--
+
+"My legs are as stiff as ramrods, but who'd think of his legs after such
+a night as we've had?
+
+"I say, Neal, this is life; the little humbugging scrapes we used to
+call adventures at home are only play for girls. It's something to talk
+about for a lifetime, when a fellow comes to close quarters with a
+creature like that moose. I said I'd get the better of his ears, and I
+did it. Pinch me, old boy, if I begin a moose-call in my sleep."
+
+Several times during the night Neal found it necessary to obey this
+injunction, else had there been no peace in the camp. But, in spite of
+Dol's ravings and riotings in his excited dreams, the party enjoyed a
+needed ten hours' slumber, all save Herb, who, as usual, was astir the
+next morning while his comrades were yet snoring.
+
+He got his fire going well, and baked a great flat loaf of bread in his
+frying-pan, setting the pan amid hot ashes and covering it over.
+Previous to this, he had made a pilgrimage to the distant spring, to
+fill his kettle for coffee and bread-making, and had carefully examined
+the ground about the clump of hemlocks.
+
+The result of his investigation was given to the boys as they ate their
+breakfast under the shade of a cedar, with a sky above them whose
+morning glories were here and there overshot by leaden tints.
+
+"I guess we've got a pretty fair chance of trailing that moose," he
+said. "I found both hair and blood on the spot where he was wounded. I'm
+for following up his tracks, though I guess they'll take us a bit up the
+mountain. If he's hurt bad, 'twould be kind o' merciful to end his
+sufferings. If he ain't, we can let him get off."
+
+"Right, as you always are, Herb," answered Cyrus. "But what on earth
+made the creature bolt so suddenly? If you had seen him five minutes
+before he was shot, you'd have said he had as much fight in him as a
+lion."
+
+"That's the way with moose a'most always. Their courage ain't that o'
+flesh-eating animals. It's only a spurt; though it's a pretty big spurt
+sometimes, as you boys know now. It'll fail 'em in a minute, when you
+least expect it. And, you see, that one last night didn't know where his
+wound came from. I guess he thought he was struck by lightning or a
+thunder-ball, so he skipped. Talking of thunder-balls, boys," wound up
+Herb, "I shouldn't be surprised if the old Mountain Spirit, who lives up
+a-top there, gave us a rattling welcome with his thunders to-day. The
+air is awful heavy for this time of year. Perhaps we'd better give up
+the trailing after all."
+
+"Nonsense!" exclaimed Dol indignantly. "Do you think a shower will melt
+us? Or that we'll squeal like girls at a few flashes of lightning?
+'Twould be jolly good fun to see old Pamolah sending off his artillery."
+
+"Well, there'd be no special danger, I guess, if we were past the heavy
+timber growth before the storm began. There's lots of rocky dens on the
+mountain side where we could shelter under a granite ledge, and be safer
+than we'd be here in tent. Or we might come a-near our old log camp. I
+guess, if that's standing yet, you'd like to see it. Say! we'll leave it
+to Cyrus. He's boss, ain't he?"
+
+Cyrus, desperately anxious to know whether it would be life or death for
+the wounded moose, and regarding the signs of bad weather as by no means
+certain, decided in favor of the expedition. The campers hurriedly
+swallowed the remainder of their breakfast, and made ready for an
+immediate start.
+
+"In trailing a moose the first rule is: go as light as you can; that is,
+don't carry an ounce more stuff than is necessary. Even a man's rifle is
+apt to get in his way when he has to scramble over windfalls, or slump
+between big bowlders of rock, which a'most tear the clothes off his
+back. And we may have to do some pretty tall climbing. So leave all your
+traps in the tent, boys; I'll fasten it down tight. There won't be any
+human robbers prowling around, you bet! Bears and coons are the only
+burglars of these woods, and they don't do much mischief in daytime."
+
+The guide rapidly gave these directions, his breezy voice setting a
+current of energy astir, like a wind-gust cutting through a quiet grove,
+while he rolled his indispensable axe, some bread that was left from the
+meal, and a lump of pork into a little bundle, which he strapped on his
+back.
+
+"Now," he said, "if that trail should give us a long tramp, or if you
+boys should take a notion to go a good ways up Katahdin, or anything
+turns up to hinder our getting back to camp till nightfall, I've our
+snack right here. I can light a fire in two minutes, to toast our pork;
+and we'll wash it down with mountain water, the best drink for climbers.
+I could rig you up a snug shelter, too, in case of accidents. A woodsman
+ain't in it without his axe."
+
+To what strange work that axe would be put ere night again closed its
+shutters over granite peaks and evergreen forest, Herb Heal little knew;
+nor could he have guessed that the coming hours would make the most
+heart-stirring day of his stirring life. If he could, would he have
+started out this morning with a happy-go-lucky whistle, softly modulated
+on his lips, and no more sober burden on his mind than the trail of that
+moose?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+ON KATAHDIN.
+
+
+"See there, boys, I told you so," said Herb, as the party reached the
+ever-to-be-remembered clump of hemlocks, the beginning of the trail
+which they were ready to follow up like sleuth-hounds. "There's plenty
+of hair; I guess I singed him in two places."
+
+He pointed to some shaggy clotted locks on the grass at his feet, and
+then to a small maroon-colored stain beside them.
+
+"Is that blood?" asked Neal.
+
+"Blood, sure enough, though there ain't much of it. But I'll tell you
+what! I'd as soon there wasn't any. I wish it had been light enough last
+night for me to act barber, and only cut some hair from that moose,
+instead of wounding him. It might have answered the purpose as well, and
+sent him walking."
+
+"I don't believe it would have done anything of the kind," exclaimed
+Dol. "He was far too red-hot an old customer to bolt because a bullet
+shaved him."
+
+"Well, I don't set up to be soft-hearted like Cyrus here; and I'm ready
+enough to bag my meat when I want it," said the woodsman. "But sure's
+you live, boys, I never wounded a free game creature yet, and seed it
+get away to pull a hurt limb and a cruel pain with it through the woods,
+that I could feel chipper afterwards. It's only your delicate city
+fellows who come out here for a shot once a year, who can chuckle over
+the pools of blood a wounded moose leaves behind him. Sho! it's not
+manly."
+
+A start was now made on the trail, Herb leading, and showing such
+wonderful skill as a trailer that the English boys began to believe his
+long residence in the woods had developed in him supernatural senses.
+
+"That moose was shot through the right fore-leg," he whispered, as the
+trackers reached the edge of the forest.
+
+"How do you know?" gasped the Farrars.
+
+The woodsman answered by kneeling, bending his face close to the ground,
+and drawing his brown finger successively round three prints on a soft
+patch of earth, which the unpractised eyes could scarcely discern.
+
+"There's no mark of the right fore-hoof," he whispered again presently;
+"nothing but _that_," pointing to another dark red blotch, which the
+boys would have mistaken for maroon-tinted moss.
+
+A breathless, wordless, toiling hour followed. Through the dense woods,
+which sloped steadily upward, clothing Katahdin's highlands, Herb Heal
+travelled on, now and again halting when the trail, because of freshly
+fallen pine-needles or leaves, became quite invisible. Again he would
+crouch close to the ground, make a circle with his finger round the last
+visible print, and work out from that, trying various directions, until
+he knew that he was again on the track which the limping moose had
+travelled before him.
+
+His comrades followed in single file, carrying their rifles in front of
+their bodies instead of on their shoulders, so that there might be no
+danger of a sudden clang or rattle from the barrels striking the trees.
+Following the example of their guide, each one carefully avoided
+stepping on crackling twigs or dry branches, or rustling against bushes
+or boughs. The latter they would take gingerly in their hands as they
+approached them, bend them out of the way, and gently release them as
+they passed. Heroically they forebore to growl when their legs were
+scraped by jagged bowlders or prickly shrubs, giving thanks inwardly to
+the manufacturers of their stout tweeds that their clothes held
+together, instead of hanging on them like streamers on a rag-bush.
+
+It was a good, practical lesson in moose-trailing; but, save for the
+knowledge gained by the three who had never stalked a moose before, it
+was a failure.
+
+The air beneath the dense foliage grew depressing--suffocating. Each one
+longed breathlessly for the minute when he should emerge from this heavy
+timber-growth, even to do more rugged climbing. Distant rumbles were
+heard. Herb's prophecy was being fulfilled. Pamolah was grumbling at the
+trailers, and sending out his Thunder Sons to bid them back.
+
+But it was too late for retreat. If they gave up their purpose, turned
+and fled to camp, the storm, which was surely coming, would catch them
+under the interlacing trees, a danger which the guide was especially
+anxious to avoid. He pressed on with quickened steps, stooping no more
+to make circles round the moose's prints. Old Pamolah's threatenings
+grew increasingly sullen. At last the desired break in the woods was
+reached; the trackers found themselves on the open side of Katahdin,
+surrounded by a tangled growth of alders and white birches struggling up
+between granite rocks; then the mountain artillery broke forth with
+terrifying clatter.
+
+A loud, long thunder-roll was echoed from crag, slide, forest, spur, and
+basin. The "home of storms" was a fort of noise.
+
+"Ha! there'll be a big cannonading this time, I guess. Pamolah is going
+to let fly at us with big shot, little shot, fire and water--all the
+forces the old scoundrel has," said Herb Heal, at last breaking the
+silence which had been kept on the trail, and looking aloft towards the
+five peaks guarding that mysterious basin, from which heavy, lurid
+clouds drifted down.
+
+At the same time a blustering, mighty wind-gust half swept the four
+climbers from their feet. A great flash of globe lightning cut the air
+like a dazzling fire-ball.
+
+"We'll have to quit our trailing, and scoot for shelter, I'm thinking!"
+exclaimed Cyrus.
+
+"Good land, I should say so!" agreed the guide. "The bull-moose likes
+thunder. He's away in some thick hole in the forest now, recovering
+himself. We couldn't have come up with him anyhow, boys, for them
+blood-spots had stopped. I guess his leg wasn't smashed; and he'll soon
+be as big a bully as ever. Follow me now, quick! Mind yer steps, though!
+Them bushes are awful catchy!"
+
+Undazzled by the lightning's frequent flare, unstaggered by the
+down-rushing wind, as if the mountain thunders were only the roll of an
+organ about his ears, Herb Heal sprang onward and upward, tugging his
+comrades one by one up many a precipitous ledge, and pulling them to
+their feet again when the tripping bushes brought their noses to the
+ground and their heels into the air.
+
+"Hitch on to me, Dol!" he cried, suddenly turning on that youngster, who
+was trying to get his second breath. "Tie on to me tight. I'll tow you
+up! I wish we could ha' reached that old log camp, boys. 'Twould be a
+stunning shelter, for it has a wall of rock to the back. But it's higher
+up, and off to the right. There! I see the den I'm aiming for."
+
+A few energetic bounds brought Herb, with Dol in tow, to a platform of
+rock, which rose above a bed of blueberry bushes. It narrowed into a
+sort of cave, roofed by an overhanging bowlder.
+
+"We'll be snug enough under this rock!" he exclaimed, pointing to the
+canopy. "Creep in, boys. We'll have tubs of rain, and a pelting of hail.
+The rumpus is only beginning."
+
+So it was. The storm had been creeping from its cradle. Now it swept
+down with an awful whirl and commingling of elements.
+
+The boys, peering out from their rocky nest, saw a magnificent panorama
+beneath them. The regiments of the air were at war. Lightning chains
+encircled the heavens, lighting up the forests below. Winds charged down
+the mountain-side, sweeping stones and bushes before them. Hail-bullets
+rattled in volleys. Thunder-artillery boomed until the very rocks seemed
+'to shake.
+
+"It's fine!" exclaimed Cyrus. "It's super-fine!"
+
+Then a curtain of thick rain partly hid the warfare, the lightning still
+rioting through it like a beacon of battle.
+
+"The stones up above will have to be pretty firmly fixed to keep their
+places," said Herb. "Boys, I hope there ain't a-going to be slides on
+the mountain after this."
+
+"Slides?" echoed Dol questioningly.
+
+"Landslides, kid. Say! if you want to be scared until your bones feel
+limp, you've got to hear a great big block of granite come ploughing
+down from the top 'o the mountain, bringing earth and bushes along with
+it, and smashing even the rocks to splinters as it pounds along."
+
+"I guess that's a sensation we'd rather be spared," said Cyrus gravely.
+
+And under the quieting spell of the airy warfare there was silence for a
+while.
+
+"Do you think it's lightening up, Herb?" asked Neal, after the storm had
+raged for three-quarters of an hour.
+
+"I guess it is. The rain is stopping too. But we'll have an awful slushy
+time of it getting back to camp. To plough through them soaked forests
+below would be enough to give you city fellows a shaking ague."
+
+"Couldn't we climb on to your old log camp?" suggested Garst. "If we
+have the luck to find the old shanty holding together, we can light a
+fire there after things dry out a bit, and eat our snack. Then we
+needn't be in a hurry to get down. We'll risk it, anyhow."
+
+"I reckon that's about the only thing to be done," assented the guide.
+
+And in twenty minutes' time the four were again straining up Katahdin,
+clutching slippery rocks, sinking in sodden earth, shivering as they
+were besprinkled by every bush and dwarfed tree, and dreadfully hampered
+with their rifles.
+
+"Never mind, boys; we'll get there! Clinch yer teeth, and don't squirm!
+Once we're past this tangle, the bit of climbing that's left will be as
+easy as rolling off a log!"
+
+So shouted Herb cheerfully, as he tore a way with hand and foot through
+the stunted growth of alders and birch, which, beaten down by the winds,
+was now an almost impassable, sopping tangle.
+
+"Keep in my tracks!" he bellowed again. "Gracious! but this sort o' work
+is as slow as molasses crawling up-hill in winter."
+
+But ten minutes later, when the dripping jungle was behind, he dropped
+his jesting tone.
+
+He came to a full stop, catching his breath with a big gulp.
+
+"Boys," he cried, "it's standing yet! I see it--the old home-camp! There
+it is above us on that bit of a platform, with the big rock behind it.
+And I've kep' saying to myself for the last quarter of an hour that we
+wouldn't find it--that we'd find nary a thing but mildewed logs!"
+
+A wealth of memories was in the woodsman's eyes as he gazed up at the
+timber nest, the log camp which his own hands had put up, standing on a
+narrow plateau, and built against a protecting wall of rock that rose in
+jagged might to a height of thirty or forty feet.
+
+An earth bank or ridge, covered with hardy mosses and mountain creepers,
+sloped gently up to the sheltered platform. To climb this was, indeed,
+"as easy as rolling off a log."
+
+"We used to have a good beaten path here, but I guess it's all growed
+over," said Herb in a thick voice, as if certain cords in his throat
+were swelling. "Many's the time I've blessed the sight of that old
+home-camp, boys, after a hard week's trapping. Hundert's o' night's I've
+slept snug inside them log walls when blasts was a-sweeping and
+bellowing around, like as if they'd rip the mountain open, and tear its
+very rocks out."
+
+While the guide spoke he was leaping up the ridge. A few minutes, and he
+stood, a towering figure, on the platform above, waving his battered hat
+in salute to the old camp.
+
+"I guess some traveller has been sheltering here lately!" he cried to
+Neal Farrar, as the latter overtook him. "There's a litter around,"
+pointing to dry sticks and withered bushes strewn upon the
+camping-ground. "And the door's standing open. I wonder who found the
+old shanty?"
+
+Neal remembered, hours afterwards, that at the moment he felt an odd
+awakening stir in him, a stir which, shooting from head to foot, seemed
+to warn him that he was nearing a sensation, the biggest sensation of
+this wilderness trip.
+
+He heard the voices of Cyrus and Dol hallooing behind; but they sounded
+away back and indistinct, for his ears were bent towards the deserted
+camp, listening with breathless expectation for something, he didn't
+know what.
+
+One minute the vague suspense lasted, while he followed Herb towards the
+hut. Then heaven and earth and his own heart seemed to stand still.
+
+Through the wide-open door of the shanty came random, crooning snatches
+of sound. Was the guttural voice which made them human? The English boy
+scarcely knew. But as the noise swelled, like the moaning of a dry wind
+among trees, he began, as it were, to disentangle it. Words shaped
+themselves, Indian words which he had heard before on the guide's
+tongue.
+
+  "_N'loan pes-saus, mok glint ont-aven,
+  Glint ont-aven, nosh morgun_."
+
+These lines from the "Star Song," the song which Herb had learned from
+his traitor chum, floated out to him upon Katahdin's breeze. They struck
+young Farrar's ears in staggering tones, like a knell, the sadness of
+which he could not at the moment understand. But he had a vague
+impression that the mysterious singer in the deserted camp attached no
+meaning to what he chanted.
+
+"Look out, I say! I don't want to come a cropper here."
+
+It was Dol's young voice which rang out shrilly among the mountain
+echoes. Side by side with Cyrus, the boy had just gained the top of the
+ridge when the guide suddenly backed upon him, Herb's great
+shoulder-blade knocking him in the face, so that he had to plant his
+feet firmly to avoid spinning back.
+
+But Herb had heard that guttural crooning. Just now he could hear
+nothing else.
+
+Twice he made a heaving effort to speak, and the voice cracked in his
+throat.
+
+Then, as he sprang for the camp-door, four words stumbled from his
+lips:--
+
+"By thunder! it's Chris."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+THE OLD HOME-CAMP.
+
+
+The silence which followed that ejaculation was like the hush of earth
+before a thunder-storm.
+
+Not a syllable passed the lips of the boys as they followed Herb into
+the log hut, but feeling seemed wagging a startled tongue in each
+finger-tip which convulsively pressed the rifles.
+
+And not another articulate sentence came from the guide; only his throat
+swelled with a deep, amazed gurgle as he reached the interior of the
+shanty, and dropped his eyes upon the individual who raised that queer
+chanting.
+
+On a bed of withered spruce boughs, strewn higgledy-piggledy upon the
+camp-floor--mother earth--lay the form of a man. Thin wisps of
+blue-black hair, long untrimmed, trailed over his face and neck, which
+looked as if they were carved out of yellow bone. His figure was
+skeleton-like. His lips--the lips which at the entrance of the strangers
+never ceased their wild crooning--were swollen and fever-scorched. His
+black eyes, disfigured by a hideous squint, rolled with the sick fancies
+of delirium.
+
+Cyrus and the Farrars, while they looked upon him, felt that, even if
+they had never heard Herb's exclamation, they would have had no
+difficulty in identifying the creature, remembering that story which had
+thrilled them by the camp-fire at Millinokett. It was Herb Heal's
+traitor chum--the half-breed, Cross-eyed Chris.
+
+And Herb, backing off from the withered couch as far as the limited
+space of the cabin would allow, stood with his shoulders against the
+mouldy logs of the wall, his eyes like peep-holes to a volcano, gulping
+and gurgling, while he swallowed back a fire of amazed excitement and
+defeated anger, for which his backwoods vocabulary was too cheap.
+
+A flame seemed scorching and hissing about his heart while he
+remembered that during some hour of every day for five years, since last
+he had seen the "hound" who robbed him, he had sworn that, if ever he
+caught the thief, he would pounce upon him with a woodsman's vengeance.
+
+"I couldn't touch him now--the scum! But I'll be switched if I'll do a
+thing to help him!" he hissed, the flame leaping to his lips.
+
+Yet he had a strange sensation, as if that vow was broken like an
+egg-shell even while he made it. He knew that "the two creatures which
+had fought inside of him, tooth and claw," about the fate of his enemy,
+were pinching his heart by turns in a last hot conflict.
+
+His eyes shot flinty sparks; he drew his breath in hard puffs; his
+knotted throat twitched and swelled, while they (the man and the brute)
+strove within him; and all the time he stood staring in grisly silence
+at the half-breed.
+
+The latter still continued his Indian croon; though from the crazy roll
+of his malformed eyes it was plain that he knew not whether he chanted
+about the stars, his old friends and guides, or about anything else in
+heaven or earth.
+
+But one thing quickly became clear to Cyrus, and then to the Farrar
+boys,--less accustomed to tragedy than their comrade,--that this strange
+personage, in whose veins the blood of white men and red men met,
+carrying in its turbid flow the weaknesses of two races, was singing his
+swan-song, the last chant he would ever raise on earth.
+
+At their first entrance, as their bodies interfered with the broad light
+streaming through the cabin-door, Chris had lifted towards them a
+scared, shrinking stare. But, apparently, he took them for the shadows
+which walked in the dreams of his delirium. Not a ray of recognition
+lightened the blankness of that stare as Herb's big figure passed before
+him. Letting his eyes wander aimlessly again from log wall to log wall,
+from withered bed to mouldy rafters, his lips continued their crooning,
+which sank with his weakening breath, then rose again to sink once more,
+like the last wind-gusts when the storm is over.
+
+Suddenly his shrunken body shivered in every limb. The humming ceased.
+His yellow teeth tapped upon each other in trouble and fear. He raised
+himself to a squatting posture, with his knee-bones to his chin, the
+wisps of hair tumbling upon his naked chest.
+
+"It's dark--heap dark!" he whimpered, between long gasps. "Can't strike
+the trail--can't find the home-camp. Herb--Herb Heal--ole pard--'twas I
+took 'em--the skins. 'Twas--a dog's trick. Take it out--o' my hide--if
+yer wants to--yah! Heap sick!"
+
+Not a ray of sense was yet in the half-breed's eyes. An imaginary,
+vengeance-dealing Herb was before him; but he never turned a glance
+towards the real, and now forgiving, old chum, who leaned against the
+wall not ten feet away. His voice dropped to a guttural rumble, in which
+Indian sounds mingled with English.
+
+But the flame at Herb's heart was quenched at the first whimpered word.
+His stiffened muscles and lips relaxed. With a gurgle of sorrow, he
+crossed the camp-floor, and dropped into a crawling position on the
+faded spruces.
+
+"Chris!" he cried thickly. "Chris,--poor old pard,--don't ye know me?
+Look, man! Herb is right here--Herb Heal, yer old chum. You're 'heap
+sick' for sure; but we'll haul you off to a settlement or to our camp,
+and I'll bring Doc along in two days. He'll"--
+
+But Cross-eyed Chris became past hearing, his flicker of strength had
+failed; he keeled over, and lay, with his limp legs curled up, faint and
+speechless, upon the dead evergreens.
+
+"You ain't a-going to die!" gasped Herb defiantly. "I'll be jiggered if
+you be, jest as I've found you! Say, boys! Cyrus! Neal! rub him a bit,
+will ye? We ain't got no brandy, I'll build a fire, and warm some
+coffee."
+
+It was strange work for the hands of the Bostonian, and stranger yet for
+those of young Farrar,--son of an English merchant-prince,--this
+straightening and rubbing of a dying half-Indian, a "scum," as Herb
+called him, drunkard, and thief. Yet there was no flash of hesitation on
+Farrar's part, as they brought their warm friction to bear upon the
+chill yellow skin, piebald from dirt and the stains of travel, as if it
+were the very mission which had brought them to Katahdin.
+
+They had grave thoughts meanwhile that the old mountain was decidedly
+gloomy in its omens, first a thunder-storm and then a tragedy; for, rub
+as they might with brotherly hands, they could not pass their own
+warmth into the body of the half-breed, though he still lived.
+
+But the mountain had not ended its terrors yet.
+
+Its mumbling lips began to speak, with a threatening, low at first like
+muttered curses, but swelling into a nameless noise--a rumbling,
+pounding, creeping, crashing.
+
+"Great Governor's Ghost! what's that?" gasped Cyrus, stopping his
+rubbing. "Pamolah or some other fiend seems to be bombarding us from the
+top now."
+
+"It's more thunder rolling over us," said Neal; but as he spoke his
+tongue turned stiff with fear.
+
+"Sounds as if the whole mountain was tumbling to pieces. Perhaps it's
+the end of the world," suggested Dol, as a succession of booming shocks
+from above seemed to shake the camping-ground under his feet.
+
+There was one second of awful indecision. The boys looked at each other,
+at the dying man, at the roof above them, in the stiffness of uncertain
+terror.
+
+Then a figure leaped into their midst, with an armful of dry sticks,
+which he dashed from him. It was Herb, with the fuel for a fire. And,
+for the first and last time in his history, so far as these friends of
+his knew it, there was that big fear in his face which is most terrible
+when it looks out of the eyes of a naturally brave man.
+
+"Boys, where's yer senses?" he yelled cuttingly. "Out, for your lives!
+Run! There's a slide above us on the mountain!"
+
+"Him?" questioned Cyrus's stiff lips, as he pointed to the breathing
+wreck on the spruce boughs. "He's not dead yet."
+
+"D'ye think I'd leave him? Clear out of this camp--you, or we'll be
+buried in less'n two minutes! To the right! Off this ridge! Got yer
+rifles? I'm coming!"
+
+The woodsman flung out the words while his brawny arms hoisted the body
+of his old chum. His comrades had already disappeared when he turned and
+sprang for the camp-door with his limp burden, but his moccasined foot
+kicked against something.
+
+A great hiccough which was almost a sob rose from Herb's throat. It was
+his one valuable possession, his 45-90 Winchester rifle, his second
+self, which he had rested against the log wall.
+
+"Good-by, Old Blazes!" he grunted. "You never went back on me, but I
+can't lug him and you! My stars! but that was a narrow squeak."
+
+For, as he cleared the camping-ground with a blind dash, with head bent
+and tongue caught between his clenched teeth, with a boom like a Gatling
+gun, a great block of granite from the summit of Katahdin struck the
+rock which sheltered the old camp, breaking a big piece off it, and shot
+on with mighty impetus down the mountain.
+
+An avalanche of loose earth, stones, and bushes, brought down by this
+battering-ram of the landslide, piled themselves upon the log hut,
+smashing to kindling-wood its walls, which had stood many a hard storm,
+burying them out of sight, and flinging wide showers of dust and small
+missiles.
+
+A scattered rain of clay caught Herb upon the head, and lodged, some of
+it, on the little pack containing axe and lunch which was strapped upon
+his shoulders.
+
+He shook. His grip loosened. The limp, dragging body in his arms sank
+until the feet touched the earth.
+
+But with the supreme effort, moral and physical, of his life, the forest
+guide gathered it tight again.
+
+"I'll be blowed if I'll drop him now," he gasped. "He ain't nothing but
+a bag o' bones, anyhow."
+
+Only a strong man in the hour of his best strength could have done it.
+With a defiant snort Herb charged through the choking dust-clouds,
+pelted by flying pebbles, sods, and fragments of sticks.
+
+"This way, boys!" he roared, after five straining, staggering minutes,
+as he caught a glimpse of his comrades ahead, tearing off to the right,
+as he had bidden them. "You may let up now. We're safe enough."
+
+They faced back, and saw him make a few reeling, descending steps, then
+lay what now seemed to be an out-and-out lifeless man on a bed of moss
+beneath a dwarfed spruce.
+
+The nerves of the three were in a jumping condition, their brains felt
+befuddled, and their hearts sinking and melting in the midst of their
+bones, from the astounding shock and terror of the land-slide. But, as
+they beheld the guide deposit his burden, with its helplessly trailing
+head and limbs, a cheer in unsteady tones rang above the slackening
+rattle of earth and stones, and the far-away boom of the granite-block
+as it buried itself in the forest beneath.
+
+"Hurrah! for you, Herb, old boy," yelled Cyrus triumphantly. "That was
+the grittiest thing I ever saw done' Hurrah! Hurrah! Hoo-ray!"
+
+The English boys, open-throated, swelled the peal.
+
+But their cheering broke off as they came near, and saw the mask-like
+face over which Herb bent.
+
+"Is he gone, poor fellow?" asked Garst. "What do you suppose caused
+it--the slide?"
+
+"Why, it was a thundering big lump of granite from the top o' the
+mountain," answered Herb, replying to the second question. "That plaguy
+heavy rain must ha' loosened the earth around it the clay and bushes
+that kep' it in place. So it got kind o' top-heavy, and came slumping
+and pitching down, slow at first, and then a'most as quick as a
+cannon-ball, bringing all that pile along with it. I've seen the like
+before; but, sho! I never came so near being buried by it."
+
+He pointed as he spoke to the late camping-ground, with its lodgment of
+clay, sods, pygmy trees, and pieces of rock, big and little.
+
+[Illustration: "HERB CHARGED THROUGH THE CHOKING DUST-CLOUDS.]
+
+"The old camp's clean wiped out, boys," he said; "and I guess one of the
+men that built it is gone, or a'most gone, too. Stick your arm under
+his head, Cyrus, while I hunt for some water."
+
+Garst did as he was bidden, but his help was not needed long. The guide
+went off like a racer, covering the ground at a stretching gallop. He
+remembered well the clear Katahdin spring, which had supplied the
+home-camp during that long-past trapping winter. He returned with his
+tin mug full.
+
+When the ice-cold drops touched Chris's forehead, and lay on his parted
+lips, gem-like drops which he was past swallowing, his malformed eyes
+slowly opened. There was intelligence in them, shining through the
+gathering death-film, like a sinking light in a lantern.
+
+He was groping in the dim border-land now, and in it he recognized his
+old partner with shadowy wonder; for delirium was past, with the other
+storms of a storm-beaten life.
+
+"Herb," he gurgled in snatches, the words being half heard, half guessed
+at, "'twas I--took 'em--the skins--an' the antlers. I wanted--to get--to
+the ole camp--an' let you--take it out o' me--afore I--keeled over."
+
+Herb had taken Cyrus's place, and was upholding him with a tenderness
+which showed that the guide's heart was in this hour melted to a jelly.
+Two tears were dammed up inside his eyelids, which were so unused to
+tears that they held them in. He neither wiped nor winked them away
+before he answered:--
+
+"Don't you fret about that--poor kid. We'll chuck that old business
+clean out o' mind. You've jest got to suck this water and try to chipper
+up, and--we'll make camp together again."
+
+But Herb knew as well as he knew anything that the man who had robbed
+him was long past "chippering up," and was starting alone to the unseen
+camping-grounds.
+
+"How long since you got back here?" he' asked, close to the dulling ear.
+
+"Couldn't--keep--track--o' days. Got--turned--round--in woods.
+Lost--trail--heap--long--getting--to--th' old--camp."
+
+The words seemed freezing on the lips which uttered them. Herb asked no
+more questions. Silence was broken only by the rolling voice of the
+land-slide, which had not yet ceased. Occasional volleys of loose earth
+and stones, dislodged or shaken by the down-plunging granite, still
+kept falling at intervals on the buried camp.
+
+At one unusually loud rattle, Chris's lips moved again. In those strange
+gutturals which the boys had heard in the hut, he rumbled an Indian
+sentence, repeating it in English with scared, breaking breaths.
+
+It was a prayer of her tribe which his mother had taught him to say at
+morning and eve:--
+
+"God--I--am--weak--Pity--me!"
+
+"Heap--noise! Heap--dark!" he gasped. "Can't--find--th' old--camp."
+
+"You're near it now, old chum," said Herb, trying to soothe him. "It's
+the home-camp."
+
+"We'll--camp--to-ge-ther?"
+
+"We will again, sure."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The last stone pounded down on the heap above the old camp; and Herb
+gently laid flat the body of the man he had sworn to shoot, closed the
+malformed eyes, and turned away, that the fellows he was guiding might
+not see his face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+BROTHERS' WORK.
+
+
+They buried Chris upon Katahdin's breast. It was a good cemetery for
+woodsmen, so Herb said, granite above and forest beneath.
+
+But, good or bad, this was the one thing to be done. An attempt to
+transfer the body to a distant settlement would be objectless labor;
+for, as far as the guide knew, the half-breed had not a friend to be
+interested in his fate, father and mother having died before Herb found
+him in the snow-heaped forest.
+
+There were three reliable witnesses, besides the man who was known to
+have a grudge against him, to testify as to the cause and manner of his
+death when the party returned to Greenville; so no suspicious finger
+could point at Herb Heal, with a hint that he had carried out his old
+threat.
+
+How long Chris, in lonely, crazed repentance, had sheltered in the camp
+on the mountain-side could only be a matter of guess. Herb inclined to
+think that he had been there for weeks,--months, perhaps,--judging from
+the withered spruce bed and the dry boughs and sticks upon the
+camping-ground, which had evidently been gathered and broken for fuel.
+His ravings made it clear that, on returning to the old haunts after
+years of absence, he had missed the trail he used to know, and wandered
+wearily in the dense woods about the foot of Katahdin before he escaped
+from the prison of trees, and climbed to the hut he sought.
+
+Such wanderings, Herb declared, generally ended in "a man having wheels
+in his head," being half or wholly insane, though he might keep
+sufficient wits to provide himself with food and warmth, as Chris had
+done while his strength held out. This was not long; for the
+half-breed's words suggested that he felt near to the great change he
+roughly called "keeling over," when he started to find his cheated
+partner.
+
+But Cyrus, while he watched the guide making preparations for the
+mountain burial, pictured the poor weakling tramping for hundreds of
+miles through rugged forest-land, doubtless with aching knee-joints and
+feet, that he might make upon his own skin justice for the skins which
+he had stolen, and so, in the only way he knew, square things with his
+wronged chum. And the city man thought, with a tear of pity, that even
+that poor drink-fuddled mind must have been lit by some ray of longing
+for goodness.
+
+It was a strange funeral.
+
+The guide chose a spot where the earth had been much softened by the
+recent rain; and, with the ingenuity of a man accustomed to wilderness
+shifts, he broke up the drenched ground with the axe which he took from
+his shoulders.
+
+That axe, which had so often made camp, had never before made a grave;
+the Farrars doubted that it ever would. But Herb worked away upon his
+knees, moisture dripping from his skin, putting sorrow for years of
+anger into every blow of his arms. Then, stopping a while, he went off
+down the mountain to the nearest belt of trees, and cut a limb from one,
+out of which, with his hunting-knife, he fashioned a rude wooden
+implement, a cross between a spade and shovel.
+
+With this he scooped out the broken earth until a grave appeared over
+three feet deep. He lined it with fragrant spruce-boughs from the
+wind-beaten tangle below.
+
+These Cyrus and Dol had busied themselves in cutting. Neal thought of
+other work for his fingers. Getting hold of Herb's axe when the owner
+was not using it, he felled one of the dwarf white birches. Out of its
+light, delicate wood, with the help of his big pocket-knife and a ball
+of twine that was hidden somewhere about him, he made a very presentable
+cross, to point out to future hunters on Katahdin the otherwise unmarked
+grave.
+
+He was a bit of a genius at wood-carving, and surveyed his work with
+satisfaction when he considered it finished, having neatly cut upon it
+the name, "Chris Kemp," with the date, "October 20th, 1891."
+
+"Couldn't you add a text or motto of some kind?" suggested Dol, glancing
+over his shoulder. "Twould make it more like the things one sees in
+cemeteries. You're such a dab at that sort of work."
+
+"Can't think of anything," answered the elder brother.
+
+Then, with a sudden lighting of his face, he seized the knife again, and
+worked in, in fine lettering, the frightened prayer he had heard on the
+half-breed's lips:--
+
+"God, I am weak; pity me!"
+
+Herb and Cyrus lowered the body into its resting-place, and covered it
+with the green spruces.
+
+The four campers knelt bare-headed by the grave.
+
+"Couldn't one of you boys say a bit of a prayer?" asked Herb in a thick
+voice. "I ain't used to spouting."
+
+All former help had been easily given. This was a harder matter, yet not
+so difficult as it would have been amid a city congregation.
+
+Garst tried to recall some suitable prayer from a funeral service; so
+did Neal. Both failed.
+
+But here upon Katahdin's side, where, in the large forces of storm and
+slide, in forest and granite, through every wind-swept bush, waving
+blade, and tinted lichen, breathed a whisper from God, it seemed no
+unnatural thing for a man or a boy to speak to his Father.
+
+"Can't one of you fellers say a prayer?" asked Herb again.
+
+Then the river of feeling in Cyrus broke the dam of reserve, and flowed
+over his lips in a prayer such as he had never before uttered.
+
+It was the prayer of a son who was for the minute absorbed in his
+Father.
+
+It left the five, those who were camping here and one who had gone to
+unseen camping-grounds, with son-like trust to the Father's dealings.
+
+Herb and the Farrars responded to it with heart-eager "Amens!" the
+fervor of which was new to their lips.
+
+"I thank you as if he were my own brother, boys," said the woodsman,
+while he filled in the grave, and planted Neal's cross at its head.
+"Sho! when it comes to a time like we've been through to-day, a man, if
+he has anything but a gizzard in him, must feel as how we're all
+brothers,--every man-jack of us,--white men, red men, half-and-half men,
+whatever we are or wherever we sprung."
+
+"A fellow is always hearing that sort of thing," said Neal Farrar to
+Cyrus. "But I'm blessed if I ever felt it stick in me before! that we're
+all of the one stuff, you know--we and that poor beggar. Some of us
+seem to get such precious long odds over the others."
+
+"All the more reason why we should do our level best to pull the
+backward ones up to us," answered the American.
+
+The words struck into the ears of Dol--that youngster listening with a
+soberness of attention seldom seen in his flash-light eyes.
+
+A few years afterwards, when Neal Farrar was a newly blown lieutenant in
+his Queen's Twelfth Lancers, as full of heroic impulses and enthusiasms
+as a modern young officer may be,--while his half-fledged ambitions were
+hanging on the chances of active service, and the golden, remote
+possibility of his one day being a V.C.,--there was a peaceful honor
+which clung to him unsought.
+
+During his first year of army life, he became the paragon of every poor
+private and raw recruit struggling with the miseries of goose-step, with
+whom he came even into momentary contact. For sometimes through a word
+or act, sometimes through a flash of the eye, or a look about the mouth,
+during the brief interchange of a military salute, these "backward ones"
+saw that the progressive young officer looked on them, not as
+men-machines, but as brothers, as important in the great schemes of the
+nation and the world as he was himself; that he was proud to serve with
+them, and would be prouder still to help them if he could.
+
+It was an understanding which inspired many a tempted or newly joined
+fellow to drill himself morally as his sergeant drilled him physically,
+with a determination to become as fine a soldier and forward a man as
+his paragon.
+
+But only one American friend of Lieutenant Farrar's, who has let out the
+secret to the writer, knows that the binding truth of human brotherhood
+was first born into him when, on Katahdin's side, he helped to bury a
+thieving half-Indian.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+"KEEPING THINGS EVEN."
+
+
+"Now, you musn't be moping, boys, because of this day's work that you
+took a hand in, and that wasn't in your play-bill when you come to these
+woods. We'll have to try and even things up to-morrow with some big
+sport. You look kind o' wilted."
+
+So said Herb when the tired party were half-way back to camp, doing the
+descent of the mountain in a silence clouded by the scene which they had
+been through.
+
+The woodsman seemed troubled with a rasping in his throat. He cleared it
+twice and spat before he could open a passage for a decently cheerful
+voice in which to suggest a rise of spirits. But Herb was too faithful
+a guide to bear the thought that his employers' trip should end in any
+gloom because the one painful chapter in his own life had closed
+forever. Moreover, although more than once, as he fought his way through
+a jungle or jumped a windfall, something nipped his heart, pinching him
+up inside, and making his eyes leak, he felt that the thing had ended
+well for him--and for Chris.
+
+Herb, in his simple faith, scarcely doubted that the old chum, whom he
+had forgiven, had reached a Home-Camp where his broken will and stunted
+life might be repaired, and grow as they had poor chance to grow here.
+
+"Say, boys!" he burst forth, a few minutes after his protest against
+"moping," and when the band were within sight of the spring whence they
+had started, an age back, as it seemed, on the trail of the moose. "Say,
+boys! I've been all these years raging at Chris. Seems to me now as if
+he was a poor sort of overgrowed baby, and not so bad a thief as the
+chump who gave him that whiskey, and stole his senses. It's a thundering
+big pity that man hadn't the burying of him to-day.
+
+"He was always the under dog,--was Chris," he went on slowly, as if he
+was seeking from his own heart an excuse for those unforeseen impulses
+which had worked it and his body during the past five hours. "Whites and
+Injuns jumped on him. They said he was criss-cross all through, same as
+his eyes. But he warn't. Never seed a half-breed that had less gall and
+more grit, except when the hanker for whiskey would creep up in him, and
+boss him. He could no more stand agen it, and the things it made him do,
+than a jack-rabbit."
+
+"Another reason why we Americans ought to feel our responsibility
+towards every man in whose veins runs Indian blood, a thousand times
+more hotly than we do!" burst out Cyrus. "It maddens a fellow to think
+that we made them the under dogs, and as much by giving them a 'boss,'
+as you say, in fire-water, as by anything else."
+
+"I kind o' think that way myself sometimes," said Herb.
+
+And there was silence until the guide cried:--
+
+"Here's our camp, boys. I'll bet you're glad to see it. I must get the
+kettle, and cruise off for water. 'Tain't likely I'll trust one of you
+fellers after last night. But you can hustle round and build the
+camp-fire while I'm gone."
+
+Herb had a shrewd motive in this. He knew that there is nothing which
+will cure the blues in a camper, if he is touched by that affliction,
+rare in forest life, like the building of his fire, watching the little
+flames creep from the dull, dead wood, to roar and soar aloft in
+gold-red pennons of good cheer.
+
+The result proved his wisdom. When he returned in a very short time from
+that ever-to-be-famous spring, with his brimming kettle, he found a
+glorious fire, and three tired but cheerful fellows watching it, its
+reflection playing like a jack-o'-lantern in each pair of eyes.
+
+"Now I'll have supper ready in a jiffy," he said. "I guess you boys feel
+like eating one another. Jerusha! we never touched our snack--nary a
+crumb of it."
+
+In the strange happenings and chaotic feelings of the day, hunger,
+together with the bread and pork for satisfying it which Herb had
+carried up the mountain, were forgotten until now.
+
+"Never mind! We'll make up for it. Only hurry up!" pleaded Dol. "We're
+like bears, we're so hungry."
+
+"Like bears! You're a sight more like calves with their mouths open,
+waiting for something to swallow," answered Herb, his eyes flashing
+impudence, while, with an energy apparently no less brisk than when he
+started out in the morning, he rushed his preparations for supper.
+
+"Say I'm like a Sukey, and I'll go for you!" roared Dol, a gurgling
+laugh breaking from him, the first which had been heard since the four
+struggled through that tangle on Katahdin to a sight of the old camp.
+
+Once or twice during supper the mirth, which had been frozen in each
+camper's breast by a sight of the drifted wreck of a human life, warmed
+again spasmodically. Herb did his manly best to fan its flame, though
+his heart was still pinched by a feeling of double loss.
+
+Later in the evening, when the party were huddling close to the
+camp-fire, he lifted his right hand and looked at it blankly.
+
+"My!" he gasped, "but it will feel awful queer and empty without Old
+Blazes. That rifle was a reg'lar corker, boys. I was saving up for three
+years to buy it. An' it never went back on me. Times when I've gone far
+off hunting, and had nary a chance to speak to a human for weeks, I'd
+get to talking to it like as if 'twas a living thing. When I wasn't
+afeard of scaring game, I'd fire a round to make it answer back and
+drive away lonesomeness. Folks might ha' thought I was loony, only there
+was none to see. Well, it's smashed to chips now, 'long with the old
+camp."
+
+"What awfully selfish jackasses we were, to skip off with our own
+rifles, and never think of yours, or that you couldn't save it, carrying
+that poor fellow! I feel like kicking myself," said Cyrus, sharp
+vexation in his voice. "But that slide business sprang on us so quickly.
+The sudden rumbling, rattling, and pounding jumbled a fellow's wits. I
+scarcely understood what was up, even when we were scooting for our
+lives."
+
+"I felt a bit white-livered myself, I tell ye; and I'm more hardened to
+slides than you are," was the woodsman's answer.
+
+The confession, taken in the light of his conduct, made him doubly a
+hero to his city friends.
+
+They thought of him staggering along the mountain, blinded, bewildered,
+pelted by clay, with that dragging burden in his arms, a heart tossed by
+danger's keenest realization in his breast. And they were silent before
+the high courage which can recognize fear, yet refuse to it the mastery.
+
+Neal, whose secret musings were generally crossed by a military thread,
+seeing that he had chosen the career of a cavalry-soldier, and hoped
+soon to enter Sandhurst College, stared into the heart of the camp-fire,
+glowering at fate, because she had not ordained that Herb should serve
+the queen with him, and wear upon his resolute heart--as it might
+reasonably be expected he would--the Victoria Cross.
+
+Young Farrar's feeling was so strong that it swept his lips at last.
+
+"Blow it all! Herb," he cried. "It's a tearing pity that you can't come
+into the English Lancers with me. I don't suppose I'll ever be a V.C.,
+but you would sooner or later as sure as gun's iron."
+
+"A 'V.C.!' What's that?" asked Herb.
+
+"A Vigorous Christian, to be sure!" put in Cyrus, who was progressive
+and peaceful, teasingly.
+
+But the English boy, full of the dignity of the subject to him, summoned
+his best eloquence to describe to the American backwoodsman that little
+cross of iron, Victoria's guerdon, which entitles its possessor to
+write those two notable letters after his name, and which only
+hero-hearts may wear.
+
+But a vision of himself, stripped of "sweater" and moccasins, in cavalry
+rig, becrossed and beribboned, serving under another flag than the Stars
+and Stripes, was too much for Herb's gravity and for the grim regrets
+which wrung him to-night.
+
+"Oh, sugar!" he gasped; and his laughter was like a rocket shooting up
+from his mighty throat, and exploding in a hundred sparkles of
+merriment.
+
+He laughed long. He laughed insistently. His comrades were won to join
+in.
+
+When the fun had subsided, Garst said:--
+
+"Herb Heal, old man, there's something in you to-night which reminds me
+of a line I'm rather stuck on."
+
+"Let's have it!" cried Herb.
+
+And Cyrus quoted:--
+
+  "As for this here earth,
+  It takes lots of laffin' to keep things even!"
+
+"Now you've hit it! The man that wrote that had a pile o' sense. Come,
+boys, it's been an awful full day. Let's turn in!"
+
+As he spoke, Herb began to replenish the fire, and make things snug in
+the camp for the night.
+
+But shortly after, when he threw himself on the spuce-boughs near them,
+the boys heard him murmur, deep in his throat, as if he took strength
+from the words:--
+
+  "It takes lots of laffin' to keep things even!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+A LITTLE CARIBOU QUARREL.
+
+
+But things on this old planet seemed even enough the next day, when,
+after a dozen hours of much needed sleep, the campers' eyes opened upon
+a scene which might have stirred any sluggish blood--and they were not
+sluggards.
+
+A fresh breath of frost was in the air to quicken circulation and
+hunger. Under a smiling sun an October breeze frolicked through leaves
+with tints of fire and gold, humming, while it swiftly skimmed over
+their beauties, as if it was reading a wind's poem of autumn.
+
+Katahdin looked as though it had suddenly taken on the white crown of
+age, with age's stately calm. The weather had grown colder during the
+night. Summer--the balmy Indian summer, with its late spells of
+sultriness--had taken a weeping departure yesterday. To-day there was no
+threatening of rain-storm or slide. The mountain's principal peaks had
+fleecy wraps of snow.
+
+"Ha! Old Katahdin has put on its nightcap," exclaimed Cyrus, when the
+trio issued from their tent in the morning. "Listen, you fellows! This
+is the 21st of October. I propose that we start back to our home-camp
+to-morrow. It will take us two days to reach Millinokett Lake. Then
+we'll set our faces towards civilization the first week in November, or
+thereabouts."
+
+"Oh, bother it! So soon!" protested Dol.
+
+"Now, Young Rattlebrain,"--Garst took the calm tone of
+leadership,--"please consider that this is the first time you've camped
+out in Maine woods. You might find it fun to be snowed up in camp during
+a first fall, and to tramp homewards through a thawing slush. But your
+father wouldn't relish its effects on your British constitution. And out
+here--once we're well into November--there's no knowing when the
+temperature may drop to zero with mighty short notice. I've often
+turned in at night, feeling as if I were on 'India's coral strands' and
+woke up next morning thinking I had popped off in my sleep to
+'Greenland's icy mountains.' Herb Heal! you know what tricks a
+thermometer, if we had one, might play in our camp from this out; talk
+sense to these fellows."
+
+Herb, who had risen an hour before his charges, had already fetched
+fresh water, coaxed up the fire, and was busily mixing flapjacks for
+breakfast. His ears, however, had caught the drift of the talk.
+
+"Guess Cyrus is right," he said. "Seeing as it's the first time you
+Britishers have slept off your spring mattresses, I'd say, light out for
+the city and steam-heat afore the snow comes. Oh! you needn't get your
+mad up. I ain't thinking you'd growl at being snowed in. I know better.
+
+"By the great horn spoon! I b'lieve I'll go right along to Greenville
+with you," exclaimed the guide a minute later. "I might get a chance to
+pick up a bargain of a second-hand rifle there. And I guess you'd be
+mighty sick o' your luck, Dol, if you had to lug them moose-antlers part
+o' the way yerself. I ain't stuck on carrying 'em either, if we can get
+a jumper."
+
+But there was a third reason, still more powerful than these two, why
+he should make a trip to the distant town, which stirred Herb's mind
+while he stirred his cakes. His sturdy sense told him that it would be
+well he should put in an appearance when Cyrus made a statement before
+the Greenville coroner as to the cause and manner of Chris's death.
+
+"Now, you boys, we don't want no fooling this blessed day," he said,
+when breakfast was in order, and the campers were emptying for the
+second time their tin mugs of coffee. "There's sport before us--tearing
+good sport. Whatever do you s'pose I come on this morning when I was
+cruising over the bog for water? Caribou-tracks! Caribou-tracks, as sure
+as there's a caribou in Maine!
+
+"Who's for following 'em? We hain't got much provisions left; and I
+guess a chunk of broiled caribou-steak about as big as a horse's upper
+lip would cheer each of us up, and make us feel first-rate. What say,
+boys?"
+
+"By all that's glorious!" ejaculated Cyrus, his eyes striking light.
+"Caribou-signs! Of course we'll follow them. A bit of fresh meat would
+be pretty acceptable, and a good view of a herd of caribou would be
+still more so--to me, at any rate. That would just about top off our
+exploring to a T."
+
+"We've got to be mighty spry, then," said the woodsman, lurching to his
+feet, muscles swelling, and nostrils spreading like a sleuth-hound's.
+"If you want caribou, you've got to take 'em while they're around. Old
+hunters have a saying: 'They're here to-day, to-morrow nowhere.' And
+that's about the size of it."
+
+"Let's start off this minute!" Dol jerked out the words while he bolted
+the last salt shreds of his pork. "Hurry up, you fellows! You're as slow
+as snails. I'd eat the jolliest meal that was ever cooked in three
+minutes."
+
+"No wonder you squirm and shout all night, then, until sane people with
+good digestions feel ready to blow your head off," laughed Cyrus, who
+was one of the laggards; but he disposed of the last mouthfuls of his
+own meal with little regard for his digestive canal.
+
+In rather less than twenty minutes the four were scanning with wide eyes
+certain fresh foot-marks, plainly printed on a patch of soft oozing
+clay, midway on the boggy tract.
+
+"Whew! Bless me! Those caribou-tracks?" Cyrus caught his breath with
+amazement while he crouched to examine them. "Why, they're bigger than
+any moose-tracks we've seen!"
+
+"Isn't that great?" gasped Dol.
+
+"Well, come to think of it, it is," answered the guide, in the stealthy
+tones of an expectant hunter; "for a full-grown bull-caribou don't stand
+so high as a full-sized moose by two or three feet, and he don't weigh
+more'n half as much. Still, for all that, caribou deer beat every other
+animal of the deer tribe, so far's I know, in the size of their hoofs,
+as you'll see bime-by if luck's with us! And my stars! how they scud
+along on them big hoofs. I'd back 'em in a race against the smartest of
+your city chaps that ever spun through Maine on his new-fangled 'wheel,'
+that he's so sot on."
+
+Garst, who was an enthusiastic cyclist, with a gurgle of unbelieving
+mirth, prepared to dispute this. There might have ensued a wordy
+sparring about caribou versus bicycle, had not the guide been impressed
+with the necessity for prompt action at the expense of speech.
+
+"We must quit our talk and get a move on," he whispered, and led the
+forward march across the bog, his eyes every now and again narrowing
+into two gleaming slits, as if he were debating within himself, while he
+studied the ground or some bush which showed signs of being nibbled or
+trampled. Then he would sweep the horizon with long-range vision.
+
+But not a tuft of hair or glancing horn hove in sight.
+
+The marsh was left behind. The hoof-marks were lost in a wide meadowy
+sweep of open ground, bounded at a distance by an irregular line of
+hills, sparsely covered with spruce-trees.
+
+Towards these Herb headed, leaving Katahdin away back in the rear.
+
+"'Shaw! I'm afeard they're 'nowhere' by this time," he whispered, when
+the hunters reached the rising ground, glancing at Dol, who stepped
+lightly beside him.
+
+The boy's lips parted to breathe out compressed disappointment; but his
+answer was lost in a sharp whirr! whirr! and a sudden flutter of wings
+above his head. His eyes went aloft towards a bough about eight feet
+from the ground. So did Herb's, and lit with a new, whimsical hope.
+
+"A spruce partridge!" hissed the guide, his voice thrilling even in its
+stealthy whisper. "That's luck--dead sure! The Injuns say, 'The red eye
+never tells a lie;'" and the woodsman pointed out the strip of bare red
+skin above the beady eyes of the bird, which cuddled itself on its
+branch, and looked down at them unfrighted.
+
+Dol Farrar, who in this region of moose-birds and moose-calls could
+believe in anything, felt both his spirits and credulity rise together.
+He managed to keep abreast of the trained hunter, as the latter, with
+swift, stretching, silent steps climbed the hill. And he heard the
+hunter's sudden cluck of triumph as he reached the top, and looked down
+upon the valley at the other side, the inarticulate sound being followed
+by one softly rung word,--
+
+"Caribou!"
+
+"Caribou? They look awfully like quiet Alderney cows, except for the big
+antlers!" The amazed exclamation stirred the English boy's tongue, but
+he did not make it audible.
+
+Following Herb's example, he stretched himself flat upon his stomach
+under a spruce, and stared over the brow of the hill at a forest
+pantomime which was being acted in the valley.
+
+Cautiously slipping from tree to tree, Cyrus and Neal, who had lagged a
+few steps behind, joined the leaders, and lay low, eagerly gazing too.
+
+On its farther side the hill was yet more sparsely covered, the
+scattered spruces showing gaps between them where the lumberman's axe
+had made havoc. Through these openings, which were as shafts of light
+amid the evergreen's waving play, the hunters saw the sun silver a brown
+pool in the valley. A few maples and birches waved their shrivelling
+splendors of scarlet and buff at irregular distances from the water. And
+in and out among these trees moved in graceful woodland frolic four or
+five large animals,--perhaps more,--their doings being plainly seen by
+the watchers on the hill.
+
+Their coats, like those of the smaller deer, were of a brown which
+seemed to have caught its dye from the autumnal tints surrounding them.
+In shape they justified Dol's criticism; for they certainly were not
+unlike cows of the Alderney breed, save for the widely branching horns.
+
+Of the strength of these antlers the hidden spectators got sudden,
+startling proof, as the two largest caribou drew off from the rest, and
+charged each other in a real or sham fight, the battle-clang of their
+meeting horns sounding far away to the hill-top.
+
+"Them two bulls are having a big time of it. Look at 'em now, with the
+small one. That's a stranger in the herd," hummed Herb into the ear of
+the boy next to him, his voice so light and even that it might have been
+but the murmur of a falling leaf. "It's an all-fired pity that we're
+jest too far off for a shot."
+
+The "stranger," which the woodsman's long-range eye had singled out, was
+of a smaller size and paler color than the other caribou; and Herb--who
+could interpret the forest pantomime far better than he would have
+explained the acting of human beings on a stage--told his companions in
+whispers and signs that it was in distressed dread of its company.
+
+The attentions which the rest paid to it seemed at first only friendly
+and facetious. The two big bulls, after trying their mettle against each
+other for a minute, separated, and moved towards it, prodded it lightly
+with their horns, and playfully bit its sides, a sport in which the
+other members of the herd joined.
+
+"They're playing it, like a cat with a mouse; but I guess they'll murder
+it in the long run if it's sickly or weak. Caribou are the biggest
+bullies in these woods--to each other," whispered Herb.
+
+"By the great horn spoon! they're doing for it now," he gasped, a minute
+later. "Sho!... if I only had my old Winchester here, I'd soon stop
+their lynching. Try it, you, Cyrus! You're a sure shot, an' you can
+creep within a hundred yards of 'em without being scented. Try it, man!"
+
+The guide's flashing eyes and quick signs conveyed half his meaning; his
+excited sentences were so low that Garst only caught fag-ends of them.
+But they were emphasized unexpectedly by a faint bleating sound rising
+from the valley,--the helpless bleat of a buffeted creature.
+
+"We want meat, and I'm going to spring a surprise on those bullies,"
+muttered Cyrus, setting his teeth.
+
+Still lying flat, he shot his eyes down the hill-slope, forming a plan
+of descent; then he lifted the rifle beside him, and jammed some fresh
+cartridges into the magazine.
+
+Ere a dozen long breaths had been drawn, he was stealthily moving
+towards the valley, slipping from spruce to spruce--an arrowlike,
+unnoticeable figure in his dark gray tweeds.
+
+He was close to the foot of the hill when the three breathless fellows
+above saw him raise his rifle, just as the unfortunate little caribou,
+after many efforts to escape, had been beaten to its knees.
+
+"He'll drop one, sure! He's a crack shot--is Cyrus! There! he's drawing
+bead. Bravo!... he's floored the biggest!"
+
+Herb's gusty breath blew the sentences through his nostrils, while the
+sudden, explosive bang of the Winchester cut through all other sounds,
+and set the air a-quiver.
+
+Twice Cyrus fired.
+
+The largest bull-caribou leaped three feet upward, wheeled about,
+staggered to his knees. A third shot stopped his bullying forever.
+
+"Hurrah! I guess you've got the leader--the best of the herd. That other
+bull was a buster too! You might ha' dropped him, if you'd been in the
+humor!" bellowed the guide, springing to his legs, and letting out his
+pent-up wind in a full-blast roar of triumph.
+
+He well knew that Cyrus, "being a queer specimen sportsman," and the
+right sort after all, would be satisfied with the one inevitable deed of
+death.
+
+As their leader fell, the caribou raised their heads, stared in
+stiffened wonder for a few seconds, offering a steady mark for the
+smoking rifle if it had been in the grasp of a butcher. Then, as though
+propelled by one shock, they cut for the wood at dazzling speed.
+
+A minute--and they were in the distance as tufts of hair blown before a
+storm-wind.
+
+The half-killed weakling sought shelter more slowly in another
+direction.
+
+"Well done, Cy!"
+
+"Congratulations, old man!"
+
+"You've got a trophy now. You'll never leave this splendid head behind.
+My eye, what antlers!"
+
+Such were the exclamations blown to Garst's ears by the hot breath of
+his English friends, as they reached his side, and stooped with him to
+examine the fallen forest beauty.
+
+"No; I guess we can manage to haul the head back to camp, with as much
+meat as we need. You'll have your 'chunk of caribou-steak as big as a
+horse's upper lip,' to-night, Herb, and bigger if you want it. I'm
+tickled at getting the antlers, especially as I didn't shoot this beauty
+for the sake of them. I'll hook them on my shoulders when we start back
+to Millinokett to-morrow."
+
+So answered the successful hunter, tingling with some pride in the skill
+which, because of his reverence for all life, he generally kept out of
+sight.
+
+And he stuck to his purpose about the antlers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Cheered and invigorated by a sumptuous supper and breakfast of broiled
+caribou-steaks, supplemented by Herb's lightest cakes, and carrying some
+of the meat with them as provision for the way, the campers accomplished
+their backward tramp to the log camp on Millinokett Lake in fulness of
+strength and spirits.
+
+Once or twice during the journey, when the guide was stalking ahead, and
+thought himself unnoticed, the city fellows saw him lift his right hand
+and look at it for a full minute. Then it swung heavily back to his
+side.
+
+"He's missing his rifle, the partner that never went back on him," said
+Cyrus. "Say, boys! I've got an idea!"
+
+"Out with it if it's worth anything," grunted Dol. "I never have ideas
+these days. Too much doing. I don't feel as if there was a steady peg in
+me to hang one on."
+
+"Oh! quit your nonsense, Chick, and listen. Herb will wait for us in a
+few minutes," was the Boston man's impatient rejoinder.
+
+Then followed a low-toned consultation, in the course of which such talk
+as this was heard:--
+
+"Our Pater will want to shell out when he hears about Chris."
+
+"So will mine. He'll be for sending Herb a cool five hundred or thousand
+dollars, right away. And, as likely as not, Herb would feel flaring mad,
+and ready to chuck it in his face. He's not the sort of fellow to stand
+being paid by an outsider for a plucky act, done in the best hour of his
+life."
+
+"Oh, I say! wouldn't it be decenter to manage the thing ourselves,
+without letting anybody who doesn't know him meddle in it?" This
+suggestion was in Dol's voice. "Neal and I could draw our allowances for
+three months in advance; the Pater will be willing enough. We'll be
+precious hard up without them, but we'll rub through somehow. Then you
+can chip in an even third, Cy, and we'll order an A I rifle,--the best
+ever invented, from the best company in America,--silver plate, with his
+name,--and all the rest of it. I'd swamp my allowance for a year to see
+Herb's face when he gets it."
+
+"That's the plan! You do have occasional moments of wisdom, Dol; I'll
+say that much for you," commented the leader. "Well, Herb has taken a
+special sort of liking to you. You may tip him a hint to wait in
+Greenville for a few days, and not to go looking for second-hand rifles
+till he hears from us. Better not say anything until we're just parting.
+Ten to one, though, you'll blurt the whole thing out in some harebrained
+minute, or give it away in your sleep."
+
+"Blow me if I do!" answered Dol solemnly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+DOC AGAIN.
+
+
+Herb, turning back at that minute to wait for his party, experienced a
+shock of curiosity which was new to him, at seeing the three in close
+counsel, shouldering each other upon a trail a couple of feet wide.
+
+But the sensation passed. Dol for once was not guilty of an
+indiscretion, waking or sleeping. The woodsman got no hint of what
+matter had been discussed until more than two weeks later, when he stood
+in the main street of Greenville, beside a tanned, muscular, newly
+shaven trio, waiting for their departure for Boston.
+
+A few pleasant days, marked by no particular excitements, had been spent
+at the log camp on Millinokett after that wonderful trip into the
+forests of Katahdin. Then the weather turned suddenly blustering and
+cold; and Cyrus, as captain, ordered an immediate forced march to
+Greenville.
+
+Under Herb's guidance that march was made with singularly few hardships.
+He managed to hire a "jumper" from a new settler who had a farm a couple
+of miles from their camp. This contrivance was a rough sort of sled,
+formed of two stout ash saplings, and hitched to a courageous horse. The
+"jumper's" one merit was that it could travel along many a rough trail
+where wheels would be splintered at the outset. But since, as Herb said,
+it went at "a succession of dead jumps," no camper was willing to trust
+his bones to its tender mercies. However, it answered admirably for
+carrying the tent, knapsacks, and trophies of the party, tightly
+strapped in place, including Neal's bear-skin, which was duly called
+for, and the moose-antlers, more precious in Dol's sight than if they
+had been made of beaten gold.
+
+Thus the campers journeyed homeward with their backs as light as their
+spirits, caring little for the chills of a couple of nights spent under
+canvas and rubber coverings.
+
+Two gala evenings they had,--one with Uncle Eb in his bark hut near
+Squaw Pond, where they were regaled with a sumptuous supper, for "coons
+war in eatin' order now;" and the second with Doctor Phil Buck at his
+little frame house near Moosehead Lake.
+
+Dear old Doc was as ever a power,--a power to welcome, uplift,
+entertain.
+
+The campers sought him immediately on their arrival at Greenville; and
+he stood by them while Cyrus made a full statement before the local
+coroner about the death and burial of the half-breed, Chris Kemp, the
+Farrars and Herb confirming what was said with due dignity.
+
+But dignity was blown to the four winds by the very unprofessional and
+very woodsman-like cheer that Doc raised, and that was echoed
+thunderously by Joe Flint and a few other guides and loungers who had
+collected to hear the story, when Cyrus described the splendid rush
+which Herb made, with the dying man in his arms, and the clay of the
+landslide half smothering him.
+
+"I'm sorry I wasn't near to try and do something for the poor fellow,"
+said the doctor, later on, when his friends were gathered round a
+blazing wood-fire in his own snug house. "But I doubt if I could have
+helped him. I guess he was born with the hankering for whiskey, and when
+that is in the mongrel blood of a half-breed it is pretty sure to wreck
+him some time. We must leave him to God, boys, and to changes larger
+than we know."
+
+"I've a letter for you, Neal," added the host presently in a lighter
+tone. "It was directed to my care. It is from Philadelphia, from Royal
+Sinclair, I think."
+
+Neal slit the envelope which was handed to him, and read the few lines
+it contained aloud, with a longing burst of laughter.
+
+Royal was as short with his pen as he was dash-away with his tongue. The
+letter was a brief but pressing invitation to Cyrus and the Farrars to
+visit their camping acquaintances of the Maine wilds at the Sinclairs'
+home in Philadelphia before the English boys recrossed the Atlantic.
+
+"Come you must!" wrote Roy. "We've promised to give a big spread, and
+invite all the crowd we train with to meet you. We'll have a great old
+time, and bring out our best yarns. Don't let me catch you refusing!"
+
+[Illustration: GREENVILLE,--"FAREWELL TO THE WOODS."]
+
+"We won't if we can help it," commented Neal; "if only we can coax the
+Pater to give us another week in jolly America."
+
+The campers slept upon mattresses that night for the first time in many
+weeks.
+
+The following morning saw them grouped in the main street of Greenville,
+with Doc and Herb on hand for a final farewell, waiting for the
+departure of the coach which was to bear them a little part of the way
+towards Boston civilization.
+
+Dol was turning over in his jostled thoughts the delicate wording of the
+hint which he was to convey to Herb about the rifle, when he became
+aware that Doctor Phil was pinching his shoulder, and saying, while he
+drew Neal's attention in the same way:--
+
+"Well, you fellows! I'm glad to have known you. If you ever come to
+Maine again, remember that there's one old forest fogy who'll have a
+delightful welcome for you in his house or camp, not to speak of the
+thing he calls his heart. And I hope you'll keep a pleasant corner in
+your memories for our Pine Tree State, and for American States
+generally, so far as you've seen them."
+
+Dol tried to answer; but recalling the evening when, wrecked at heart,
+with stinging feet, he had stumbled at last into the trail to Doc's
+camp, he could only mutter, "Dash it all!" and rub his leaking eyes.
+
+"Of course I'll think in an hour from now of all the things I want to
+say," began Neal helplessly, and stopped. "But I'll tell you how I feel,
+Doc," he added, with a sudden rush of breath: "I think I can never see
+your Stars and Stripes again without taking off my hat to them, and
+feeling that they're about equal to my own flag."
+
+"Neatly put, Neal! I couldn't have done it better," laughed Cyrus.
+
+"Shake!" and Doc offered his hand in a heart-grip, while the hairs on it
+bristled. "Boy! long life to that feeling. You men who are now being
+hatched will show us one day what Young England and Young America, as a
+grand brotherhood under comrade flags, can do to give this old earth a
+lift which she has never had yet towards peace and prosperity. We're
+looking to you for it!"
+
+"Hur-r-r-rup!" cheered Herb, subduing his shout to the requirements of a
+settlement, but sending his battered hat some ten feet into the air, and
+recovering it with a dexterous shoot of his long arm, by way of giving
+his friends an inspiring send-off.
+
+"Tell you what it is!" he said suddenly, turning upon the Farrars, "I
+never guided Britishers till now; but, wherever you sprung from, you're
+clean grit. If a man is that, it don't matter a whistle to me what
+country riz him."
+
+A few minutes afterwards, with a jingle, jangle, lurch, and rattle, the
+stage-coach was swaying its way out of Greenville. Dol, stooping from
+his seat upon it, gripped the guide's hand in a wringing good-by.
+
+"Herb," he said, "we three fellows want you to stay here for a few days,
+and not to do anything about a second-hand rifle until you hear from us.
+Mind!"
+
+And so it happened that, ten days or so later, while the three were
+enjoying the hospitalities of the Sinclairs and "their crowd" in the
+Quaker City, Herb, who was still in Greenville, waiting for a fresh
+engagement as guide, was accosted by the driver of the coach from
+Bangor.
+
+"Herb Heal, here's a bully parcel for you," said the Jehu, with a
+knowing grin. "Came from Boston, I guess. I war booked to take
+pertik'lar care of it."
+
+And Herb, feeling his strong fingers tingle, undid many wrappers, and
+hauled out, before the eyes of Greenville loungers, a rifle such as it
+is the desire of every Maine woodsman's heart to possess.
+
+A best grade, 45-90, half-magazine Winchester it was, fitted with
+shot-gun stock and Lyman sights, and bearing a gleaming silver plate, on
+which was prettily lettered:--
+
+  HERB HEAL
+  IN MEMORY OF OCTOBER, 1891.
+
+Underneath was engraved a miniature pine, its trunk bearing three sets
+of initials.
+
+Herb stalked straight off a distance of one mile to Doctor Buck's house,
+pushed the door open as if it had been the door of a wilderness camp,
+and shot himself into Doc's little study.
+
+"Look what those three gamy fellows have sent me," he said; and his eyes
+were now like Millinokett Lake under a full sun-burst. "I thought the
+old one was a corker, but this"--
+
+Here the woodsman's dictionary gave out.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+CHRISTMAS ON THE OTHER SIDE.
+
+
+"'Christmas, 1893.' Those last two figures are a bit crooked; aren't
+they, Dol?" said a tall, soldierly fellow, who was no longer a boy, yet
+could scarcely in his own country call himself a man.
+
+He read the date critically, having fixed it as the centre-piece in a
+festive arch of holly and bunting, which spanned the hall of a mansion
+in Victoria Park, Manchester.
+
+"I believe that's better," he added, straightening a tipsy "93," and
+bounding from a chair-back on which he was perched, to step quickly
+backward, with a something in gait and bearing that suggested a cavalry
+swing.
+
+"'Christmas, 1893,'" he read musingly again. "Goodness! to think it's
+two years since we laid eyes on old Cyrus, and that he has landed on
+English soil before this, may be here any minute--and Sinclair too. I
+guess"--these two words were brought out with a smile, as if the speaker
+was putting himself in touch with the happiness of a by-gone time--"I
+guess that 'Star-Spangled Banner' will look home-like to them."
+
+And Neal Farrar, just back for a short vacation from Sandhurst Military
+College, twice gravely saluted the gay bunting with which his Christmas
+arch was draped, where the Union Jack of old England kissed the American
+Stars and Stripes.
+
+"I say!" he exclaimed, turning to a tall youth, who had been inspecting
+his operations, "that Liverpool train must be beastly late, Dol. Those
+fellows ought to be here before this. The Mater will be in a stew. She
+ordered dinner at five, as the youngsters dine with us, of course,
+to-day, and it's past that now."
+
+"Hush! will you? I'll vow that cab is stopping! Yes! By all that's
+splendid, there they are!" and Dol Farrar's joy-whoop rang through the
+English oaken hall with scarcely less vehemence than it had rung in
+former days through the dim aisles of the Maine forests.
+
+A sound of spinning cab-wheels abruptly stopping, a noise of men's feet
+on the steps outside, and the hall-door was flung wide by two pairs of
+welcoming hands.
+
+"Cyrus! Royal! Got here at last? Oh! but this is jolly."
+
+"Neal, dear old boy, how goes it? Dol, you're a giant. I wouldn't have
+known you."
+
+Such were the most coherent of the greetings which followed, as two
+visitors, in travelling rig, their faces reddened by eight days at sea
+in midwinter, crossed the threshold.
+
+There could be no difficulty in recognizing Cyrus Garst's well-knit
+figure and speculative eyes, though a sprouting beard changed somewhat
+the lower part of his face. And if Royal Sinclair's tall shoulders and
+brand-new mustache were at all unfamiliar, anybody who had once heard
+the click and hum of his hasty tongue would scarcely question his
+identity.
+
+The Americans had steamed over the Atlantic amid bluster of elements,
+purposing a tour through southern France and Italy. And they were to
+take part, before proceeding to the Continent, in the festivities of an
+English Christmas at the Farrars' home in Manchester.
+
+"Oh, but this is jolly!" cried Neal again, his voice so thickened by the
+joy of welcome that--embryo cavalry man though he was--he could bring
+out nothing more forceful than the one boyish exclamation.
+
+Dol's throat was freer. Sinclair and he raised a regular tornado in the
+handsome hall. Questions and answers, only half distinguishable, blew
+between them, with explosions of laughter, and a thunder of claps on
+each other's shoulders. When their gale was at its noisiest, Royal's
+part of it abruptly sank to a dead calm, stopped by "an angel unawares."
+
+A girl of sixteen, with hair like the brown and gold of a pheasant's
+breast, opened a drawing-room door, stepped to Neal's side, and
+whispered,--
+
+"Introduce me!"
+
+"My sister," said Neal, recovering self-possession. "Myrtle, I believe
+I'll let you guess for yourself which is Garst and which is Sinclair."
+
+"Well, I've heard so much about you for the past two years that I know
+you already, all but your looks. So I'm sure to guess right," said
+Myrtle Farrar, scrutinizing the Americans with a pretty welcoming
+glance, then giving to each a glad hand-shake.
+
+Royal's tongue grew for once less active than his eyes, which were so
+caught by the golden shades on the pheasant-like head that for a minute
+he could see nothing else. Even Cyrus, who was accustomed to look upon
+himself as the cool-blooded senior among his band of intimates, tingled
+a little.
+
+"You're just in time for dinner--I'm so glad," laughed Miss Myrtle. "A
+Christmas dinner with a whole tribe of Farrars, big and little."
+
+"But our baggage hasn't come on yet," answered Garst ruefully. "Will
+Mrs. Farrar excuse our appearing in travelling rig?"
+
+"Indeed she will!" answered for herself a fair, motherly-looking English
+woman, as pretty as Myrtle save for the gold-brown hair, while she came
+a few steps into the hall to welcome her sons' friends.
+
+Five minutes afterwards the Americans found themselves seated at a table
+garlanded with red-berried holly, trailing ivy, and pearl-eyed
+mistletoe, and surrounded by a round dozen of Farrars, including several
+youngsters whose general place was in schoolroom or nursery, but who,
+even to a tot of three, were promoted to dine in splendor on Christmas
+Day.
+
+"Well, this is festive!" remarked Cyrus to Myrtle, who sat next to him,
+when, after much preparatory feasting, an English plum-pudding,
+wreathed, decorated, and steaming, came upon the scene. Fluttering amid
+the almonds which studded its top were two wee pink-stemmed flags. And
+here again, in compliment to the newly arrived guests, the
+"Star-Spangled Banner" kissed the English Union Jack.
+
+"Say, Neal!" exclaimed Cyrus, his eyes keenly bright as he looked at the
+toy standards, "wouldn't this sort of thing delight our friend Doc? By
+the way, that reminds me, I have a package for you from him, and a
+message from Herb Heal too. Herb wants to know 'when those gamy
+Britishers are coming out to hunt moose again?' And Doc has sent you a
+little bundle of beaver-clippings. They are from an ash-tree two feet in
+circumference, felled by that beaver colony which we came across near
+the _br�l�e_ where you shot your bear and covered yourself with glory.
+Doc asked you to put the wood in sight on Christmas Night, and to think
+of the Maine woods."
+
+"Think of them!" Neal ejaculated. "Bless the dear old brick! does he
+think we could ever forget them and the stunning times we had in camp
+and on trail?"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Camp and Trail, by Isabel Hornibrook
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+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" />
+<title>Camp and Trail by Isabel Hornibrook</title>
+<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" />
+<style type="text/css">
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+
+<pre>
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Camp and Trail, by Isabel Hornibrook
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+Title: Camp and Trail
+       A Story of the Maine Woods
+
+Author: Isabel Hornibrook
+
+Release Date: November 4, 2004 [EBook #13946]
+[Most recently updated: May 31, 2020]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAMP AND TRAIL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Curtis Weyant, Josephine Paolucci, Joshua Hutchinson and
+the PG Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<h1>Camp and Trail</h1>
+
+<h4>A Story of the Maine Woods</h4>
+
+<h2>by Isabel Hornibrook</h2>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:55%;">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="cover" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">
+TO<br/>
+J.L.H.</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus01"></a>
+<img src="images/illus01.jpg" width="380" height="600" alt="Illustration: " />
+<p class="caption"><b>The Moose Was Now Snorting Like a War-Horse Beneath</b><br/></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="pref01"></a>Preface</h2>
+
+<p>
+In adding another to the list of stories bearing on that subject of perennial
+interest to boys, adventures in camp and on trail among the woods and lakes of
+Northern Maine, one thought has been the inspiration that led me on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is this: To prove to high-mettled lads, American, and English as well, that
+forest quarters, to be the most jovial quarters on earth, need not be made a
+shambles. Sensation may reach its finest pitch, excitement be an unfailing
+fillip, and fun the leaven which leavens the camping-trip from start to finish,
+even though the triumph of killing for triumph&rsquo;s sake be left out of the
+play-bill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is a higher sport in preservation than in
+destruction,&rdquo; says a veteran hunter, whose forest experiences and
+descriptions have in part enriched this story. I commend the opinion to
+boy-readers, trusting that they may become &ldquo;queer specimen
+sportsmen,&rdquo; after the pattern of Cyrus Garst; and find a more
+entrancing excitement in studying the live wild things of the forest
+than in gloating over a dying tremor, or examining a senseless mass of
+horn, hide, and hoofs, after the life-spring which worked the mechanism
+has been stilled forever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One other desire has trodden on the heels of the first: That Young England and
+Young America may be inspired with a wish to understand each other better, to
+take each other frankly and simply for the manhood in each; and that thus
+misconception and prejudice may disappear like mists of an old-day dream.
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+ISABEL HORNIBROOK.
+</p>
+
+<h2>Contents</h2>
+
+<table summary="" style="">
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap01">Chapter I. Jacking For Deer</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap02">Chapter II. A Spill-Out</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap03">Chapter III. Life in a Bark Hut</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap04">Chapter IV. Whither Bound?</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap05">Chapter V. A Coon Hunt</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap06">Chapter VI. After Black Ducks</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap07">Chapter VII. A Forest Guide-Post</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap08">Chapter VIII. Another Camp</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap09">Chapter IX. A Sunday Among the Pines</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap10">Chapter X. Forward All!</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap11">Chapter XI. Beaver Works</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap12">Chapter XII. &ldquo;Go It, Old Bruin!&rdquo;</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap13">Chapter XIII. &ldquo;The Skin Is Yours.&rdquo;</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap14">Chapter XIV. A Lucky Hunter</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap15">Chapter XV. A Fallen King</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap16">Chapter XVI. Moose-Calling</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap17">Chapter XVII. Herb&rsquo;s Yarns</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap18">Chapter XVIII. To Lonelier Wilds</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap19">Chapter XIX. Treed By a Moose</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap20">Chapter XX. Triumph</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap21">Chapter XXI. On Katahdin</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap22">Chapter XXII. The Old Home-Camp</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap23">Chapter XXIII. Brother's Work</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap24">Chapter XXIV. &ldquo;Keeping Things Even&rdquo;</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap25">Chapter XXV. A Little Caribou Quarrel</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap26">Chapter XXVI. Doc Again</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap27">Chapter XXVII. Christmas on the Other Side</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>List Of Illustrations</h2>
+
+<table summary="" style="">
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus01">The Moose Was Now Snorting Like A War-Horse Beneath.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus02">&ldquo;There Is Moosehead Lake.&rdquo;</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus03">Dol Sights A Friendly Camp.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus04">In The Shadow Of Katahdin.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus05">&ldquo;Go It, Old Bruin! Go It While You Can!&rdquo;</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus06">&ldquo;Herb Heal.&rdquo;</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus07">A Fallen King.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus08">The Camp On Millinokett Lake.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus09">&ldquo;Herb Charged Through The Choking Dust-Clouds.&rdquo;</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus10">Greenville,&mdash;&ldquo;Farewell To The Woods.&rdquo;</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<h2>Camp And Trail</h2>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig01.jpg" width="400" height="164" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap01"></a>Chapter I.<br/>Jacking For Deer</h2>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, Neal Farrar, you&rsquo;ve got to be as still as the night itself,
+remember. If you bounce, or turn, or draw a long breath, you won&rsquo;t have a
+rag of reputation as a deer-hunter to take back to England. Sneeze once, and
+we&rsquo;re done for. That means more diet of flapjacks and pork, instead of
+venison steaks. And I guess your city appetite won&rsquo;t rally to pork much
+longer, even in the wilds.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Neal Farrar sighed as if there was something in that.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, you know, it&rsquo;s just when an unlucky fellow would give his
+life not to sneeze that he&rsquo;s sure to bring out a thumping big one,&rdquo;
+he said plaintively.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, keep it back like a hero if your head bursts in the
+attempt,&rdquo; was the reply with a muffled laugh. &ldquo;When you know that
+the canoe is gliding along somehow, but you can&rsquo;t hear a sound or feel a
+motion, and you begin to wonder whether you&rsquo;re in the air or on water,
+flying or floating, imagine that you&rsquo;re the ghost of some old Indian
+hunter who used to jack for deer on Squaw Pond, and be stonily silent.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh! I say, stop chaffing,&rdquo; whispered Neal impetuously.
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re enough to make a fellow feel creepy before ever he starts.
+I could bear the worst racket on earth better than a dead quiet.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This dialogue was exchanged in low but excited voices between a young man of
+about one and twenty, and a lad who was apparently five years his junior, while
+they waded knee-deep in water among the long, rank grasses and circular pads of
+water-lilies which border the banks of Squaw Pond, a small lake in the forest
+region of northern Maine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The hour was somewhere about eleven
+
+o&rsquo;clock. The night was intensely still, without a zephyr stirring among
+the trees, and of that wavering darkness caused by a half-clouded moon. On the
+black and green water close to the bank rocked a light birch-bark canoe, a
+ticklish craft, which a puff might overturn. The young man who had urged the
+necessity for silence was groping round it, fumbling with the sharp bow, in
+which he fixed a short pole or &ldquo;jack-staff,&rdquo; with some
+object&mdash;at present no one could discern what&mdash;on top.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There, I&rsquo;ve got the jack rigged up!&rdquo; he whispered presently.
+&ldquo;Step in now, Neal, and I&rsquo;ll open it. Have you got your rifle at
+half-cock? That&rsquo;s right. Be careful. A fellow would need to have his hair
+parted in the middle in a birch box like this. Remember, mum&rsquo;s the
+word!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The lad obeyed, seating himself as noiselessly as he could in the bow of the
+canoe, and threw his rifle on his shoulder in a convenient position for
+shooting, with a freedom which showed he was accustomed to firearms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the same time his companion stepped into the canoe, having first touched the
+dark object on the pole just over Neal&rsquo;s head. Instantly
+
+it changed into a brilliant, scintillating, silvery eye, which flashed forward
+a stream of white light on a line with the pointed gun, cutting the black face
+of the pond in twain as with a silver blade, and making the leaves on shore
+glisten like oxidized coins.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The effect of this sudden illumination was so sudden and beautiful that the boy
+for a minute or two held his rifle in unsteady hands while the canoe glided out
+from the bank. An exclamation began in his throat which ended in an indistinct
+gurgle. Remembering that he was pledged to silence, he settled himself to be as
+wordless and motionless as if his living body had become a statue.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From his position no revealing radiance fell on him. He sat in shadow beside
+that glinting eye, which was really a good-sized lantern, fitted at the back
+with a powerful silvered reflector, and in front with a glass lens, the light
+being thrown directly ahead. It was provided also with a sliding door that
+could be noiselessly slipped over the glass with a touch, causing the blackness
+of a total eclipse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was the deer-hunters&rsquo; &ldquo;jack-lamp,&rdquo; familiarly called by
+Neal&rsquo;s companion the &ldquo;jack.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And now it may be readily guessed in what thrilling night-work these canoe-men
+are engaged as they skim over Squaw Pond, with no swish of paddle, nor jar of
+motion, nor even a noisy breath, disturbing the brooding silence through which
+they glide. They are &ldquo;jacking&rdquo; or &ldquo;floating&rdquo; for deer,
+showing the radiant eye of their silvery jack to attract any antlered buck or
+graceful doe which may come forth from the screen of the forest to drink at
+this quiet hour amid the tangled grasses and lily-pads at the pond&rsquo;s
+brink.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, a deer, be it buck, doe, or fawn in the spotted coat, will stand as if
+moonstruck, if it hears no sound; to gaze at the lantern, studying the meteor
+which has crossed its world as an astronomer might investigate a rare, radiant
+comet. So it offers a steady mark for the sportsman&rsquo;s bullet, if he can
+glide near enough to discern its outline and take aim. There is one exception
+to this rule. If the wary animal has ever been startled by a shot fired from
+under the jack, trust him never to watch a light again, though it shine like
+the Kohinoor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for Neal Farrar, this was his first attempt at playing the part of midnight
+hunter; and I am bound to say that&mdash;being English
+
+born and city bred&mdash;he found the situation much too mystifying for his
+peace of mind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He knew that the canoe was moving, moving rapidly; for giant pines along the
+shore, looking solid and black as mourning pillars, shot by him as if theirs
+were the motion, with an effect indescribably weird. Now and again a gray pine
+stump, appearing, if the light struck it, twice its real size, passed like a
+shimmering ghost. But he felt not the slightest tremor of advance, heard no
+swish or ripple of paddle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A moisture oozed from his skin, and gathered in heavy drips under the brim of
+his hat, as he began to wonder whether the light bark skiff was working through
+the water at all, or skimming in some unnatural way above it. For the life of
+him he could not settle this doubt. And, fearful of balking the expedition by a
+stir, he dared not turn his head to investigate the doings of his comrade,
+Cyrus Garst.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cyrus, though also city bred, was an American, and evidently an old hand at the
+present business. The Maine wilds had long been his playground. He had studied
+the knack of noiseless paddling under the teaching of a skilled forest guide
+until he fairly brought it
+
+to perfection. And, in perfection, it is about the most wizard-like art
+practised in the nineteenth century.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The silent propulsion was managed thus: the grand master of the paddle gripped
+its cross handle in both hands, working it so that its broad blade cut the
+water first backward then forward so dexterously that not even his own
+practised hearing could detect a sound; nor could he any more than Neal feel a
+sensation of motion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The birch-bark skiff skimmed onward as if borne on unseen pinions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To Neal Farrar, who had been brought up amid the tumult of rival noises and the
+practical surroundings of Manchester, England, who was a stranger to the
+solitudes of primitive forests, and almost a stranger to weird experiences, the
+silent advance was a mystery. And it began to be a hateful one; for he had not
+even the poor explanation of it which has been given in this record.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was only his third night in Maine wilds; and I fear that his friend Cyrus,
+when inviting him to join in the jacking excursion, had refrained from
+explaining the canoe mystery, mischievously promising himself considerable fun
+from the English lad&rsquo;s bewilderment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Neal&rsquo;s hearing was strained to catch any sound of big game beating about
+amid the bushes on shore or splashing in the water, but none reached him. The
+night seemed to grow stiller, stiller, ever stiller, as they glided towards the
+head of the pond, until the dead quiet started strange, imaginary noises.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a pounding as of dull hammers in his ears, a belling in his head, and
+a drumming at his heart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was tortured by a wild desire to yell his loudest, and defy the brooding
+silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another&mdash;a midnight watchman&mdash;broke it instead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Whoo-ho-ho-whah-whoo!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was the thrilling scream of a big-eyed owl as he chased a squirrel to its
+death, and proceeded to banquet in unwinking solemnity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Whoo-ho-ho-whah-whoo!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Neal started,&mdash;who wouldn&rsquo;t?&mdash;and joggled the canoe, thereby
+nearly ending the night hunt at once by the untimely discharge of his rifle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had barely regained some measure of steadiness, though he felt as if needles
+were sticking into him all over, when at last there was a crashing amid the
+bushes on the right bank, not a hundred yards distant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Noiselessly as ever the canoe shot around, turning the jack&rsquo;s eye in that
+direction. A minute later a magnificent buck, swinging his antlers proudly,
+dashed into the pond, and stooped his small red tongue to drink, licking in the
+water greedily with a soft, lapping sound.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Neal silently cocked his rifle, almost choking with excitement; then paused for
+a few seconds to brace up and control the nervous terrors which had possessed
+him, before his eye singled out the spot in the deer&rsquo;s neck which his
+bullet must pierce. But he found his operations further delayed; for the animal
+suddenly lifted its head, scattered feathery spray from its horns and hoofs,
+and retired a few steps up the bank.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In its former position every part of its body was visibly outlined under the
+silver light of the jack. Now a successful shot would be difficult, though it
+might be managed. The boy leaned slightly forward, trying to hold his gun dead
+straight and take cool aim, when the most curious of all the curious sensations
+he had felt this night ran through him, seeming to scorch like electricity from
+his scalp to his feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From the stand which the deer had taken,
+
+its body was in shadow. All that the sportsman could discern were two living,
+glowing eyes, staring&mdash;so it appeared to him&mdash;straight into his, like
+starry search-lights, as if they read the death-purpose in the boy&rsquo;s
+heart, and begged him to desist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was all over with Neal Farrar&rsquo;s shot. He lowered his rifle, while the
+speech, which could no longer be repressed, rattled in his throat before it
+broke forth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll go crazy if I don&rsquo;t speak!&rdquo; he cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the first word the buck went scudding like the wind through the forest,
+doubtless vowing by the shades of his ancestors that he never would stand to
+gaze at a light again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And&mdash;and&mdash;I can&rsquo;t shoot the thing while it&rsquo;s
+looking at me like that!&rdquo; the boy blurted out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You dunderhead! What do you mean?&rdquo; gasped Cyrus, breaking silence
+in a gusty whisper of mingled anger and amusement. &ldquo;You won&rsquo;t get a
+chance to shoot it or anything else now. You&rsquo;ve lost us our meat for
+to-night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I couldn&rsquo;t help it,&rdquo; Neal whispered back. &ldquo;For
+pity&rsquo;s sake, what has been moving this canoe? The quiet was enough to set
+a fellow mad! And then that buck stared
+
+straight at me like a human thing. I could see nothing but two burning eyes
+with white rings round them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stuff!&rdquo; was the American&rsquo;s answer. &ldquo;He was gazing at
+the jack, not at you. He couldn&rsquo;t see an inch of you with that light just
+over your head. But it would have been a hard shot anyhow, for his nose was
+towards you, and ten to one you&rsquo;d have made a clean miss.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he added, after five minutes of acute listening, &ldquo;I
+guess we may give over jacking for to-night. That first cry of yours was enough
+to set a regiment of deer scampering. I&rsquo;m only half mad after all at your
+losing a chance at such a splendid buck. It was something to see him as he
+stooped to drink in the glare of the jack, a midnight forest picture such as
+one wants to remember. Long may he flourish! We wouldn&rsquo;t have started out
+to rid him of his glorious life if we weren&rsquo;t half-starved on flapjacks
+and ends of pork. Let&rsquo;s get back to camp! I guess you felt a few new
+sensations to-night, eh, Neal Farrar?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig02.jpg" width="400" height="167" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap02"></a>Chapter II.<br/>A Spill-Out</h2>
+
+<p>
+Indeed, shocks and sensations seemed to ride rampant that night in endless
+succession; a fact which Neal presently realized, as does every daring young
+fellow who visits the Maine wilderness for the first time, whatever be his
+object.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ere turning the canoe towards home, Cyrus drove it a few feet nearer to shore,
+again warily listening for any further sound of game. Just then another wild,
+whooping scream cleft the night air; and, on looking towards the bank, Neal
+beheld his owlship, who had finished the squirrel, seated on an aged
+windfall,<a href="#fn-1" name="fnref-1" id="fnref-1"><sup>[1]</sup></a> one end
+of which dipped into the water. The gray bird on the gray old trunk formed a
+second thrilling midnight picture, but at this moment young Farrar was in no
+mood for studying effects. He felt rather unstrung by his recent emotions; and,
+though he was by no means an imaginative youth, he actually took it into his
+head half seriously that the whooping, hooting thing was taunting him with
+making a failure of the jacking business. Without pausing to consider whether
+the owl would furnish meat for the camp or not, he let fly at him suddenly with
+his rifle.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-1" id="fn-1"></a> <a href="#fnref-1">[1]</a>
+A forest tree which has been blown down.
+</p>
+<p>
+The fate of that ghostly, big-eyed creature will be forever one of those
+mysteries which Neal Farrar would like to solve. Whether the heavy bullet
+intended for deer laid him open&mdash;which is improbable&mdash;or whether it
+didn&rsquo;t, nobody had a chance to discover. Being unused to birch-bark
+canoes, the sportsman gave a slight lurch aside after he had discharged his
+leaden messenger of death, startled doubtless by the loud, unexpected echoes
+which reverberated through the forest after his shot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hold on!&rdquo; cried Cyrus, trying to avert a ducking by a
+counter-motion. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll tip us over!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Too late! The birch skiff spun round,
+
+rocked crazily for a second or two, and keeled over, spilling both its
+occupants into the black and silver water of the pond.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of course they ducked under, and of course they rose, gurgling and spluttering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You didn&rsquo;t lose the rifle, Neal, did you?&rdquo; gasped the
+American directly he could speak.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not I! I held on to it like grim death.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good for you! To lose a hundred-and-fifty-dollar gun when we&rsquo;re
+starting into the wilds would be maddening.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then, just because they were extremely healthy, happy, vigorous fellows, whose
+lungs had been drinking in pure, exhilarating ozone and fragrant odors of
+pine-balsam and were thereby expanded, they took a cheerful view of this duck
+under, and made the midnight forest echo, echo, and re-echo, with peals and
+gusts and shouts of laughter, while they struggled to right their canoe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The merry jingles rang on in challenge and answer, repeating from both sides of
+the pond, until they reached at last the wooded slopes and mighty bowlders of
+Old Squaw Mountain, a peak whose &ldquo;star-crowned head&rdquo; could be
+imagined rather than discerned against the horizon, near the distant shore from
+which the hunters had started. Here
+
+echo ran riot. It seemed to their excited fancies as if the ghost of Old Squaw
+herself, the disappointed Indian mother who had, according to tradition, lived
+so long in loneliness upon this mountain, were joining in their mirth with
+haggish peals.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The canoe had turned bottom uppermost. On righting it they found that the
+jack-staff had been dislodged. The jack was floating gayly away over the
+ripples; its light, being in an air-tight case, was unquenched.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Swim ashore with the rifle, Neal,&rdquo; said Cyrus. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll
+pick up the jack. Did you ever see anything so absurdly comical as it looks,
+dodging off on its own hook like a big, wandering eye?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With his comrade&rsquo;s help young Farrar succeeded in getting the gun across
+his back, slinging it round him by its leather shoulder-strap; then he struck
+out for the bank, having scarcely twenty yards to swim before he reached
+shallow water.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, for the first time to-night, the moon shone fully out from her veil of
+cloud, casting a flood of silver radiance, and showing him a scene in white and
+black, still and clear as a steel engraving, of a beauty so unimagined and
+grand that it seemed a little awful. It
+
+gave him a sudden respect for the unreclaimed, seldom-trodden region to which
+his craving for adventure had brought him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The outline of Old Squaw Mountain could be plainly discerned, a dark, towering
+shape against the horizon. A few stars glinted like a diamond diadem above its
+brow. Down its sides and from the base stretched a sable mantle of forest,
+enwrapping Squaw Pond, of which the moon made a mirror.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My! I think this would make the fellows in Manchester open their eyes a
+bit,&rdquo; muttered Neal aloud. &ldquo;Only one feels as if he ought to see
+some old Indian brave such as Cyrus tells about,&mdash;a Touch-the-Cloud, or
+Whistling Elk, or Spotted Tail, come gliding towards him out of the woods in
+his paint and feather toggery. Glad I didn&rsquo;t visit Maine a hundred years
+ago, though, when there&rsquo;d have been a chance of such a meeting.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Still muttering, young Farrar kicked off his high rubber boots, and dragged off
+his coat. He proceeded to shake and wring the water from his upper garments,
+listening intently, and glancing half expectantly into the pitch-black shadows
+at the edges of the forest, as if he might hear the stealthy steps and see
+
+the savage form of the superseded red man emerge therefrom.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ugh! I mind the ducking now more than I did a while ago,&rdquo; he
+murmured. &ldquo;The water wasn&rsquo;t cold. Why, we bathed at the other end
+of the pond late last evening! But these wet clothes are precious
+uncomfortable. I wish we were nearer to camp. Good Gracious! What&rsquo;s
+that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He stood stock-still and erect, his flesh shrinking a little, while his
+drenched flannel shirt clung yet more closely and clammily to his skin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A distant noise was wafted to his ears through the forest behind. It began like
+the gentle, mellow lowing of a cow at evening, swelled into a quavering,
+appealing crescendo cadence, and gradually died away. Almost as the last note
+ceased another commenced at the same low pitch, with only the rest of a
+heart-beat between the two, and surged forth into a plaintive yet tempestuous
+call, which sank as before. It was followed by a third, terminating in an
+impatient roar. The weird solo ran through several scales in its performance,
+rising, wailing, booming, sinking, ever varying in expression. It marked a new
+era in Neal&rsquo;s experience of sounds, and
+
+left him choking with bewilderment about what sort of forest creature it could
+be which uttered such a call.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He began to get out some bungling description when Cyrus joined him shortly
+afterwards, but the American had had a lively time of it while recovering his
+jack-light and righting the canoe on mid-pond. He was in no mood for
+explanations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Keep the yarn, whatever it is, till to-morrow, Neal,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t hear anything special. Perhaps I was too far away.
+I&rsquo;m so wet and jaded that I feel as limp as a washed-out rag. Let&rsquo;s
+get back to camp as fast as we can.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig03.jpg" width="400" height="163" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap03"></a>Chapter III.<br/>Life in a Bark Hut</h2>
+
+<p>
+It was two o&rsquo;clock in the morning when the tired, draggled pair stumbled
+ashore at the place where they embarked, hauled up their birch skiff, leaving
+it to repose, bottom uppermost, under a screen of bushes, and then stood for
+some minutes in deliberation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure I hope we can find the trail all right,&rdquo; said
+Cyrus. &ldquo;Yes, I see the blazes on the trees. Here&rsquo;s luck!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had been turning the jack-lamp on either side of him, trying to discover the
+&ldquo;blazes,&rdquo; or notches cut in some of the trunks, which marked the
+&ldquo;blazed trail&rdquo;&mdash;in other words, the spotted line through the
+
+otherwise trackless forest, which would lead him whither he wanted to go.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It required considerable experience and unending watchfulness to follow these
+&ldquo;blazes&rdquo;; but young Garst seemed to have the instinct of a true
+woodsman, and went ahead unfalteringly, if vigilantly, while Neal followed
+closely in his tracks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After rather a lengthy trudge, they reached a point where the ground sloped
+gently upward into a low bluff. Still keeping to the trail, they ascended this
+eminence, finding the forest not so dense, and the walking easier than it had
+been hitherto. Gaining the top, they emerged upon an open patch, which had been
+cleared of its erect, massive pines, and the long-hidden earth laid bare to the
+sky by the lumberman&rsquo;s axe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here the eagerly desired sight&mdash;that sight of all others to the tired
+camper; namely, the camp itself, with its cheery, blazing camp-fire&mdash;burst
+upon their view, sheltered by a group of sapling pines, which had grown up
+since their giant brothers went to make timber.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, a Maine camp, as every one knows, may consist of any temporary shelter you
+choose to name, according to the tastes and
+
+opportunities of its occupants, from a fair white canvas home to a log cabin or
+a hastily erected canopy of spruce boughs. In the present instance it was a
+&ldquo;wangen,&rdquo; or hut of strong bark, such as is sometimes used by
+lumbermen to rest and sleep in when they are driving their floats of timber
+down one of the rivers of this region to a distant town, which is a centre of
+the lumber trade.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cyrus and Neal were making across the clearing in the direction of the
+camp-fire with revived spirits, when the American suddenly grabbed his friend
+by the arm, and drew him behind a clump of low bushes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hold on a minute!&rdquo; he whispered. &ldquo;By all that&rsquo;s
+glorious, there&rsquo;s Uncle Eb singing his favorite song! It&rsquo;s worth
+hearing. You never listened to such music in England.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t suppose I ever did,&rdquo; answered Neal, suppressed
+laughter making him shake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Upon a gray pine stump, beside the blaze, which he was feeding with a hemlock
+bough, sat a battered-looking yet lively personage. Had he been standing
+upright upon the remnant of trunk, he would certainly, in the bright but
+changeful firelight, have deceived an onlooker into believing him to be a
+continuation
+
+of it; for the baggy tweed trousers which he wore on his immense legs, and
+which partially hid his loose-fitting brogans, or woodsman&rsquo;s boots, his
+thick, knitted jersey, his mop of woolly hair, with the cap of coon&rsquo;s fur
+that adorned it, were a striking mixture of grays, all bordering upon the color
+of the stump. His skin, however, was a fine contrast, shining as he bent
+towards the flame like the outside of a copper kettle. In daylight it would be
+three shades darker, because the thick coral lips, gleaming teeth, and
+prominent, friendly eyes of the individual, betrayed him to be in his own
+words, &ldquo;a colored gen&rsquo;leman;&rdquo; that is, a full-blooded negro,
+and a free American citizen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Beside him, squatting upon his haunches and wagging his shaggy tail, was a
+good-sized dog, not of pure breed, but undoubtedly possessed of fire and
+fidelity, as was shown by the eye he raised to his master. His red coat and
+general formation showed that his father had been an Irish setter, though he
+seemed to have other and fiercer blood in his veins, mingling with that of this
+gentle parent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To him the negro was chanting a war-song,&mdash;some lines by a popular writer
+which he
+
+had found in an old newspaper, and had set to a curious tune of his own
+composition, rendering the performance more inspiriting by sundry wild whoops,
+and an occasional whacking of his teeth together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here are two verses, under the influence of which the dog worked himself up to
+such excitement that he seemed to feel the ghosts of rabbits slain&mdash;for he
+could smell no live ones&mdash;hovering near him:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;I raise my gun whar de rabbit run&mdash;<br/>
+    Ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!<br/>
+En de rabbit say:<br/>
+    &lsquo;Gimme time ter pray,<br/>
+Fer I ain&rsquo;t got long fer to stay, to stay!&rsquo;<br/>
+    Oh, ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!<br/>
+<br/>
+&ldquo;Ketch him, oh, ketch him!<br/>
+Run ter de place en fetch him!<br/>
+De bell done chime<br/>
+Fer de breakfast time&mdash;<br/>
+    Oh, ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If there are any more verses, Uncle Eb, keep them until we&rsquo;ve had
+supper, or breakfast, or whatever you like to call a meal at this unearthly
+hour. I&rsquo;m so hungry that I could chew nails!&rdquo; cried Cyrus,
+springing from behind the bushes, and reaching the, camp-fire with a few
+strides, Neal following him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sakes alive! yonkers; is dat you?&rdquo; cried the darkey, uprearing his
+gray figure. &ldquo;I&rsquo;se mighty glad to see you back. Whar&rsquo;s yer
+meat? Left it in de canoe mebbe? De buck too big to drag &rsquo;long to
+camp&mdash;eh?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a wicked rolling of Uncle Eb&rsquo;s eyes while he spoke. Evidently
+from the looks of the sportsmen he guessed immediately what had been the result
+of their excursion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No luck and no buck to-night!&rdquo; answered Garst. &ldquo;But
+don&rsquo;t roast us, Uncle Eb. Get us something to eat quicker than lightning
+or we&rsquo;ll go for you&mdash;at least we would if we weren&rsquo;t entirely
+played out. It isn&rsquo;t everybody who can manage a hard shot as cleverly as
+you do, when he can only see the eyes of an animal. And that was the one chance
+we got.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No man living ever heard a further word from Cyrus as to how his English friend
+bore the scares of a first night&rsquo;s jacking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ya-as, dat&rsquo;s a ticklish shot. Most folks is skeered o&rsquo;
+trying it,&rdquo; drawled out Ebenezer Grout, a professional guide as well as
+&ldquo;colored gen&rsquo;leman,&rdquo; familiarly called by visitors to this
+region who hired the use of his hut and his services, &ldquo;Uncle Eb.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s some comfort for you,&rdquo; whispered Cyrus slyly into
+Neal&rsquo;s ear. Aloud he said, addressing the guide, &ldquo;We had a
+spill-out, too, as a crown-all. I&rsquo;m mighty glad that this is the second
+of October, not November, and that the weather is as warm as summer; otherwise
+we&rsquo;d be in a pretty bad way from chill. I feel shivery. Hurry up, and get
+us some steaming hot coffee and flapjacks, Uncle Eb, while we fling off these
+wet clothes. The trouble is we haven&rsquo;t got any dry ones.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hain&rsquo;t got no oder suits?&rdquo; queried the woodsman. &ldquo;Den
+go &rsquo;long, boys, and rig yerselves up in yer blankets. Ye can pertend to
+be Injuns fer to-night. Like enough dis ain&rsquo;t de worst shift ye&rsquo;ll
+have to make &rsquo;fore ye get out o&rsquo; dese parts.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As the draggled pair were making towards the hut, which stood about six feet
+from the fire, to follow his advice, its bark door was suddenly pushed wide
+open. Forth stepped, or rather staggered, another boy, younger and shorter than
+Neal. His tumbled fair hair was here and there adorned with a green
+pine-needle, which was not remarkable, considering that he had just arisen from
+a bed of pine boughs. Sundry others were clinging to the surface of the warm,
+fleecy blankets in which he was wrapped, and his feet were thrust into a pair
+of moccasins. He had the appearance and voice of a person awaking from sound
+sleep.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say, you fellows, it&rsquo;s about time you got back!&rdquo; he said,
+rubbing his heavy eyes, and addressing the hunters. &ldquo;I hope you&rsquo;ve
+had some luck. I dreamt that I was smacking my lips over a venison
+steak.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Smack &rsquo;em w&rsquo;en you git it, honey!&rdquo; remarked Uncle Eb,
+while he mixed a plain batter of flour, baking-powder, and cold water, which he
+dropped in big spoonfuls on a frying-pan, previously greased, proceeding to fry
+the mixture over his camp-fire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The thin, round cakes which presently appeared were the &ldquo;flapjacks&rdquo;
+despised by Cyrus as insufficient diet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Without waiting to answer the new boy&rsquo;s greeting, the hunters had
+disappeared into the bark shanty. When next they issued forth they were rigged
+up Indian fashion in moccasins and blankets, the latter being doubled and
+draped over their underclothing,&mdash;of which luckily they had a dry
+supply,&mdash;and gathered round their waists with leather straps. Knitted
+caps, usually worn when sleeping, adorned their heads.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You see, we followed Dol&rsquo;s example and your advice, Uncle
+Eb,&rdquo; said Cyrus, as they seated themselves by the camp-fire. &ldquo;And I
+tell you these make tip-top dressing-gowns when you&rsquo;re feeling a little
+bit chilly after a drenching. We didn&rsquo;t bring along a second suit of
+tweeds for the simple reason that we mean to do some pretty rough tramping with
+our packs on our backs, and then a fellow is likely to grumble at any
+unnecessary pound of weight he carries.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shuah&mdash;shuah!&rdquo; assented Uncle Eb.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And that is why we left our fishing-rods behind,&rdquo; continued Garst.
+&ldquo;You see, our main object this trip is neither hunting nor fishing. But a
+creel of gamey trout from Squaw Pond would come in handy now to replenish our
+larder.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wal, I b&rsquo;lieve I&rsquo;ll fix up a rod to-mo-oh an&rsquo; hook a
+few, fer de pork&rsquo;s givin&rsquo; out. Hain&rsquo;t got mich use fer trout
+meself. Dey&rsquo;s kind o&rsquo; tasteless eatin&rsquo; if a man can git a bit
+o&rsquo; fat coon or a fatty [hare], let &rsquo;lone ven&rsquo;zon.
+Pork&rsquo;s a sight better&rsquo;n &rsquo;em to my mind.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While Uncle Eb was giving his views on food, he was hurriedly
+&ldquo;bilin&rsquo;&rdquo; coffee, frying unlimited flapjacks, and breaking up
+some
+
+crystal cakes of maple sugar, which he melted into a sirup, and poured over
+them.
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;De bell done chime<br/>
+Fer de breakfast time!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+he shouted gleefully when all was accomplished. &ldquo;Heah, yonkers! I guess
+we may call dis meal breakfast jest as well as not, fer it&rsquo;s neah to dawn
+now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And the trio fell to voraciously, as he handed them each a steaming tin mug and
+an equally steaming plate. The newly awakened youngster, who had been cuddling
+his head sleepily against Neal&rsquo;s shoulder (a glance showed that they were
+brothers), had clamored for his share of the banquet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You haven&rsquo;t been lonely, Dol, I hope, have you?&rdquo; said Cyrus,
+as a whole flapjack, doubled over and drenched in sirup, disappeared down his
+capacious throat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not I,&rdquo; answered Dol (Adolphus Farrar, ladies and gentlemen),
+shutting and opening a pair of steel-gray eyes with a sort of quick snap.
+&ldquo;Uncle Eb and I sat by the fire until twelve o&rsquo;clock. He sang
+songs, and told tip-top stories about coon hunts. I tell you it was fun!
+I&rsquo;d rather see a coon hunt than go out at night jacking, especially if I
+
+got a ducking instead of a deer, like some bungling fellows I know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be saucy, Young England, or I&rsquo;ll go for you when
+I&rsquo;ve finished eating,&rdquo; laughed Cyrus good-humoredly. &ldquo;Who
+told you what we got?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol winked at Uncle Eb, who had, indeed, entertained him with giggling jokes
+about the unsuccessful hunters while they were stripping off their wet
+garments.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Adolphus, being the youngest of the camping-party, was favored with the softest
+pine-bough bed and the best of the limited luxuries which the camp possessed,
+with unlimited nicknames,&mdash;from &ldquo;Young England&rdquo; to
+&ldquo;Shaver&rdquo; or &ldquo;Chick,&rdquo; according to the whims of his
+comrades.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say, Uncle Eb, we&rsquo;re having a fine old time to-night&mdash;all
+sorts of experiences! I guess you may as well finish that song we interrupted
+while we&rsquo;re finishing our meal.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All rightee, gen&rsquo;lemen!&rdquo; answered the jolly guide and cook.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The dog Tiger had retreated to the back of the camp-fire, where he lay
+blissfully snoozing; but at a booming &ldquo;Whoop-ee!&rdquo; from his master,
+which formed a prelude to the following verses, he shot up like a rocket, and
+
+manifested all his former signs of excitement.
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;Dey&rsquo;s a big fat goose whar de turkey roos&rsquo;&mdash;<br/>
+    Ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!<br/>
+En de goose&mdash;he say,<br/>
+    &lsquo;Hit&rsquo;ll soon be day,<br/>
+En I got no feders fer ter give away!&rsquo;<br/>
+    Oh, ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!<br/>
+<br/>
+&ldquo;Ketch him, oh, ketch him,<br/>
+Run ter de roos&rsquo; en fetch him!<br/>
+He ain&rsquo;t gwine tell<br/>
+On de dinner bell&mdash;<br/>
+    Ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Scoot &rsquo;long to bed now, you yonkers, or ye&rsquo;ll look like
+spooks to-mo-oh! Hit&rsquo;s day a&rsquo;ready,&rdquo; cried the singer
+directly he had whooped out his last note.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And the &ldquo;yonkers,&rdquo; nothing loath, for they had finished their
+repast, sprang up to obey him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t it a comfort that we haven&rsquo;t any trouble of undressing
+and getting into our bedclothes, fellows?&rdquo; Cyrus said, as they reached
+the wangen, and prepared to throw themselves upon the fragrant camp-bed of
+fresh green pine-boughs, which made the bark hut smell more healthily than a
+palace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The natural mattress was wide enough to accommodate three. The boughs were laid
+
+down in rows with the under side up, and overlapped each other. To be sure, an
+occasional twig might poke a sleeper&rsquo;s ribs, but what mattered that? To
+the English boys especially&mdash;having the charm of entire novelty&mdash;it
+was a matchless bed, wholesome, restful, and rich with balsamic odors hitherto
+unknown.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The trio were stupidly tired; but on the American continent no happier or
+healthier youths could have been found.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It had, indeed, been a night big with experiences; and there was one still to
+come, which, to Neal Farrar at any rate, was as novel as the rest. He had
+thrown himself upon his bough couch, too weary to offer anything but the
+gladness of his heart for worship, when Cyrus touched his arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look there!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;If a fellow could see that without
+feeling some sensations go through him which he never felt before, he
+wouldn&rsquo;t be worth much!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He pointed through the open door of the hut at the sky above the clearing, over
+which was stealing a pearly hue of dawn, shot with a tinge of rosy light, like
+the fire in the heart of an opal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This made a royal canopy over the towering
+
+head of Old Squaw Mountain,&mdash;near by now and plainly visible,&mdash;which
+had not yet lost its starry diadem, though the gems were paling one by one. The
+shoulders of the peak wore a mantle of purple, and the forest which clothed its
+bulk was changing from the blackness of a mourning robe to the emerald green of
+a sea-nymph&rsquo;s drapery.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The shutters of Night were rolling back, and young Day was stepping out to cast
+her first smile on a waiting earth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As the watchers in the hut caught that smile, every thought which rose in them
+was a daybreak song to the God who is light, and the secret of every dawning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With the day-smile kissing their faces they fell asleep, feeling that they were
+wrapped in the embrace of the invisible King.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig04.jpg" width="400" height="166" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap04"></a>Chapter IV.<br/>Whither Bound?</h2>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where from? Whither bound?&rdquo; It is not often that a man or boy
+burns to put these questions&mdash;which ships signal to each other when they
+pass upon the ocean&mdash;to some individual who hurries by him on a crowded
+thoroughfare, whose name perhaps he knows, but whose hand he has never clasped,
+of whose thoughts, feelings, and capabilities he is ignorant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But just let him meet that same fellow during a holiday trip to some wild
+sea-beach or lonely mountain, let an acquaintance spring up, let him observe
+the habits of the other traveller, discovering a few of his weak points and
+some of his good ones, and then he wishes
+
+to ask, &ldquo;Where do you hail from? Whither are you bound?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Therefore, having encountered three fairly good-looking, jovial, well-disposed
+young fellows amid the solitudes of a Maine forest, having spent some eventful
+hours in their company, learning how they behaved in certain emergencies, it is
+but natural that the reader should wish to know their ordinary occupations,
+with their reasons for venturing into these wilds, and the goal they wish to
+reach, before he journeys with them farther.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Just at present, being fast asleep, dreaming, and&mdash;if I must say
+it&mdash;snoring like troopers, upon their mattresses of pine boughs, they are
+unable to give any information about themselves. But the friend who has been
+authorized to record their travels will be happy to satisfy all reasonable
+curiosity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To begin, then, with the &ldquo;boss&rdquo; of the party, Cyrus Garst, the
+writer would say that he is a student of Harvard University, and a brainy,
+energetic, robust son of America. Among his college classmates he is regarded
+as a bit of a hero; for, in spite of his comparative youth, he is an
+enterprising traveller and a veteran camper, whose camp-fire has blazed in some
+of the wildest solitudes of his native
+
+land. For his hobby is natural history, and his playground the &ldquo;forest
+primeval,&rdquo; where he studies American animals amid the lonely passes which
+they choose for their lairs and beats.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Every year when Harvard&rsquo;s learned halls are closed for the long summer
+vacation,&mdash;sometimes at other seasons too,&mdash;he starts off on a trip
+to a wilderness region, with his knapsack on his back, his rifle on his
+shoulder, and often carrying his camera as well.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once in a while he has been accompanied by a bosom friend or two. More
+frequently he has gone alone, hiring the services of a professional guide
+accustomed to the locality he visits. Now, such a guide is the indispensable
+figure in every woodland trip. He is expected to supply the main part of his
+employer&rsquo;s camp &ldquo;kit&rdquo;; namely, a tent or some shelter to
+sleep under, cooking utensils, axes, etc., as well as a boat or canoe if such
+be required. And this son of the forest, whose foot can make a bee-line to its
+destination through the densest wooded maze, is not only leader, but cook and
+general-utility man in camp as well. The guide must be equally grand-master of
+paddle, rifle, and frying-pan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For these tireless woodland heroes Cyrus Garst has a general admiration. He has
+always agreed with them famously&mdash;save on one point; and he has never had
+to shorten his wanderings for fear of lengthening their fees. For Cyrus has a
+millionnaire father in the Back Bay of Boston, who is disposed to indulge his
+whims.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The one point of variance is this: while all guides admire young Garst as a
+crack shot with a rifle, he frequently dumfounds them by letting slip stunning
+chances at game, big and little. They call him &ldquo;a queer specimen
+sportsman,&rdquo;&mdash;understanding little his love for the wild offspring of
+the woods,&mdash;because he never uses his gun save when the bareness of his
+larder or the peril of his own life or his chum&rsquo;s demands it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nevertheless, feeling the need of fresh meat, the naturalist was for the moment
+hotly exasperated because his English comrade, Neal Farrar, missed even a poor
+chance at a buck during the midnight excursion on Squaw Pond.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His friends are proud of stating that up to the present Cyrus had proceeded
+well in his friendly acquaintance with wild creatures, his desire being to
+study their habits when alive rather than to pore over their anatomy when dead.
+And he has always reaped a plentiful harvest of fun during his trips, declaring
+that he has &ldquo;the pull over fellows who go into the woods for
+killing,&rdquo; seeing that he can thoroughly enjoy the escape of a game animal
+if he can only catch a sight of it, and perceive how its pluck or cunning
+enables it to baffle pursuing man. There are those who call Cyrus a sportsman
+of the best type. Perhaps they are right.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet in the year of our story, when he had just attained his majority, this
+student of forest life is still unsatisfied, because he has not been able to
+obtain a good view of the behemoth of American woods, the <i>ignis fatuus</i>
+of hunters,&mdash;the mighty moose.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once only, when paddling on a still pond with his experienced guide for
+company, the latter suddenly closed the slide of the jack-lamp, hiding its
+light. At the same moment a dark, splendid monster, tall as a horse and
+swinging a pair of antlers five feet broad, suddenly appeared upon the bank,
+near to which the canoe lay in black shadow. The hunters dared not breathe. It
+was at a season of year when the Maine law exacts a heavy fine for the killing
+of a moose; and even the guide had no desire to send his bullets through the
+law, though he might have riddled the game without compunction.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a minute or two the creature halted at the pond&rsquo;s brink, magnified in
+the mirror of moonlit water into a gigantic, wavering shape. Then with slow,
+solemn tread he walked along the bank ahead, gave a loud snort something like
+the snort of a war-horse, made a crunching, chopping noise with his jaws,
+resembling the sound of a dull axe striking against wood, plunged into the
+lake, and swam across to the opposite shore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If we had fired, he might have come for us full tilt,&rdquo; whispered
+the guide so softly that his words were like a gliding breath. &ldquo;And then
+I tell you we&rsquo;d have had a narrow squeak. He&rsquo;d have kicked the
+canoe into splinters and us out o&rsquo; time in short order.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But a moose won&rsquo;t charge unless he&rsquo;s attacked, will
+he?&rdquo; asked Cyrus, later in the night, when a couple of quacking black
+ducks which had received a dose of lead were lying silent at his feet, and the
+hunters were returning to camp with food.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not often,&rdquo; was the reply. &ldquo;Only at this time o&rsquo; year,
+if they&rsquo;ve got a mate to defend, you can&rsquo;t say for sure what
+they&rsquo;ll do. They won&rsquo;t always fight either, even if they&rsquo;re
+
+wounded, when they can get a chance to bolt. But a moose, if he has to die,
+will be sure to die game, with his face to his enemy; and so will every wild
+animal that I know. I&rsquo;ve even seen a shot partridge flutter up its
+feathers like a game-cock at the fellow who dropped it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Well, this memorable glimpse of his mooseship was obtained in the year before
+our story. And now, in the beginning of October, young Garst was off into Maine
+wilds again, having arranged to &ldquo;do&rdquo; the forest thoroughly after
+his usual fashion, seeing all he could of its countless phases of life, and
+finally to meet this same guide&mdash;a dare-devil fellow who was reported to
+have had adventures in moose-hunting such as other woodsmen did not dream
+of&mdash;at a log camp far in the wilderness. Thence they could proceed to
+solitudes where the voice of man seldom echoed, where the foot of man rarely
+trod, and where moose signs were pretty sure to be found.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But there was one very unusual feature in his present expedition. The student
+of nature, who generally started forth alone, was this year, owing to a freak
+of fate and to his natural good-nature, accompanied by two English lads.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Early in the summer of this same year, Francis Farrar, a wealthy
+cotton-merchant of Manchester, England, visited America on a business-trip, and
+became the guest of Cyrus&rsquo;s father. He brought with him his two sons,
+Neal, aged sixteen and a half, and Adolphus, familiarly called Dol, who was
+more than a year younger.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Both boys had been at a large public school, and physically, as well as
+mentally, were well developed. They were accustomed to spending long vacations
+with their father at wild spots on the seashore, or amid mountains in England
+and Scotland. They could tirelessly do a sixty-mile spin on their
+&ldquo;wheels,&rdquo; were good football players, excellent rowers, formed part
+of the crew of their father&rsquo;s yacht, could skilfully handle gun and
+fishing-rod, but they had never camped out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They knew none of the delights of sleeping in woodland quarters, with only a
+canvas or bark roof, or perhaps a few spruce boughs, between them and the
+sky&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;While a music wild and solemn<br/>
+    From the pine-tree&rsquo;s height<br/>
+Rolls its vast and sea-like volume<br/>
+    On the wind of night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Small wonder, then, that when they heard Cyrus Garst tell of his camping
+excursions, of his jolly times, long tramps, and hairbreadth escapes, their
+hearts swelled with a tremendous longing to accompany him on the trip into
+northern Maine which he was then projecting for the following October.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, Cyrus at the first start-off conceived a liking for these English fellows,
+to whom, for his father&rsquo;s sake, he played the part of genial host. With a
+lordly recognition of his superior years he pronounced them &ldquo;first-rate
+youngsters, with lots of snap in them.&rdquo; And as the acquaintance
+progressed, Neal Farrar, with his erect figure, broad chest, musical voice, and
+wide-apart gray eyes,&mdash;so clear and honest that their glance was a
+beam,&mdash;proved a personage so likable that the student adopted him as
+&ldquo;chum,&rdquo; forgetting those five years which had been a gulf between
+them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol, whose eyes were of a more steely hue than his brother&rsquo;s, striking
+fire readily and showing all manner of flinty lights, who had a downright
+talent for mimicry, and a small share of juvenile self-importance, came in for
+regard of a more indulgent and less equal nature.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Directly he got an inkling of the desire for a forest trip which stirred in the
+boys&rsquo; breasts, making them yearn all day and toss all night, Cyrus gave
+them both a cordial invitation to accompany him into Maine. Mr. Farrar did not
+purpose returning to Europe till midwinter. His consent was easily obtained. He
+presented each of his sons with a new Winchester repeating rifle, with which
+they practised diligently at a target ere the eventful day of the start dawned,
+though their leader emphatically insisted that the prime pleasures of the trip
+were not to be looked for in the slaughter done by their hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wearing the camper&rsquo;s favorite dress of stout gray tweed, the trio left
+Boston on a lovely September evening towards the close of the month, taking a
+fast night train for Maine, brimful of enthusiasm about the wild woods and free
+camp-life. The hue of their clothes was chosen with a view to making their
+figures resemble the forest trunks, so that they would be less likely to
+attract the notice of animals, and might get a chance to creep upon them
+undetected.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+About their waists were their ammunition belts, with pouches well stocked.
+Their large
+
+knapsacks contained blankets, moccasins, and various other necessaries of a
+camper&rsquo;s outfit, including heavy knitted jerseys for chill days and
+nights, and rubber boots reaching high on the legs for wear in wading and
+traversing swampy tracts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+About twenty-four hours later they dropped off the rattling, jingling
+stage-coach which bore them over the latter part of their journey, at the
+flourishing village of Greenville, on the borders of the Maine wilds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here they were greeted by a view, the loveliness of which made the English
+boys, who had never looked on it before, experience strange heart-leaps.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A magnificent sheet of water nearly forty miles long and fourteen broad lay
+before them, studded with islands, girt with evergreen forests and wooded
+peaks. Under the rays of the setting sun its bosom was shot with arrows of
+pale, quivering gold. Banners of gold and flame-color floated over the crests
+of the hills, flinging streamers of light down their emerald sides.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Fellows, there is Moosehead Lake; and I guess you&rsquo;ll find few
+lakes in America or elsewhere that can beat it for beauty,&rdquo; said Cyrus,
+with a patriotic thrill in his voice, for
+
+he had a feeling that he was doing the honors of his country.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His English comrades were warm with admiration, and here, in view of the
+forest-land which was their El Dorado, tingled with anticipation of the
+unknown.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The three rested that night at Greenville, and began their tramping on the
+following morning. They trudged a distance of seven miles or so to the camp of
+Ebenezer Grout, which, as Garst knew, was situated between Squaw Pond and Old
+Squaw Mountain, the latter being one of the finest peaks near Moosehead Lake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Uncle Eb&rdquo; was an old acquaintance of Cyrus&rsquo;s, a dusky,
+lively woodsman, who spent a great part of the year in his lone bark hut, with
+his dog Tiger for company. He subsisted chiefly on what he brought down with
+his rifle, and sometimes earned three dollars a day for guiding tourists up Old
+Squaw or through the adjacent forests.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus02"></a>
+<img src="images/illus02.jpg" width="600" height="443" alt="Illustration: " />
+<p class="caption"><b>There Is Moosehead Lake.</b><br/></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+He was not an ambitious hunter, and rarely pushed far into the solitudes of the
+wilderness in search of moose or other big game. A coon hunt was to him the
+climax of all fun. It was chiefly with a hope that his comrades might enjoy
+some novel entertainment of this kind that Cyrus made his first stoppage at
+Uncle Eb&rsquo;s camp, purposing to sojourn there for a few days.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was not disappointed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The stupidly tired trio had slept for about two hours, while the reader has
+been receiving information second-hand about their past and future, when a
+scratching, scraping, boring noise on the outside of their bark roof
+temporarily disturbed their slumbers. Dol called out noisily, and, as was the
+way of that youngster on sundry occasions, talked some gibberish in his sleep.
+The scraping instantly ceased.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A renewed and blissful season of snoring. Another awakening. More music on the
+roof, evidently caused by the claws of some wild animal, while each of the
+campers was startled by a loud &ldquo;Cluck!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Lie still, fellows! Don&rsquo;t budge. Let&rsquo;s see what the thing
+is,&rdquo; breathed Cyrus in a peculiarly still whisper which he had learned
+from his moose-hunting guide of whom mention has been made.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dead silence in the hut. Redoubled scraping and rattling above, with a
+scattering of bark chips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then light appeared through a jagged hole
+
+just over a string which was stretched across one corner of the cabin, and from
+which dangled sundry articles of camp bric-a-brac, mostly of a tinny nature,
+with Uncle Eb&rsquo;s last morsel of &ldquo;pork.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By all that&rsquo;s glorious! it&rsquo;s a coon,&rdquo; breathed Cyrus,
+but so softly that his companions did not hear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for the two Farrars, they were working up to such a heat of excitement that
+they felt as if life were now only beginning. They had heard of the thievish
+raids made by the black bear on unprotected camps, and of his special fondness
+for pork. Not knowing that there was no chance of an encounter with Bruin so
+near to civilization as this, they peered at that hole in the roof, expecting
+every moment to see a huge, black, snarling snout thrust through it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a pointed gray muzzle which warily appeared instead&mdash;appeared and
+disappeared on the instant. For at this crisis Tiger&rsquo;s shrill bugle-call
+resounded without, giving warning of an attack on the camp. The thing, whatever
+it was, scrambled from the roof, and with a strange, shrill cry of one note
+made towards the woods. The dog followed it, barking for all he was worth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, too, Uncle Eb&rsquo;s booming &ldquo;Whoop-ee!&rdquo; was heard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The hardy old woodsman, after his visitors had gone to roost, instead of
+stretching himself as usual upon his pine mattress, had started off,
+accompanied by Tiger, to visit some traps which he had set in the forest,
+hoping to catch a marten or two. He took the precaution of closing the door of
+the hut when he saw that its inmates were soundly sleeping, thinking meanwhile,
+that, as day was dawning, there was little chance of any wild
+&ldquo;critter&rdquo; coming round the camp during his absence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But a greedy raccoon, which had been prowling near in the woods during the
+night, and had been tantalized to desperation by the smell of the late meal,
+especially by the odor of flapjacks frying in pork fat, had stolen from cover
+after the departure of his natural enemy, the dog.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Finding the coast clear and the camp unguarded, he made himself quietly at
+home, rooted among some potato parings which the guide had thrown aside a day
+or two before, devoured a cold flapjack, and cleaned the camp frying-pan as it
+had never been cleaned before, with his tongue. But his
+
+appetite was whetted, not glutted. Scent or instinct told him that pork,
+molasses, and other eatables were hidden in the bark hut. Here was a golden
+opportunity for Mr. Coon. No one molested him. Meditating a feast, he climbed
+to the roof, and began cautiously to scrape off portions of the bark. The
+rising sun ought to have warned him back to forest depths; but he persisted in
+his scratching, repeating now and again a satisfied cluck.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His hole was made. His keen nose told him that pork was almost within reach,
+when the bugle-call of his enemy&mdash;Tiger&rsquo;s challenging
+bark&mdash;smote upon his ear. Guide and dog were opportunely returning to
+camp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of course, as soon as the marauder scrambled off the roof, Cyrus and the boys
+sprang from their couch. Barefooted, and in night costume, they were already at
+the door of the hut before Uncle Eb was heard booming,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Boys! Boys! Tumble out&mdash;tumble out! Dere&rsquo;s a reg&rsquo;lar
+razzle-dazzle fight goin&rsquo; on heah. Tiger&rsquo;s nabbed de coon.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig05.jpg" width="400" height="167" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap05"></a>Chapter V.<br/>A Coon Hunt</h2>
+
+<p>
+A razzle-dazzle fight it surely was! On one side of the camp, between the
+camping-ground, which Uncle Eb had cleared with many a backache, and the woods,
+was a narrow strip covered with a stunted, prickly growth of wild raspberry
+bushes and tiny cherry-trees. These had sprung up after the pines had been cut
+down, as soon as the sun peeped at the long-hidden earth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Into it the bare-legged trio dared not venture, knowing that they would get a
+worse scratching and tearing than if the coon itself mauled them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But they could see and hear a whirling, howling, clawing, spitting,
+rough-and-tumble
+
+conflict going on in the midst of this miniature jungle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Whew! Whew!&rdquo; gasped Cyrus. &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s your first sight of
+a wild coon, boys. I wish to goodness it had been a different sight, but I
+suppose he must pay for his thieving.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tiger&rsquo;ll make him do dat. Bet yer life he will! He&rsquo;s death
+on coons, if ever a dog was,&rdquo; yelled Uncle Eb, gambolling with
+excitement, his eyes bulging and widening until they looked like oysters on the
+shell.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The soft, battered, gray felt hat which replaced his fur cap in the daytime
+surged off his gray wool, and frisked gently away towards the camp-fire. There,
+coming in contact with a red ember, it scorched and shrivelled into smoking,
+smelling ashes, all unnoticed in the tumult of the fight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Whirling round and round, now under, now over, dog and coon rolled presently
+forth from the bushes, nearer to the feet of the spectators. Then Neal and Dol
+could get a clearer view of the strange animal. A breeze of exclamations came
+from them, mingling with the yelping, snarling, and clucking of the combatants.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good gracious! Look at the stout body and funny little legs of the
+fellow!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Doesn&rsquo;t he fight like a spitfire?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad he&rsquo;s not clawing me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s not much like any picture of a raccoon I ever saw in a
+Natural History!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I guess he wouldn&rsquo;t resemble them greatly, especially in that
+attitude, Dol,&rdquo; said Cyrus, as soon as there was a lull in the
+boys&rsquo; comments.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The raccoon had now rolled on his back, and was fighting so fiercely with teeth
+and claws that a despairing cry broke from Uncle Eb,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yah! He&rsquo;s makin&rsquo; Tiger&rsquo;s wool fly!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was then that the old guide began to deliberate about rushing forward and
+despatching his coonship with the butt end of his rifle. Cyrus would gladly
+have stopped the tussle long before, for there was too much savagery about it
+to suit him; but he could only have done so by stunning or killing one of the
+combatants.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A heart-rending howl from Tiger. The coon had caught him by his lower jaw.
+Uncle Eb, clutching his empty rifle like a club, was starting to the rescue,
+when the dog with a sudden, desperate jerk freed himself. Mad with rage and
+pain, he tried to seize the raccoon&rsquo;s throat. But his enemy managed to
+
+elude the strangling grip, and getting on his feet, again caught Tiger, this
+time by the cheek, causing another agonizing yelp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, however, the undaunted dog whirled round and round with such rapidity as
+to make Mr. Coon relax his hold, and, gathering all his strength, flung the
+wild animal off to a distance of several feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Probably the raccoon felt that he had enough of the conflict, and was doubtful
+about its final issue. He seized the chance for escape. While the spectators
+gasped with excitement, they beheld him, with his head doubled under his
+stomach, roll over and over like a huge gray India-rubber ball, until he
+reached the nearest tree, which happened to be one of the young pines that
+shaded the camp. Quick as lightning he climbed up its trunk, uttering a second
+shrill, far-reaching cry of one note.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Listen! Listen, fellows!&rdquo; cried Cyrus. &ldquo;That raccoon is a
+ventriloquist. The cry seemed to come from somewhere far above him. I had a
+tame coon long ago, and I often heard him call like that. I tell you he&rsquo;s
+a ventriloquist, and a mighty clever one too.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The one piercing note was to warn his mate,&rdquo; went on the
+naturalist, after a moment&rsquo;s
+
+pause; &ldquo;or in all probability, though we have been speaking of the animal
+as &lsquo;he,&rsquo; it is really a female, for I have heard that peculiar call
+given more frequently by a mother to warn her cubs.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All that could now be seen of the animal&mdash;on whose gender new light had
+been cast&mdash;was a gray ball curled up on a tasselled bough near the top of
+the pine-tree, and a glimpse of a black nose over the edge of the limb.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wal! &rsquo;tain&rsquo;t no matter wedder de critter is a male or a
+fimmale; I&rsquo;m a-goin&rsquo; to bring it down from dar mighty quick,&rdquo;
+said Uncle Eb, fumbling with the cartridge-box which was attached to his broad
+leather belt, and preparing to load his rifle, while he cast murderous looks
+aloft.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, you don&rsquo;t, then!&rdquo; said Cyrus hotly. &ldquo;The creature
+has fought pluckily, and it deserves to get a fair chance for its life.
+I&rsquo;ll see that it does too. You oughtn&rsquo;t to be hard on it for liking
+pork, Uncle Eb.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Coons will be gittin&rsquo; into eatin&rsquo; order soon,&rdquo;
+murmured the guide, smacking his lips, and handling his gun undecidedly.
+&ldquo;Roast coon&rsquo;s a heap better&rsquo;n roast lamb.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, they&rsquo;re not in eating order yet, and
+
+won&rsquo;t be till next month,&rdquo; answered Garst. &ldquo;Come,
+you&rsquo;ve got to let this one go, Uncle Eb, to please me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tell ye wot: I&rsquo;ll call Tiger off&rdquo; (Tiger was alternately
+licking his wounds and baying furiously for vengeance about the tree which
+sheltered his enemy), &ldquo;den, wen de coon finds de place clear, bime-by
+he&rsquo;ll light down from dat limb, I&rsquo;ll start off de dog, and let
+&rsquo;em finish de game atween &rsquo;em.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cyrus considered for a minute, then decided that on the coon&rsquo;s behalf he
+might safely accept the compromise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s get into our clothes, fellows!&rdquo; he cried to Neal and
+Dol. &ldquo;Now we&rsquo;re going to have some fair fun! I guess there
+won&rsquo;t be any more fighting; and I want you to see how cunningly the
+raccoon will cheat the dog and escape, if he gets an even chance.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In five minutes the trio were out of their blankets and in their ordinary day
+apparel. The old guide had hung the wet tweeds to dry by the blazing camp-fire
+before he started out to visit his traps, carefully stretching them to prevent
+their &ldquo;swunking&rdquo; (shrinking). Thus they were again fit for wear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A half-hour of waiting ensued, during which every one was on the tiptoe of
+expectation. They had all withdrawn to some distance from the tree. Uncle Eb
+had been obliged to drag Tiger away, and was bathing his cuts out of the camp
+water-bucket in a shady corner. The dog, recognizing that he was a patient,
+submitted without a growl or budge, until his master, who had been keeping a
+keen eye on that pine-tree, suddenly loosed him, and started him off afresh
+with a loud &ldquo;Whoop-ee!&rdquo; and a&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;Ketch him, Tiger! ketch him!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The coon had &ldquo;lighted down.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Away went the wild creature into the woods. Away after him, went dog, guide,
+student, and boys, plunging, tumbling, rushing along helter-skelter, with a
+yell on every lip.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There he is! See him? That gray ball rolling over and over!&rdquo;
+shouted Cyrus. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you what, now; he&rsquo;s going to resort
+to his clever dodge of &lsquo;barking a tree.&rsquo; There never was a general
+yet who could beat a coon for strategy in making a retreat.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The forest surrounding the eminence on which Uncle Eb&rsquo;s camp was situated
+consisted mostly of pines, with here and there the brilliant autumn foliage of
+a maple or
+
+birch showing amid the evergreens. The trees down the sides of the hill were
+not densely crowded, but grew in irregular clumps instead of an unbroken mass.
+This, of course, afforded a better opportunity for the pursuers to catch
+glimpses of the fugitive animal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On finding that it was again chased, the raccoon at first took shelter in a
+dense thicket of scrub oak, which formed in places a tangled undergrowth. Tiger
+quickly followed up its trail, and it was driven thence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Cyrus and the boys caught sight of it spinning over and over like a ball,
+towards a maple-tree with widely projecting limbs and thick foliage; for it
+knew well that in speed it was no match for the dog, and therefore resorted to
+a neat little stratagem. The next minute, being hotly pressed, it scrambled up
+the friendly trunk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s treed again, yonkers! Come on!&rdquo; shouted the guide,
+indifferent to the creature&rsquo;s probable gender.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tiger sat on his haunches at the foot of the maple, setting up a slow, steady
+bark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Keep where you are, fellows! Watch the other side of the tree!&rdquo;
+whispered Cyrus, his face twitching with excitement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In his character of naturalist he had managed
+
+to find out more about the coon&rsquo;s various dodges than even the old guide
+had done.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In breathless wonder the Farrars presently beheld that ingenious raccoon steal
+along to the end of the most projecting limb on a different side of the tree
+from the one it had climbed, so that a screen of boughs and the trunk were
+between it and its adversary.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then it noiselessly dropped from the tip of the branch to the ground,
+alighting, like a skilled acrobat, on its shoulders, doubled its pointed black
+nose under its stomach, and again rolled over and over for a considerable
+distance, when it got on its short legs and scurried away, while Tiger still
+bayed at the foot of the maple-tree, thinking the vanished prey was above.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s what I called the coon&rsquo;s dodge of &lsquo;barking a
+tree,&rsquo;&rdquo; said Cyrus. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you see, when hard pressed,
+he runs up the trunk, leaving his scent on the bark; then he creeps to the
+other side under cover of the foliage, and drops quietly to the ground. So he
+breaks the scent and cheats the dog.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good gracious!&rdquo; exclaimed Neal with an expressive whistle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps it&rsquo;s because of his long gray hairs that he has so much
+wisdom,&rdquo; Dol suggested.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A bright idea, Chick!&rdquo; chuckled the student, tapping the
+boy&rsquo;s shoulder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We keep on speaking of him as &lsquo;he&rsquo; when you said the thing
+was probably a female,&rdquo; put in Neal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That doesn&rsquo;t matter. I&rsquo;m not certain. Look at old Tiger!
+He&rsquo;s having fits now that he has discovered how he&rsquo;s been
+tricked.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The dog was circling out from the tree, with wild, uncertain movements, nosing
+everywhere. Presently he struck the scent again, and darted off like a streak.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the raccoon had by this time reached a dark stream of water which coursed
+through the over-arching forest at the foot of the hill, as if it was flowing
+through a tunnel. Here this astute animal crossed and recrossed under the gloom
+of interlocking trees, mid dense undergrowth, until its trail was altogether
+lost.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tiger, having further &ldquo;fits,&rdquo; nosing about, darting hither and
+thither, venting short, baffled barks, finally gave up in despair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The pursuing party turned back to camp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did ye ever see ennyting to ekal de cunnin&rsquo; o&rsquo; de
+critter,&rdquo; said Uncle Eb gloomily; &ldquo;runnin&rsquo; up dat tree
+on&rsquo;y to jump off, so as he&rsquo;d break de scent an&rsquo; fool de dog?
+Ye&rsquo;ll learn a heap o&rsquo; queer tings in dese woods,
+
+chillun, &rsquo;fore ye get t&rsquo;rough,&rdquo; he added, addressing the
+English lads.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve learned queerer things than we ever imagined or dreamed of,
+already, Uncle Eb,&rdquo; Neal answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile, Cyrus and Dol had begun to discuss the size of the escaped coon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should think it measured about two feet from the tip of its nose to
+the beginning of the tail, and that would add ten or eleven inches. Probably it
+weighed over thirty pounds,&rdquo; said the experienced Garst.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A fine tail it had too!&rdquo; answered Dol; &ldquo;all ringed with
+black and buff&mdash;not black and white as the books say. There was hardly an
+inch of white about the animal anywhere. Its thick gray hair was marked here
+and there with black; wasn&rsquo;t it, Cy?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Rather with a darker shade of gray, bordering on black. I think old
+Tiger can testify that the creature had capable teeth; and it possesses a
+goodly number of them&mdash;forty in all; that&rsquo;s only two less than a
+bear, an animal that might make six of it in size.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Whew! No wonder it&rsquo;s a good fighter!&rdquo; ejaculated Dol.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But the funniest of the coon&rsquo;s or&mdash;to give the animal its
+proper name&mdash;the raccoon&rsquo;s
+
+funny habits is, that while it eats anything and everything, it souses all meat
+in water before beginning a feed. That&rsquo;s what it would have done with our
+bit of pork,&mdash;dragged it to a stream, and washed it well before swallowing
+a morsel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I caught glimpses of a raccoon chasing a jack-rabbit in this very
+section of the woods, last year,&rdquo; went on the student, seeing that Dol
+was breathlessly listening. &ldquo;The big animal killed the little one under a
+dead limb; and I traced its tracks through some mud, where it tugged the rabbit
+to the brink of the nearest brook to be dipped and devoured.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;After the meal, Mr. Coon halted on an old bit of stump as gray as
+himself, close to where I lay under cover, trying to get a peep at his
+operations, but, unluckily, in my excitement I touched a bush, and broke a twig
+not as big as my little finger. I tell you he just jumped off that stump as if
+it scorched him, and disappeared.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What about that tame coon you owned, Cy?&rdquo; Dol asked. &ldquo;You
+haven&rsquo;t got him now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bless your heart, I should think not!&rdquo; Here the student indulged
+in a chuckle of mirth. &ldquo;That coon was the fun and bane
+
+of my life. No fear of my being dull while I had him! I had him as a present,
+when he was only a cub, from a man out here who is my special chum among
+woodsmen, Herb Heal, the guide in whose company we&rsquo;re going to explore
+for moose, and the soundest fellow in wind, limb, and temper that ever I had
+the luck to meet. I guess you English boys will say the same when you know him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well! when my friend Herb bestowed upon me that baby raccoon, I called
+the little innocent &lsquo;Zip,&rsquo; and kept him in-doors, letting him roam
+at will. But after he grew to manhood, I was obliged to banish him to our yard
+and chain him up; and there his piteous, sky-piercing calls, which seemed to
+come from the roof of a house near him, first showed me what a ventriloquist
+the animal can be.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why on earth did you banish him?&rdquo; asked Neal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because his plan of campaign, when loose, was to follow me about like a
+devoted cat, climbing over me whenever he got the chance, with slobbery
+fondness. But as soon as I was out of the way he&rsquo;d steal every mortal
+thing I possessed, from my most precious instruments to my latest tie and
+handkerchiefs. I never saw anything to equal his ingenuity in ferreting out
+such articles, and his incorrigible mischief in destroying them. I chained him
+in the yard after he had torn my father&rsquo;s silk hat into shreds, and made
+off with his favorite spectacles. Whether he wore them or not I don&rsquo;t
+know; he chewed up the case; the glasses no man thereafter saw. I
+couldn&rsquo;t endure his piteous cries for reconciliation while he was in
+banishment, so I gave him away to a friend who was suffering from an imaginary
+ailment, and needed rousing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Talking of fathers, boys, reminds me that I feel responsible to Francis
+Farrar, Esq., for the welfare of his lusty sons. Neal had a pretty tiring time
+last night, and only about two hours&rsquo; sleep since. I don&rsquo;t suppose
+any of us are outrageously hungry, seeing that we had some kind of breakfast at
+an unearthly hour. Here we are at camp! I propose that we turn in, and try to
+sleep until noon. What do you say?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Their leader having wound up his talk, thus, neither of his comrades ventured
+to oppose his suggestion, though they felt little inclined for slumber.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pleasant day-dreams to you, fellows!&rdquo; said Cyrus three minutes
+afterwards, flinging off his coat, and throwing himself on his mattress of
+boughs, while he wiped the steady drip of perspiration from his forehead and
+cheeks. &ldquo;This day is going to be too warm for any more rushing. Our
+variable climate occasionally gives us these hot spells up to the middle of
+October; but they don&rsquo;t last. So much the better for us! We don&rsquo;t
+want sizzling days and oppressive nights, with mosquitoes and black flies to
+make us miserable. October in this country is the camper&rsquo;s
+ideal&mdash;month&rdquo;&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The last sentence was broken by a great yawn, followed presently by a snort and
+an attempt at a shout, which quavered away into a queer little whine. Garst had
+passed into dreamland, where men revel in fragmentary memories and pell-mell
+visions.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig06.jpg" width="400" height="164" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap06"></a>Chapter VI.<br/>After Black Ducks</h2>
+
+<p>
+If Cyrus&rsquo;s dreams were ruffled after the morning&rsquo;s excitement,
+those of his comrades were a perfect chaos.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A slight wind hummed wordless songs through the tasselled tops of the
+pine-trees about the camp. The music was tender and drowsy as a mother&rsquo;s
+lullaby. Contrary to their expectations, Neal and Dol were lulled to sleep by
+it like babies, with a feeling as if some guardian spirit were gliding among
+the tree-tops.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But when slumber held them, when the murmur increased to a surge of sound, sank
+to a ripple and again rolled forth, in their dreams they imagined it the
+scurrying of a
+
+deer&rsquo;s hoofs along some lonely forest deer-path, the rustling of a buck
+through bushes, the splashing of a mighty moose among lily-pads and grasses at
+the margin of a dark pond, the startled cluck of a coon. In fact, that rolling
+music of the pines was translated into every forest sound which they had heard,
+or expected to hear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The excitement of wild scenes, new sensations, strange knowledge, still
+thrilled them even in sleep. Their visions were accordingly wild, rushing,
+jumbled, yet all set in a light so bright as to be bewildering&mdash;a sign
+that health and happiness as great as human boys can enjoy were the possession
+of the dreamers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By and by their pulses grew steadier. Out of this confused rush of imaginings
+grew in the mind of each one steady, absorbing dream. Neal fancied that he was
+on the top of Old Squaw Mountain, and that beneath, above, around him, sounded
+the strangely prolonged weird call, which he had heard at a distance on the
+previous night while Cyrus was recovering the jack-light. Owing to the
+ever-changing excitements of camp-life, he had not questioned his comrade again
+about it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol&rsquo;s visions resolved themselves into a
+
+mighty coon hunt. He tossed on his pine boughs, kicked and jabbered in his
+sleep, with sundry odd little cries and untranslatable mutterings,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go it, Tiger! Go it, old dog! There he is&mdash;up the tree! Ah&rdquo;
+(disgustedly), &ldquo;you&rsquo;re no good!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A lull. Then the dreamer rolled out a string of what may be called gibberish,
+seeing that it consisted of fragments of words and was unintelligible, followed
+by,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The coon&rsquo;s eating the pork&mdash;no, he&rsquo;s b-b-b-barking it!
+Hu-loo-oo!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, say, Chick, give us a chance! We can&rsquo;t sleep with you chirping
+into our ears.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was Cyrus who spoke, shaking with drowsy laughter, and Cyrus&rsquo;s big
+hand gently shook the dreamer&rsquo;s arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What? what? wh-wh-at?&rdquo; gasped Dol, awaking. &ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t
+talking out loud, was I?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not talking aloud! Well, I should smile!&rdquo; answered the camp
+captain. &ldquo;You were making as much noise as a loon, and that&rsquo;s the
+noisiest thing I know. Go to sleep again, young one, and don&rsquo;t have any
+more crazy spells before dinner-time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cyrus removed his hand, shut his eyes, and in a minute or two was breathing
+heavily. Neal, who had been aroused too, followed his example, laughing and
+mumbling something about &ldquo;it&rsquo;s being an old trick of Dol&rsquo;s to
+hunt in his sleep.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the junior member of the party remained awake. After his dreams had been
+dissipated he cared no more for slumber. When he could venture it without
+disturbing his companions, he rose to a sitting posture, and, after squatting
+for a while in meditation, got on his feet, picked up his coat and moccasins,
+and, stealthily as an Indian, crept out of the hut.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The rolling music among the pine-tops had died down; only at long intervals a
+soft, random rustle swept through them. It was nearly midday. The camp-fire was
+almost dead, quenched by the dazzling sunlight which fell in patches on the
+camping-ground, and flooded the clearing beyond the shadow of the pines.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Moreover, the camping-ground was deserted. Neither Uncle Eb nor Tiger could be
+seen, though Dol&rsquo;s eyes sought for them wistfully. But something caught
+his attention. It was a ray of light filtering through the pine boughs and
+glinting on the trigger of an old-fashioned muzzle-loading shot-gun,
+
+which leaned against a corner of the hut. An ancient, glistening powder-horn
+and a coon-skin ammunition pouch hung above it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol lifted the antiquated weapon, withdrew to a short distance, and examined it
+closely. He knew it belonged to the guide, but was rarely used by him since he
+had purchased the 44-calibre Winchester rifle, with which he could do uncommon
+feats in shooting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The shot-gun interested the boy mightily. There was a facsimile of it, swathed
+in green baize, stowed away somewhere in his father&rsquo;s house in
+Manchester. The first time he had ever used fire-arms was on a memorable day
+when his fingers pulled its trigger in his father&rsquo;s garden under
+Neal&rsquo;s direction, and a lean starling fell before his shot. After that he
+had often taken out a fowling-piece of a newer style, and had done pretty well
+with it too.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As he handled the shot-gun, which the guide had bought away back in the year
+&rsquo;55, musing about it under the pines, the thought suddenly tumbled out of
+a corner of his brain that at present there was a brilliant opportunity for him
+to use the gun and all the shooting skill he possessed for the benefit of his
+comrades and himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was no meat in the camp for dinner or supper save the pork on which they
+had feasted since they arrived there, and that was fast giving out. Cyrus, in
+addition to his knapsack, had hauled over from Greenville, where articles of
+camp fare could be procured in abundance, a goodly supply of tea, coffee,
+condensed milk, flour, salt, sugar, etc., in a stout canvas bag, Neal at
+intervals helping him with the burden. For the rest he had trusted to
+Nature&rsquo;s larder, and such food as he might purchase from his guides,
+desiring to go into the woods as &ldquo;light&rdquo; as possible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Uncle Eb had baked bread for his guests after a fashion of his own on the camp
+frying-pan, setting the pan on some glowing coals a foot or so from the fire;
+he had fried unlimited flapjacks, and had cheerfully placed what stores he had
+at their disposal. His three luxuries were novelties to the English lads, being
+pork, maple sugar,&mdash;drawn from the beautiful maple-trees near his
+camp,&mdash;and a small wooden keg of sticky, dark molasses. The sugar was the
+only one which Dol found palatable; and he knew that the Bostonian, Cyrus,
+shared his feeling. To tell the truth, the juvenile Adolphus was not
+fastidious, but
+
+he was suddenly seized with an ambitious desire to vary the diet of the camp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Uncle Eb said that I could use this &lsquo;ole fuzzee,&rsquo; as he
+called it, whenever I liked,&rdquo; he muttered, looking wistfully at the
+shot-gun; &ldquo;and I&rsquo;ve a big mind to give those lazy fellows in there
+a surprise. They spent the night out jacking, and didn&rsquo;t get any meat
+because Cyrus let Neal do the shooting, and he bungled it. It&rsquo;s my turn
+next to go after deer, but I&rsquo;m not going to wait for that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here his steel-gray eyes fell on the moccasins which he had not yet put on, and
+struck fire instantly. His ambition was doubled. For if there is one thing more
+than another which in the forest will stir the pluck of a novice, and make him
+feel like an old woodsman, it is the sight of his Indian footwear. Dol put his
+on, admired their light, comfortable feeling, their soft buckskin, and rashly
+decided that he could dispense with the loose inner soles which Cyrus had
+fitted into them to protect his feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then, being very much of a stranger to American woods, he communed with himself
+after this fashion,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Cyrus says that different tribes of Indians wear differently made
+moccasins, and one redskin, if he sees the tracks of another in soft mud or
+snow, can tell what tribe he belongs to by his footmarks. That&rsquo;s funny! I
+suppose if any old brave was knocking about and saw my tracks in a boggy spot,
+he&rsquo;d think it was a Kickapoo who had passed that way&mdash;not Dol Farrar
+of Manchester, England. These are of the shape worn by the Kickapoo
+tribe&mdash;so Cy says.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m the kid of the camp, I know,&rdquo; he went on, with another
+flash in his eyes, as if there was a bit of flint somewhere in his make-up
+which had struck their steel. &ldquo;But I&rsquo;ll be bound I can do as well
+or better than the others can. I&rsquo;m off now to Squaw Pond. I think I can
+follow the trail easily enough. Uncle Eb showed me yesterday where he had
+spotted some of the trees all the way along to the water. And if I don&rsquo;t
+shoot a couple of black ducks for dinner or supper, I&rsquo;m a duffer, and not
+fit for camping.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He took down the powder-horn and slung it round him, saw that there was plenty
+of meat in the ragged coon-skin ammunition pouch which hung beside it, fastened
+that to his belt, slipped on his coat, and started off, with the &ldquo;ole
+fuzzee&rdquo; on his shoulder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Never a sound did he make as he crossed the clearing, passing the clump of
+bushes behind which Cyrus and Neal had lingered on the previous night to hear
+Uncle Eb&rsquo;s song. Owing to his Indian footwear, silently as the gliding
+redskin himself he entered the woods at a point where he saw a tree with a
+fresh notch carved in it. He knew this marked the beginning of the
+&ldquo;blazed trail,&rdquo; and that he must be very wide-awake and show
+considerable &ldquo;gumption&rdquo; if he wanted to follow that line to the
+pond.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not every tree was spotted. Only at intervals of fifteen or twenty yards he
+came upon a trunk with two small pieces chopped out of it on opposite sides.
+These were Uncle Eb&rsquo;s way-marks. One set of notches would catch his eye
+as he went towards the water, the other would lead him back to camp. Once or
+twice Dol got away from the trail, but he quickly found it again; and in due
+time emerged from the forest twilight into the broad glare of the sun, to see
+Squaw Pond lying before him like a miniature mother-of-pearl sea, so protected
+by its evergreen woods that scarcely a ripple stirred it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He heard the shrill, wild call of a loon, the noisy bird to which Cyrus had
+likened him, and saw its white breast rising above the water, as it swam about
+among the reeds near the opposite bank. The cry was oft repeated, making an
+unearthly din, now joyous, now dreary, among the echoes around the lake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol paused for a minute to listen; but he was bent on business, and did not
+want to be very long away from camp lest his absence should cause alarm. He
+took a careful survey of the scene. Not beholding any fleet of black ducks as
+yet, he loaded his gun, and warily proceeded along the bank towards the head of
+the pond.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Keeping a sharp lookout, he by and by detected something moving among the water
+grasses a little way ahead, and heard a hoarse, squalling &ldquo;Quack!
+quack!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Immediately afterwards a flock of half a dozen ducks sailed forth from their
+shelter, nodding and quacking inquisitively.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A wild drumming was at Dol&rsquo;s heart, and a reckless singing in his ears,
+as he raised his gun to his shoulder, and fired among them. Nevertheless, his
+aim was sure and deadly. Two quackers were killed with one shot! The others
+rose from the water, and with much fluttering and hoarse noise winged their way
+to safety.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How&rsquo;ll they be for meat, I wonder? Won&rsquo;t I have a crow over
+those fellows?&rdquo; shouted Adolphus aloud, with a yell entirely worthy of a
+Kickapoo Indian, when he had recovered from surprise at the success of his own
+shot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He laid down the gun, pulled off his moccasins and socks, rolled up his
+trousers, and waded in for the prize. Truly luck was with him&mdash;so
+far&mdash;in his first venture in this region of the unknown. The water was so
+shallow that, having grabbed the ducks, he splashed out of it, kicking shiny
+drops from his toes, without wetting an inch of his garments.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m the kid of the camp, I know; but I&rsquo;ll be the first
+fellow to bring any decent meat into it. Hooray!&rdquo; he whooped again.
+&ldquo;Shouldn&rsquo;t wonder if these moccasins brought me wonderful luck; one
+can steal about so quietly in them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had hit upon the supreme advantage which the Indian footwear possesses over
+every other for the woodsman. A little later he was to learn its disadvantage,
+having, with foreign inexperience, disdained the extra soles because they were
+not &ldquo;Indian&rdquo; enough for his taste; for the soft buckskin could not
+
+protect from roots and stones a wearer whose flesh was not hardened to every
+kind of forest travelling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But at present Dol bepraised his moccasins; for they had enabled him to sneak
+upon his birds, the wildest of the duck tribe, who generally, at a single
+hoarse &ldquo;Quack!&rdquo; from their leader, will cease their antics in lake
+or stream, and disappear like a skimming breeze before a sportsman can get a
+fair shot at them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a quarter of an hour Dol Farrar sat by this forest pond engaged in the
+cheerful occupation of &ldquo;booming himself,&rdquo; as his friend Cyrus would
+have said. He told himself that he had made a pretty smart beginning, not alone
+in shooting a brace of black ducks, but in successfully following a difficult
+trail on his fourth day in the woods. Henceforth, he thought, there would be
+little reason for him to dread the unknown in this great wilderness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He reclothed his legs, gathered the stiffening claws of the defunct quackers in
+his left hand, picked up his empty &ldquo;ole fuzzee,&rdquo; which had done
+such good service despite its age, and set forth on his return to camp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Retracing his steps along the bank, after some searching he found the beginning
+of the
+
+trail, and started along it with a know-it-all, cheerful confidence in the
+little bit of wood-lore which he had acquired. Hence he now found it
+considerably more difficult to follow the spotted trees. His brain was excited
+and preoccupied; and when once in fancied security he suffered his eyes and
+thoughts to stray for a minute from the trail, every unfamiliar woodland sight
+and sound tempted them to wander farther.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+First it was an old fox, which poked its sharp, inquisitive nose out of a patch
+of undergrowth near at hand. Dol uttered a mad &ldquo;Whoop-ee!&rdquo; and
+heedlessly dashed off a few steps in pursuit. Reynard whisked his brush as much
+as to say, &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t get the better of me, stranger!&rdquo; and
+defiantly trotted away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Recovering his senses, the boy managed to recover the trail too, and was
+keeping to it carefully when a second temptation beset him. A chattering
+squirrel, seated on the low bough of a maple-tree, with his fore paws against
+his white breast, his eyes like twinkling beads, and his restless little head
+playing bo-peep with the intruding boy, began to scold the latter for venturing
+into his forest playground.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol&rsquo;s first thought was full of delighted interest. His second was a
+sanguinary one; namely, that a pair of ducks would only be one meal for four
+campers who were &ldquo;camp-hungry,&rdquo; and that Uncle Eb had spoken of
+squirrels as &ldquo;fust-rate eatin&rsquo;.&rdquo; He handled his gun
+uncertainly, deliberating whether or not he would load it, and try a shot at
+the bright-eyed chatterbox.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before he had decided one way or the other, the squirrel, still scolding and
+playing bo-peep, scampered off his bough, and up the trunk of the maple. Thence
+he quickly made good his escape from one tree to another, affording a whisking,
+momentary view now and again of his white breast or bushy tail. Dol absolutely
+forgot the blazed trail, forgot the stories which he had heard about forest
+perils, forgot every earthly thing but his admiration for the pretty,
+tantalizing fellow; though to do the lad justice, he soon came to the
+conclusion that the camp must be in a worse strait for want of provisions
+before he could have the heart to shoot him. He gave chase nevertheless,
+plunging along in a ziz-zag way over a carpet of moss and dry pine-needles, and
+through some dense tangles of undergrowth, uttering a welcoming screech
+whenever he saw the bright eyes of the little trickster peering down at him
+from a bough.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had travelled farther than he knew before his interest in the game waned. He
+began to feel that it was rather beneath the dignity of a fellow who wore
+moccasins, carried coon-skin pouch and powder-horn, and who was bound for
+remote solitudes in search of the lordly moose, to be interested in such an
+insignificant phase of forest life as the doings of a red squirrel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then he started back to find the trail. He walked a considerable distance. He
+searched hither and thither, straining his eyes anxiously through the
+bewildering gloom of the forest, but never a notched tree could he see.
+Whereupon Dol Farrar called himself some pretty hard names. He remarked that he
+had been a &ldquo;hair-brained fool&rdquo; and a &ldquo;greenhorn&rdquo; ever
+to leave the spotted track, but that he wasn&rsquo;t going to be
+&ldquo;downed;&rdquo; he would search until he found it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And he certainly was enough of a greenhorn not to know that every step he now
+took was carrying him away from the trail, and plunging him into a hopeless,
+pathless labyrinth of woods. For Dol had lost all knowledge of directions, and
+was completely &ldquo;turned round;&rdquo; which means that he was miserably
+lost.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The disaster came about in this way. The forest here was very dense, the giant
+trees interlocked above his head letting so little light filter through their
+foliage that he could scarcely see twenty yards ahead of him, and that in a
+puzzling, shadowy gloom resembling an English twilight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When he ceased chasing the squirrel, he imagined that he retraced his steps
+directly towards the point where he had quitted the trail. In reality, seeing
+nothing to aim for in this bewildering maze of endless trees, turned out of his
+way continually as he dodged in and out around massive trunks, he gradually
+worked farther and farther off the course by which he had come, drifting in
+random directions like a rudderless ship on mid-ocean. This helpless state is
+called, in the phraseology of the northern woods, being &ldquo;turned
+round.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Dol Farrar was spared for the present a thorough realization of the
+dreadful mishap which had befallen him. He had a shocked, breathless, flurried
+feeling, as if scales had suddenly fallen from his eyes, and he saw the dangers
+of the unknown as he had not before seen them. But even in the midst of abusing
+himself for his rash self-confidence, he uttered a cheerful
+&ldquo;Hurrah!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, good gracious!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s another trail!
+Now, where on earth does this lead to? I don&rsquo;t see any spotted
+trees&rdquo;&mdash;looking carefully about&mdash;&ldquo;but it&rsquo;s a
+well-beaten track, a regular plain path, where people have been walking. It
+must lead to our camp. I&rsquo;ll follow it up, anyhow. That will be better
+than dodging around here until I get &lsquo;wheels in my head,&rsquo; as Uncle
+Eb says he did once when he lost his way in the woods, and kept wandering round
+and round in a circle.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Puffing with excitement and revived hope, the boy started off on this new
+trail, which he blessed at first&mdash;oh, how he blessed it!&mdash;as if it
+had been a golden clew to lead him out of his difficulty. To be sure, it was
+not a blazed trail; there were no notches in the trees, but the ground showed
+distinct signs of being frequently and recently travelled over. Though
+footprints were not traceable, moss, earth, and in some places the forest
+undergrowth of dwarfed bushes, were thoroughly pressed and trodden.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol never doubted but that it was a human trail, a track continually used by
+some woodsman; but he thought that the unknown traveller, whoever he was, must
+have agile legs and a taste for athletics, for many times he had to hoist
+himself, his gun, and the ducks over some big windfall which lay right across
+the way. The dead quackers he pitched before him, fearing that by the time he
+got back to camp&mdash;if ever he did?&mdash;their flesh would be too bruised
+to look like respectable meat; for he was obliged to have one hand free to help
+him in scrambling over each fallen tree.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once or twice this strange trail led him through thickets where the bushes grew
+so high as to lash his face. He came to regard slippery, projecting roots and
+rough stones, which galled his feet, protected only by the thin soles of his
+moccasins, as matters of course. His wind decreased, and his blessings ceased.
+Yet he followed on, walking, walking, interminably walking, with now and again
+an interval of climbing or stumbling headlong, accompanied by ejaculations of
+thankfulness that his gun was not loaded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His breath came in hot, strangling gasps, the veins in his head were swollen
+and stinging like whipcords, there was a dull, pounding noise in his ears, and
+a drumming at his heart. He confessed that he was thoroughly
+&ldquo;winded&rdquo; when he had been following the trail for nearly two hours,
+so he seated himself upon a withered stump beside it to rest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had relinquished the idea that the track would bring him out near Uncle
+Eb&rsquo;s camp. Had it led thither, he would have rejoined his comrades long
+before this. His only hope now was that by patiently following it on he might
+reach the camp of some other traveller, or the lonely log cabin of a pioneer
+farmer. He had heard of such farm-settlements being scattered here and there on
+forest clearings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So presently Dol Farrar got to his feet again, when he had recovered breath and
+strength, and told himself pluckily that &ldquo;he wasn&rsquo;t going to knock
+under,&rdquo; that &ldquo;he had been in bad scrapes before now, and had not
+shown the white feather.&rdquo; He gritted his teeth, and resolved that he
+would not show that craven pinion, even in the desperate solitude of these
+baffling woods where no eye could see his weakness. He did not want to have a
+secret, humiliating memory by and by that he had been faltering and distracted
+when his life depended on his wits and endurance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He squared his shoulders sturdily, as if to make the most of the budding
+manhood that was in him, and trudged ahead. And, indeed, he had need to take
+his courage in both hands, and force it to stand by him; for he had not gone
+far when, though the forest still continued dense, he became aware that he was
+beginning a steep ascent. Was the trail going to lead him up a mountain-side?
+The way grew yet more rugged. Every step was a misery. Jagged edges of rock and
+never-ending roots seemed to brand themselves with burning friction upon his
+feet, through their soft buckskin covering. He tried to hearten himself into a
+belief that he must soon reach some mountain camp or settlement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But a bleak horror threw a gray shade upon his face as his staring eyes saw
+that the trail was growing fainter&mdash;fainter&mdash;fainter. At the foot of
+a steep crag, where a mass of earth, stones, and dead spruce-trees showed that
+there had lately been a landslide on the mountain above, he lost it altogether.
+It had led him to a pile of rubbish.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig07.jpg" width="400" height="164" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap07"></a>Chapter VII.<br/>A Forest Guide-Post</h2>
+
+<p>
+At the foot of that crag Dol stood still, while a great shiver crept from his
+neck up the back of his head, stirring his hair. He peered in every direction;
+but there was no sign of a camp, nothing to show that any human foot before his
+had disturbed the solitude of this mountain-side, and no further marks on the
+ground, save one impression on a bed of earth at his feet where some animal had
+lately lain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The disappointment was stupefying.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last a fog of terror settled down upon him,&mdash;a fog which blotted out
+every sight and sound, blotted out even his own thoughts, all except one,
+which, like a danger-signal in a mist, kept booming through his brain:
+&ldquo;Lost! Lost!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By and by he was sitting on the piled-up stones and dirt of the slide; but he
+had no remembrance of getting to this resting-place, for he was still befogged.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Something snorted close to his right ear,&mdash;loud snort, which banished
+stupor, and set his pulses jumping. It was a deer, a beautiful doe in a coat of
+reddish-drab, matching the autumnal tints of the forest, wherever maples,
+birches, and cedars mingled with the evergreens. She had bounded upon him
+suddenly from behind a dead spruce and a mound of earth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was long since the game on this part of the mountain had been disturbed.
+Madam Doe had in all probability never seen a man before, therefore her
+behavior was not peculiar. A shock of surprise thrilled through her graceful
+body as she vented that snort, when she caught sight of the new-fangled gray
+animal who had intruded upon her world, and who sat spell-bound, gazing at her
+with hopeless eyes, in which gradually a light broke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But she did not fear him,&mdash;this creature in gray. She stood stock-still,
+and stared at him, so near that he could see her wink her
+
+starry eyes, with the white rings round them. She stamped one hoof, kicked an
+insect from her ear with another, snorted again, wheeled around, and at last
+broke away for the thick shelter of the trees, lightly and swiftly as a breeze
+which skims from one thicket to another.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Seeing his mother go for the woods, her spotted fawn, which had been frolicking
+among the branches of the fallen spruce-tree, skipped from it, passed Dol with
+a bound which carried him a few feet, and disappeared like a whiff too.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here was a rouser, indeed, which no boy, unless he was in a far-gone state of
+suffering, could withstand. Dol Farrar forgot his terrible predicament. The fog
+had cleared away from his senses, leaving him free to think and act once more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I never!&rdquo; he ejaculated, springing to his feet in amazement.
+&ldquo;Wasn&rsquo;t she a beauty? And wasn&rsquo;t she a snorter? I
+didn&rsquo;t think a deer could make such a row as that. And to stand still and
+stare at me! I wonder whether she took me for some new-fashioned sort of animal
+or a gray old stump.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a few minutes before he again thought of his plight, and then he was not
+
+overcome. He stood perfectly still, trying to review the position coolly, and
+to get a tight grip of his feelings, so that terror might not again master him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m in a worse scrape than I ever dreamt of,&rdquo; he muttered,
+puckering his forehead to do some tall thinking. &ldquo;And I must do something
+to get out of it. But what? That&rsquo;s the question.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wonder if I loaded this &lsquo;ole fuzzee,&rsquo;&rdquo;&mdash;the lad
+was making a valiant effort to cheer himself by being jocular,&mdash;&ldquo;and
+blazed away with it for a while like mad, whether there is any human being
+around who would hear me. Some fellow might be hunting or trapping in this part
+of the forest, or farther up the mountain. But what a blockhead I am! Why on
+earth didn&rsquo;t I do that before I started on this wretched trail?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But alas! as this was Dol Farrar&rsquo;s first adventure in American woods, it
+had not occurred to him to do the right thing at the right time. Had he fired a
+round of signal shots when first he lost the line of spotted trees, he would
+probably have been heard at his camp, and would have been spared the worst
+scare he ever had in his life. The negligence was scarcely his fault, however;
+for Cyrus Garst, who had never before undertaken the responsibility of
+entertaining a pair of inexperienced boys in woodland quarters, had not, at
+this early stage of the trip, arranged with his comrades to fire a certain
+number of shots to signify &ldquo;Help wanted!&rdquo; if one of them should
+stray, or otherwise get into trouble. The idea now cropped up in Dol&rsquo;s
+perplexed mind, through a confused recollection of tales about forest
+misadventures which Uncle Eb had told him by the cheery camp-fire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So he loaded the old shot-gun. It belched forth fire and smoke into space. And
+the thunder of his shot went rolling off in a reverberating din among the
+mountain echoes, until a hundred tongues repeated his appeal for help. Again he
+loaded rapidly and fired. And yet again, with nervous, eager fingers. So on,
+till he had let off half a dozen shots in quick succession.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then he waited, listening as if every pulse in his body had suddenly become an
+ear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But when the last growling echo had died away, not a sound broke the almost
+absolute silence on the mountain-side. Evidently not a human soul was near
+enough to hear or understand his signals of distress.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In these bitter minutes some sensations ran through Dol Farrar which he had
+never known before; and, as he afterwards expressed it, &ldquo;they were enough
+to cover any fellow with goose-flesh.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He felt that he had reached the dreariest point of the unknown, and was a
+lonely, drifting atom in this immense solitude of forest and rock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Never in his life before or afterwards did he come so near to Point Despair as
+when he stumbled down the mountain, spurning that treacherous trail, and going
+wherever his jaded feet found travelling tolerably easy. He had picked up the
+shot-gun; but the black ducks, the primary cause of his misadventure, he clean
+forgot, leaving them lying amid the chaos at the foot of the crag, to have
+their bones picked by some lucky raccoon or fox.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wandering along in a zigzag way, he by and by reached the base of the mountain
+at a point where there was a break in the forest. A patch of dreary-looking
+swamp was before him, covered with clumps of alder-bushes&mdash;a true Slough
+of Despond.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol Farrar knew none of the miseries of plunging through an alder-swamp, but he
+luckily recalled in time a warning from Cyrus that a slight wetting would
+render his moccasins useless. While he halted undecidedly on its brink, he
+pulled out his watch; one glance at this, and another at the sky, which now lay
+open like a scroll above him, gave him a sickening shock. He had started from
+camp at noon; now it was after five o&rsquo;clock. Little more than another
+hour, and not twilight, but the blackness of a total eclipse, would reign in
+the forest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The blood rushed to his head, and his mouth grew feverish at the thought. As he
+licked his cracking lips, he caught a faint, tinkling, rumbling sound of
+falling water somewhere to the right. Of a sudden his sufferings of mind and
+body were merged into one burning desire to drink, and he turned eagerly in
+that direction.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the edge of the woods he found a little fairy, foamy waterfall, which had
+tumbled down from the mountain to be lost in the dismal swamp. But Dol felt
+that it had accomplished its mission when he unfastened the tin drinking-mug
+which hung from his belt, and drank&mdash;drank&mdash;drank! He straightened
+himself again, feeling that some of the bubbling life of the mountain torrent
+had passed into him. His eyes lit on a towering pine-tree just beyond it. And
+then&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Well! if that sky-piercing pine had suddenly changed at a jump into a gray
+post, bearing the inscription, &ldquo;One mile to Boston,&rdquo; Dol Farrar
+could not have been more astonished and relieved than when he saw for the first
+time a rude forest guide-post.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To the dark, knotted trunk was fastened a piece of light, delicate bark,
+stripped from a white-birch tree. On this was scrawled in big letters, by some
+instrument evidently not intended for penmanship:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+&ldquo;FOLLOW THE BLAZED TRAIL AND YOU ARE SAFE.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Another blazed trail! Hurrah!&rdquo; shouted Dol. &ldquo;Won&rsquo;t I
+follow it? I never will follow any other again if I live to be a hundred, and
+come to these woods every year till I die!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The height of his relief could only be measured by the depth of his past
+misery, which would truly have been enough to set a weaker boy crazy. With
+watering eyes and panting breaths that came near to being sobs of gladness, he
+started upon the new trail. It led him off into the forest surrounding the
+swamp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The pine that had been chosen for guide-post was the first in the line of
+spotted trees. The others followed it closely, with intervals of eight or ten
+yards between them; and as the notches in their trunks were freshly cut, Dol
+followed the track without any difficulty for twenty minutes. He had a
+suspicion that he was nearing the end of it; though he was still in forest
+gloom, with light coming in meagre, ever-lessening streaks through the
+pine-tufts above. Then he started more violently than when the deer snorted
+near his ear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly and shrilly the blast of a horn rang through the darkening woodland
+aisles, followed, after a pause of a minute or two, by a second and louder
+blast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then a well-pitched, far-reaching voice sang out:&mdash;&ldquo;Come to supper,
+boys! Come to supper!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good gracious!&rdquo; said Dol, conscious on the instant that he was as
+hollow as a drum. &ldquo;There are enough surprises in these forests to raise
+the hair on a fellow&rsquo;s head half a dozen times a day!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A matter of forty yards more, and a burst of light swam before his eyes. He had
+reached the end of the blazed trail.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig08.jpg" width="400" height="167" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap08"></a>Chapter VIII.<br/>Another Camp</h2>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hello! Come to supper, boys! Come to supper right away!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Half eagerly, half shrinkingly, Dol emerged from the woods, feeling a very
+torment of hunger quickened in him by the tantalizing sound of that
+oft-repeated invitation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A sight met him which, because of what went before and all that came after,
+will be forever chief among the forest pictures which rise in exciting panorama
+before his memory, when camping is a thing of the past.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A broad dash of evening light, the sun&rsquo;s afterglow, fell upon a patch of
+clearing bordered by clumps of slim, outstanding pines, the scouts of their
+massive brethren. That this was used as a camping-ground the first glance
+revealed. A camp which looked to the tired eyes of the lost boy a real
+&ldquo;home-camp,&rdquo; though it consisted of rude log cabins, occupied it. A
+couple of birch-bark canoes reposed amid a network of projecting roots.
+Withered stumps and tree-tops littered the ground.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the foreground of the picture stood a man with a horn in his uplifted hand,
+which he had just taken from his mouth. He was minus a coat; and the
+rough-and-tumble disarray of his attire showed that he had been lounging by his
+camp-fire, or perhaps overseeing the preparation of supper. Dol had a vague
+impression that the individual was not a forest-guide like Uncle Eb, nor a
+rough lumberman such as he had heard of. He would have taken him for a pioneer
+farmer,&mdash;not having yet encountered such a character,&mdash;but there
+could be no farm on this little bit of clearing. And he was too dazed to see
+that there were signs of a cultivated intelligence in the tanned, beaming face
+under the horn-blower&rsquo;s broad-brimmed hat. Indeed, the hat itself, its
+wearer, log huts, canoes, and trees seemed to have a strange propensity to
+waltz before the lad&rsquo;s eyes, and there was a queer waving sensation in
+his own legs, as if they, too, would join in the spinning movement. For as he
+advanced into the light out of the sombre shadows, a dizziness from long
+tramping in the woods, and from a hunger such as he had never before
+experienced, overcame him. He reeled against an outstanding tree, troubled by
+an affliction which Uncle Eb had called &ldquo;wheels in his head.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ho! you boys. Where in thunder are you? Come to supper, or the venison
+will be spoiled!&rdquo; shouted the possessor of the horn again, shutting one
+eye into which a crimson ray was pouring, while he swept the skirts of the
+woods with the other; and there was music as well as bluster in his shout.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lo! the first to answer this fetching invitation was the foot-sore, leg-weary
+boy, pale from exhaustion, with his strange equipment of powder-horn, coon-skin
+pouch, and ancient shot-gun, who, getting partly the better of his giddiness,
+crossed the clearing slowly, as if he was groping his way. Within a few feet of
+the horn-blower he halted; for the man had lowered his horn, and was gazing at
+him with keen, questioning eyes. Dol tried to find suitable speech to express
+his need; but though words came with considerable effort, his voice sounded
+hoarse and creaky in his own ears, and threatened to crack off altogether.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was doing his best to brace up and speak plainly, when his sentence was
+stopped by a noise of pounding footsteps. The next moment he saw himself
+surrounded by three well-grown, daring-looking lads, one about his own age, one
+older, one younger, who were gazing at him with critical curiosity. All the
+pluck in Dol Farrar rose to meet this emergency. He felt as if his legs were
+threatening to smash under him like pipe-stems. There was a whirling and
+buzzing in his head. It seemed as if his words had such a long way to travel
+from his brain to his tongue that they got confused and changed before he
+uttered them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But through it all he was conscious of one clear thought: that he was an
+Old-World boy on parade before these strapping New-World lads. He set his
+teeth, drove his gun hard against the ground, and, as it were, anchored himself
+to it, while strange, doubting lights came into his eyes as he tried to get a
+grip of his senses.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus03"></a>
+<img src="images/illus03.jpg" width="380" height="600" alt="Illustration: " />
+<p class="caption"><b>Dol Sights A Friendly Camp.</b><br/></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+He succeeded. At last he addressed the gentleman with the horn, knowing that he
+was speaking to the point,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good-evening, sir,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&mdash;I&mdash;we&rsquo;re
+camping out somewhere in the woods. I&mdash;I got lost to-day. I&rsquo;ve
+walked an awful distance. Perhaps you could tell me&rdquo;&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the man stepped suddenly forward, with a blaze of welcome in his eyes; for
+he saw the brave effort which the lad was making, and that his strength was
+giving out. He put a kindly arm through Dol&rsquo;s, as if to warmly greet a
+fellow-camper, but really to support him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll not tell you about anything until you&rsquo;ve had a good,
+square meal,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s our way in woodland
+quarters,&mdash;to eat first, and talk afterwards. If you&rsquo;re lost,
+you&rsquo;ve struck a friend&rsquo;s camp, and at the right time too, son; so
+cheer up! After supper you can tell us your yarn, and I guess we can set you
+right.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here at last was a surprise of unmixed blessedness for poor Dol; namely, the
+brotherly hospitality which is always extended to a stranger in a Maine camp,
+whether that be the temporary home of a millionnaire or the shanty of a poor
+logger.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His new friend led him into the largest of the cabins, which contained a
+fireplace built of huge stones, where red flames frisked around fragrant birch
+logs, a camp-bed of evergreen boughs about ten feet wide, a rude table, a
+bench, and a few stools of pine-wood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Over the camp-fire was stooping a bright-eyed, muscular fellow, whose dress
+somewhat resembled Uncle Eb&rsquo;s, but who had no negro blood in his veins.
+He was frying meat; and such tempting whiffs mingled with the steam which
+floated up from his pan, that Dol&rsquo;s nostrils twitched, and his hungry
+longing grew almost unbearable as he inhaled them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I guess this chunk of ven&rsquo;zon is about cooked, Doc,&rdquo; said
+this personage, as Dol&rsquo;s kindly host entered the hut, with him in tow,
+followed closely by the boys of his own camp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right, then! Let&rsquo;s have it!&rdquo; was the reply.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m pretty glad our camp-fare is decent to-night, Joe, for
+we&rsquo;ve a visitor here; a hungry bird who has strayed from his own camp,
+and has wandered through the forest until he looks like a death&rsquo;s head.
+But we&rsquo;ll soon fix him up; won&rsquo;t we, Joe? Give him a mug of hot tea
+right away. Hot tea is worth a dozen of any other drink in the woods for a
+pick-me-up.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A spark of fun kindled in Dol&rsquo;s eyes when he heard himself described as
+&ldquo;a hungry bird.&rdquo; It brightened into an appreciative beam as the
+reviving tea trickled down his throat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Eatin&rsquo;s wot he wants, I guess,&rdquo; said Joe, the camp guide and
+cook, placing some meat and a slab of bread of his own baking on a tin plate
+for the guest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol began on them greedily; and though the first mouthful or two threatened to
+sicken him, his squeamishness wore off, and he gained strength with every
+morsel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How do you like Maine venison, my boy? Like it well enough to have
+another piece, eh?&rdquo; asked his host, when he saw that the haggard, gray
+look was leaving the wanderer&rsquo;s face, and that the appalled, dazed
+expression, the result of being lost in the woods, had disappeared from his
+eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think it&rsquo;s the best meat I ever tasted,&rdquo; answered Dol
+heartily. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s so tender, and has a splendid taste.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ha! ha! It ought to be prime,&rdquo; chuckled the owner of the camp.
+&ldquo;It was cut from the quarters of a buck which my nephew here, Royal
+Sinclair,&rdquo; pointing out the tallest of three lads, &ldquo;shot four days
+ago. He was a regular crackerjack&mdash;that buck! I mean, he was as fine a
+deer as ever I saw; weighed over two hundred pounds, had seven prongs to his
+horns on one side and six on the other. Royal is going to take the antlers home
+with him to Philadelphia. We were mighty glad to get him, too; for we have been
+camping here for five weeks, and were running short of provisions. Roy had
+quite an attack of buck-fever over it, though he didn&rsquo;t think he was
+killing the &lsquo;fatted calf&rsquo;, to entertain a visitor; did you,
+Roy?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I guess not, Uncle! But I&rsquo;m pretty glad, all the same,&rdquo;
+answered Royal, with a smiling glance at Dol.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Young Farrar found himself in very pleasant quarters; and, now that he was
+recovering, his laugh rang from one log wall to the other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s &lsquo;buck-fever&rsquo;?&rdquo; he questioned, while Joe
+filled his plate with more venison.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A sort of disease of which you&rsquo;ll learn the meaning before you
+leave these woods,&rdquo; answered his host merrily. &ldquo;It attacks a man
+when he&rsquo;s out after a deer, and makes him feel as if one leg stands firm
+under him, while the other shakes as if it had the palsy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now I guess you&rsquo;d like to know whose
+
+camp you&rsquo;re in, my boy, and then you can tell your story. Well, to begin
+with the most useful member of the party. That knowing-looking fellow over
+there, who cooked your supper, is Joe Flint, the best guide that ever pulled a
+trigger or handled a frying-pan in this region&mdash;barring one. These three
+rascals,&rdquo; here the speaker beamed upon the strapping lads, with whom Dol
+had been exchanging sympathetic glances of curiosity, &ldquo;are my nephews,
+Royal, Will, and Martin Sinclair. And I&mdash;I&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good gracious! Listen to that, Joe! What&rsquo;s up now? Another fellow
+lost in the woods? Somebody is firing a round with his rifle! Perhaps he wants
+help. Those are signal shots, anyhow!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The camper whose horn had been Dol&rsquo;s signal of deliverance, broke off
+abruptly in his introductions, just as he had arrived at the most interesting
+point, and was proclaiming his own identity. He rattled off his short
+exclamations in excitement, and dashed out of the cabin, followed by Joe, his
+nephews, and Dol, the latter limping painfully, for his feet now felt like
+hot-water bags.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That Winchester has spoken eight or ten times,&rdquo; said the leader,
+counting the shots fired by somebody away in the dark recesses of the forest
+from a powerful repeating-rifle. &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s give the fellow, whoever he
+is, an answer, Joe!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He seized his own rifle hastily, loaded the magazine with blank cartridges, and
+fired a noisy salute.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the pause which followed, while all strained their ears to listen, the sound
+of a shrill, distant &ldquo;Coo-hoo!&rdquo; the woodsman&rsquo;s hail, reached
+them from the forest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Joe instantly responded with a vehement &ldquo;Coo-hoo! Coo-hoo-oo!&rdquo; the
+first call being short and brisk, the second prolonged into a roar which showed
+the strength of the guide&rsquo;s lungs,&mdash;a roar that might carry for
+miles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Shortly afterwards there was a crashing and tearing amid some undergrowth near
+the edge of the forest. A man bounded forth from the pitch-black shadows into
+the clearing, where a little daylight still lingered. As he approached the
+group, Dol, who was in the background, gave a startled, yearning cry; but it
+was drowned in a loud burst from his host.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, Cyrus Garst!&rdquo; exclaimed the latter, peering into the
+new-comer&rsquo;s face. &ldquo;How goes it, man? I never expected to see you
+
+here. Surely you haven&rsquo;t come to grief in the woods? You look scared to
+death!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cyrus&mdash;for it was he&mdash;grasped the welcoming hand which the owner of
+this camp extended to him. But his dark eyes did not linger a moment meeting
+the other&rsquo;s. They turned hither and thither, flashing in all directions
+restlessly, like search-lights.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad to see you, Doc,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t
+know you were anywhere near. But I&rsquo;m half distracted just now. A
+youngster belonging to our camp is missing. I&rsquo;ve been scouring the forest
+for hours, and firing signals, hoping he might hear them. But&rdquo;&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here Cyrus caught sight of Dol, who with a cry which in its changing
+inflections was longing, penitent, joyful, was making towards him. The Harvard
+student strode forward, and gripped the boy by his elbows. In the dusk their
+eyes were near together; Garst&rsquo;s were stern, Dol&rsquo;s blinking and
+unsteady.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Adolphus Farrar,&rdquo; began Cyrus in a voice as if he was making an
+arrest, &ldquo;have you been here in this camp, or where have you been, while
+your brother and I were searching the woods like maniacs? What unheard-of folly
+possessed you to go off by yourself?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol made a gurgling attempt to answer, but his voice rattled and died away in
+his throat. His eyes grew decidedly leaky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say, Cyrus!&rdquo; interrupted the man who had befriended him and now
+proved his champion, &ldquo;let the youngster get breath and tell his story
+from start to finish before you blow him up. I guess he wasn&rsquo;t much to
+blame; and if he was, he has suffered for it. He found his way here not quite
+half an hour ago, so played out from wandering through the forest that he was
+ready to drop in his tracks. And I tell you he showed his grit too; for he
+managed to brace up and keep on his feet, though he was as exhausted a kid as
+ever I saw.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The &ldquo;kid,&rdquo; forgiving this objectionable term because of the
+soothing allusion to a trying time when he had behaved like a man, winked and
+gulped to get rid of his emotion, and twisted his elbows out of Cyrus&rsquo;s
+hold. The latter lost his angry look, and released them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I must fire three shots to let Neal and Uncle Eb know I&rsquo;ve found
+you,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We parted company a while ago, and they&rsquo;re
+beating about the woods in another direction. Whoever first came upon any trace
+of you was to fire his rifle three times.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The signal was instantly given.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+More far-reaching &ldquo;Coo-hoos!&rdquo; were exchanged. Ere long Neal was
+beside his brother, looking at him with eyes which showed the same tendency to
+leak that Dol&rsquo;s had done a while ago, and battling with a desire to
+squeeze the wanderer in a breathless hug. He relieved his feelings instead by
+&ldquo;blowing up&rdquo; Dol with withering fire and a rough choke in his
+voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But when, in response to an invitation from the genial camper whom Cyrus and
+Joe called &ldquo;Doc,&rdquo; the whole party, guides included, had gathered
+around the camp-fire in the big log hut, and Dol told his story from start to
+finish, he became the hero of the evening.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His only fault had been a rash venturing into the unknown; and well it was that
+he had not followed the unknown to his death.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, boy!&rdquo; exclaimed Cyrus, with a strong shudder, when Dol had
+described the false trail which led him to the foot of the crag, &ldquo;that
+wasn&rsquo;t a human trail at all. It was a deer-road. The deer spend their day
+up in the mountains, and come down to the ponds at evening to feed and drink.
+Now, a buck or doe in its regular journeys to and fro will follow one line, to
+which it becomes accustomed. Perhaps fifty others, seeing the ground trodden,
+will run in the same track. And there you have your well-used path, which looks
+as if it was made by men&rsquo;s feet!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You may thank your lucky star, Dol, every hour of this night, that the
+false trail didn&rsquo;t lead you
+away&mdash;away&mdash;higher&mdash;higher&mdash;up the mountain, until you
+dropped in your tracks, and died there alone, as others have done
+before.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A shocked hush fell upon the group around the camp-fire. Even the guides were
+silent. But the fragrant birchen logs sputtered and glowed, darting out playful
+tongues of flame. They seemed to call upon everybody to dismiss gloomy thoughts
+of what might have been; to crack jokes, sing songs, tell yarns, and be as
+merry as befitted men who had a log hut for a shelter, fresh whiffs of forest
+air stealing to them through an open doorway, and such a camp-fire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Joe began to prepare supper for the three who had searched so long and
+distractedly for Dol that they confessed to not having eaten for hours. While
+more venison was being cooked, the juveniles, American and English, who had
+been secretly taking stock of each other, cast aside restraint, and became as
+&ldquo;chummy&rdquo; as if they had been acquainted for years instead of hours.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such a carnival of fun and noise was started through their combined efforts in
+the old log camp, that its owner declared he &ldquo;couldn&rsquo;t hear himself
+think.&rdquo; Seizing his horn, he blew a blast which called for order.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say, my boy, let me have a look at your feet,&rdquo; he said, cornering
+Dol. &ldquo;A deer-road isn&rsquo;t a king&rsquo;s highway, as I dare say
+you&rsquo;ve found out to your cost. Pull off your moccasins and socks, and let
+me doctor your poor trotters.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Young Farrar very gladly did as he was bidden.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Humph!&rdquo; said his friend. &ldquo;I thought so. They&rsquo;re a mass
+of bruises and blisters. You&rsquo;ve been pretty well branded, son. Moccasins
+aren&rsquo;t much use to protect the feet from roots and sharp stones, if you
+happen to strike a bad place in forest travelling, unless you have taken the
+precaution to put double soles in them; didn&rsquo;t you know that? Now, Cyrus
+Garst,&rdquo; turning to the student, &ldquo;you&rsquo;re all going to camp
+with us to-night. This lad can&rsquo;t tramp any more. As a doctor I forbid
+it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you a doctor, sir?&rdquo; questioned Dol, with a thrill of surprise,
+which he managed to conceal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Something of the kind, boy,&rdquo; answered his host, smiling. &ldquo;I
+don&rsquo;t look much like a city physician, do I? I graduated from a medical
+college in Philadelphia, and took my degree. But I had an enthusiasm for the
+woods. One hour of forest life in dear old Maine was to me worth a year spent
+amid streets, alleys, and sky-scraping buildings; so I fixed my headquarters at
+Greenville, and have spent most of my time in the wilderness.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where every trapper, guide, and lumberman knows Dr. Phil Buck, whom they
+disrespectfully and affectionately call &lsquo;Doc,&rsquo;&rdquo; put in Cyrus.
+&ldquo;And many a poor fellow owes his life or limbs to Doc&rsquo;s knowledge
+and nursing in some hard time of sickness, or after one of the dreadful
+accidents common in the forests.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol could well understand this; for he now was benefiting by Dr. Phil&rsquo;s
+lively desire to relieve suffering, and was silently breathing blessings on his
+head. The doctor had bathed his puffy feet in warm water taken from Joe&rsquo;s
+camp-kettle, and was anointing them with a healing salve, after which he tucked
+them into a loose pair of slippers of his own. Meanwhile, he chatted
+pleasantly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This isn&rsquo;t the first time that your friend Cyrus and I have run
+against each other in the wilds,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;nor the first time that
+we&rsquo;ve camped together, either. Bless you! we could make you jump with
+some of our stories. Do you remember that night in &rsquo;89, Cy, when you,
+with your guide, came upon me lying under a rough shelter of bark and spruce
+boughs, which I had rigged up for myself near Roaring Brook, on the side of
+Mount Katahdin?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I guess I do remember it,&rdquo; answered Cyrus, laughing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A mighty hungry man I was, too, that evening,&rdquo; went on Doc;
+&ldquo;for I had no food left but one little package of soup-powder and a few
+beans. I had been trying all day to get a successful shot at a moose or deer,
+and muffed it every time. It wasn&rsquo;t the lucky side of the moon for me.
+Well, you behaved like the Good Samaritan to me, then, Cy; shared your meat and
+all your stuff, and we slept like twin brothers under my shelter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; and a bear visited our temporary camp in the night!&rdquo;
+exclaimed Cyrus, bursting into uproarious mirth over some over-poweringly funny
+recollection; &ldquo;he made off with my knapsack, which I had left lying by
+the camp-fire. I suppose old Bruin thought he&rsquo;d find something good in it
+to eat; but he didn&rsquo;t. So he tore my one extra shirt and every article in
+the pack to shreds, and chewed up the handle of my razor, so that I
+couldn&rsquo;t shave again until I got back to civilization, when I was as
+bristly as a porcupine.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps Bruin tried to shave himself,&rdquo; suggested Dol.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At all events, he had wisdom enough not to cut his throat,&rdquo;
+answered the story-teller. &ldquo;We three&mdash;Doc, my guide, and
+myself&mdash;were stupidly tired, and slept so soundly that we did not discover
+the theft nor who the marauder was until the following morning. Then we found
+my knapsack gone, and the tracks of a huge bear in some soft earth near our
+shelter. We traced his footprints through a bog until we found the spot, not
+far off, where, overcome by greed or curiosity, he ripped up that strong
+leather knapsack as if it was <i>papier maché</i> and made hay of its
+contents.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boys had all crowded near to listen. It was now the social hour for
+campers. By the camp-fire more reminiscences followed; and the two guides
+chimed in it with moose stories, bear stories, panther stories, wild tales of
+every imaginable and unimaginable kind of adventure, until the lads thought no
+mythology which they had ever learned could rival in marvels the forest lore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this opportune time, Neal suddenly thought of describing, or attempting to
+describe, that strangest of strange calls which he had heard, after the
+capsizing of the canoe, on the preceding night, when Cyrus and he were jacking
+for deer on Squaw Pond.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Joe grunted expressively. &ldquo;So help me! it was the moose call!&rdquo; he
+ejaculated. &ldquo;What say, Doc?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I guess it was,&rdquo; answered Dr. Phil. &ldquo;It was either the
+cow-moose herself calling, or some hunter imitating her with his birch-bark
+trumpet. It&rsquo;s a weird sort of experience, to hear that call for the first
+time; I shouldn&rsquo;t wonder if your heart went whack-whack, lad?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I only hope he&rsquo;ll get a chance to hear it again before he goes
+back to England,&rdquo; said Cyrus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Forthwith, the Harvard man proceeded to explain that he was bent on pressing
+forward for a distance of sixty miles or so, to the heart of the wilderness, to
+search for moose, but that he intended to do the journey in a leisurely, zigzag
+fashion, camping for a couple of nights at various points, in order to do the
+honors of the forest to his English comrades.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So you&rsquo;re English, are you! Ha! Ha! Ho! Ho!&rdquo; exclaimed the
+doctor, looking at the young Farrars. &ldquo;Well, I suppose we&rsquo;ll have
+to put our best foot foremost to give you a good time in American woods.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think that&rsquo;s what we&rsquo;re having, sir&mdash;such a jolly
+good time that we&rsquo;ll never forget it,&rdquo; answered Neal courteously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, it&rsquo;s jolly enough now; but I tell you I didn&rsquo;t find it
+so to-day,&rdquo; grumbled Dol, while his eyes gleamed like polished steel with
+the light of present fun. &ldquo;But as long as I live I&rsquo;ll remember the
+sound of your horn, Doctor, when I was dead-beat.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is that so? Well, I guess I&rsquo;ll have to make you a present of that
+horn, boy, when we part company, and you go back to civilization, and of the
+piece of birch-bark, too, which led you to our camp. &rsquo;Twas Joe who fixed
+that to the pine near the swamp; for my lads had a habit of following the trail
+to the alders, looking for moose or deer signs. He scrawled his sentence on it
+with the end of a cartridge. I guess it would be a sort of curiosity in
+England.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol whooped his delight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll put it under a glass shade! I&rsquo;ll&rdquo;&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While he was casting about in his mind for some way of immortalizing that bit
+of white bark, Doc&rsquo;s genial bluster was heard again,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come! come! you fellows! No more skylarking in this camp to-night!
+It&rsquo;s high time for all campers to be snoring. Turn in! Turn in!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But nobody was in a hurry to obey the summons to bed. While hands and feet were
+being stretched out to the sizzling birch logs for a final toast, Royal
+Sinclair, who had a trick of speaking very quickly, with a slight click in his
+utterance, as if his tongue struck his teeth, began to pour some communications
+into Neal&rsquo;s ear in rapid dashes of talk,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is just about the jolliest night we ever had in the forest, and
+we&rsquo;ve had a staving time all through. We live in Philadelphia, and Uncle
+Phil&mdash;we call him &lsquo;Doc&rsquo; like everybody else&mdash;brought us
+out here for our summer vacation. This old log camp was built several years ago
+by a hunting-party, of whom he was one. The walls were getting mouldy; but he
+cleaned up the largest of the huts, with Joe&rsquo;s help, and made it our
+headquarters. He never needs a guide himself; not a bit of it! He can find his
+way anywhere through the woods with his compass. But he is a good deal away, so
+he engaged Joe to go out with us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He often starts off at a moment&rsquo;s notice, and travels dozens of
+miles on foot, or in a birch canoe, if he hears of a bad accident far away in
+the forest. Sometimes a lumberman or trapper cuts his foot in two, or nearly
+chops off his leg with his axe; and these poor fellows would probably die while
+their comrades were lugging them through the woods on a litter, trying to reach
+a settlement, if it weren&rsquo;t for our Doc.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Once in a while, when he comes to visit us in Philadelphia, a few people
+call him a crank, because he lives out here and dresses like a settler; but I
+call him a regular brick.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So do I,&rdquo; said Neal with spirit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re awfully lucky to be able to camp out during October,&rdquo;
+rattled on Roy. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the month for moose-hunting, jacking, and
+all the most exciting sort of fun. We have
+
+to go home in a day or two, for our school has reopened, unless&rdquo;&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;When Royal Sinclair gets a streak of talking, you might as well try to
+bottle up the Mississippi as to stop him,&rdquo; said Dr. Phil, laughing.
+&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t hear what he&rsquo;s saying, but I know that his tongue is
+clicking like a telegraph instrument. But I hope it has given its last message
+for to-night. You really must turn in, boys. I let you have an extra social
+hour, because to-morrow will be Sunday, a day of rest after the travels and
+excitements of the week. Think of it, lads! A Sunday in the
+woods&mdash;God&rsquo;s first cathedral! May it do us all good!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The guide, Joe, built up the fire. Fresh birch logs blistered and sputtered as
+creeping curls of bluish flame enwrapped them. Kindling rapidly, they threw out
+fantastic lights, which danced like a regiment of red elves around the old log
+walls of the cabin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If a fellow could only drop off to sleep every night in the year seeing
+and smelling such a fire as that!&rdquo; breathed Neal, as, accepting a share
+of Royal&rsquo;s blankets, he stretched his tired limbs on the evergreen
+mattress.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then life would be too jolly for anything,&rdquo; answered Roy.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig09.jpg" width="400" height="165" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap09"></a>Chapter IX.<br/>A Sunday Among the Pines</h2>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Men and boys learn a good many wholesome lessons in the forest, one of
+which is that it pays better to take a day of rest in seven if they want to
+make the most of themselves and their opportunities. Therefore, lads,
+we&rsquo;ll do no tramping to-day. And we&rsquo;ll have a bit of a service by
+and by over there under the pines.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So spoke Doctor Phil on the following morning, when the two sets of campers,
+now one joyous, brotherly crowd, were sitting or lounging about the pine-wood
+table, leisurely emptying tin mugs of tea or coffee, and eating porridge and
+rolls of Joe&rsquo;s baking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You haven&rsquo;t told us yet, Cyrus,&rdquo; he went on, &ldquo;what
+point you&rsquo;re bound for. I know you&rsquo;re level-headed, and plan every
+forest trip beforehand, to economize time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, a fellow likes to do that; it adds to the pleasures of
+anticipation,&rdquo; Garst answered. &ldquo;But it&rsquo;s precious little use,
+after all, when you&rsquo;re visiting a region which is as full of surprises as
+an egg is full of meat. However, I have arranged to meet Herb Heal, the guide
+whom I generally employ, at a hunting-camp near Millinokett Lake.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A good moose country,&rdquo; put in Doc.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know it. At all events, it is a good place for a home-camp; one can
+make excursions into the dense forests at the foot of Katahdin, which are
+unrivalled for big game&mdash;so Herb says, and he&rsquo;s an authority. These
+English fellows may expect to have an attack of buck-fever, or
+<i>moose-fever</i> rather, which will set their blood on fire. Not that
+we&rsquo;re out chiefly for killing; we&rsquo;re willing to let his mooseship
+keep a whole skin, and go in peace to replenish the forests, unless he grows
+cantankerous and charges us.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If he happens to be an old bull, and gits his mad up, he may do that;
+it&rsquo;s as likely as not,&rdquo; chimed in Joe Flint, who was listening.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, it there&rsquo;s a man in Maine who can be warranted to start a
+moose, and to follow up his trail until he gets a sight of him, living or dead,
+that man is Herb Heal,&rdquo; said the doctor. &ldquo;And his adventures go
+ahead of those of any woodsman up to date. You must get him to tell you how he
+swam across a pond at the tail of a bull-moose, holding with his fingers and
+teeth to the creature&rsquo;s long hair, then got astraddle of its back, and
+severed its jugular vein with his hunting-knife. How&rsquo;s that! It was the
+liveliest swim I ever heard of. But I mustn&rsquo;t spoil his yarns. He must
+tell them himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A fine son of the woods is Herb Heal!&rdquo; went on the speaker, with
+enthusiasm. &ldquo;I ran across him first five years ago, when he was trapping
+for fur-bearing animals in the dense forests you mentioned near the foot of
+Mount Katahdin. He had a partner with him then, a half-breed Indian, whom
+woodsmen called &lsquo;Cross-eyed Chris,&rsquo; a willing, plucky, honest
+fellow when he was sober. But he loved fire-water. Let him once taste spirits,
+or smell them, and he went clean crazy. He did a dog&rsquo;s trick to
+Herb,&mdash;stole all his furs and savings, with a splendid pair of moose
+antlers, while he was away from camp one day, and skipped out of the State.
+Herb swore he&rsquo;d shoot him. But I don&rsquo;t think he has ever come
+across him since. And if he should, he wouldn&rsquo;t stick to his threat.
+He&rsquo;s not built that way.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a general hum of interest over this story, which even Cyrus had not
+heard before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, how are you going to reach your camp on Millinokett Lake?&rdquo;
+asked Dr. Phil, when the buzz had subsided. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the next
+question.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We intend to tramp the entire distance by easy stages, and get there
+about the middle of October,&rdquo; answered young Garst for himself and his
+comrades. &ldquo;Uncle Eb will go along with us as guide; and he&rsquo;ll
+supply a tent, so that we can rest for two or three nights at a time if we
+choose.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hum!&rdquo; said the doctor doubtfully, laying his hand on Dol&rsquo;s
+shoulder. &ldquo;This youngster oughtn&rsquo;t to do much tramping for a few
+days, Cyrus. That deer-road did up his feet pretty badly. I&rsquo;ll be
+travelling in your direction myself the day after to-morrow. I want to visit a
+farm-settlement within a dozen miles of the lake, where the farmer has a sickly
+child, the only treasure in his log shanty. The mite frets if Doc doesn&rsquo;t
+come to see her once in a while.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Therefore, I propose that we join forces, and press forward together. I
+guess I&rsquo;ll keep my nephews out here for a week longer, and take the
+responsibility of their missing that time at school. Now that they have fallen
+in with your friends, it would be a shame to separate Young England and Young
+America without giving them a chance to get friendly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here Dr. Phil beamed upon the five boys, who, after one night in the forest,
+sleeping in a light-hearted row on the evergreen boughs, with their feet to the
+fire, had reached a brotherly intimacy which years of city life might not have
+bred.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I further propose,&rdquo; he went on, &ldquo;that we hire a roomy wagon
+and a pair of strong horses from a settler who has a clearing about two miles
+from here. There is an old logging-road which runs through the woods towards
+the point for which we&rsquo;re heading. We could follow that for the first
+half of our journey. It isn&rsquo;t a turnpike, you know. In fact, it&rsquo;s
+only a broad track where the underbrush has been cleared away, and the trees
+cut down, with strips of corduroy road sandwiched in. But the lumbermen still
+haul supplies over it to their camps, and I propose that we follow their
+example. We can pile our tent, camp duffle [stores], and all our packs into the
+wagon, together with the hero of the deer-road,&rdquo;&mdash;winking at
+Dol,&mdash;&ldquo;and the rest of us can take turns in riding. It will be a big
+lark for these youngsters to travel over a corduroy road. A very bracing ride
+they&rsquo;ll have in more senses than one; but they can spin plenty of yarns
+about it when they get home.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The &ldquo;youngsters,&rdquo; one and all, signified their approval of the
+suggestion. Cyrus, who, as a college man, was above this category, was pleased
+to acquiesce too.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;When can we get the wagon, Doctor?&rdquo; asked Neal, burning to press
+onward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh! the day after to-morrow, I guess. And now, lads!&rdquo; Dr.
+Phil&rsquo;s voice was serious, but exultant, &ldquo;we&rsquo;re a thoroughly
+happy set of fellows, in accord with each other and our surroundings. We feel
+our brains clear, our gladness springing up, and our lungs swelling to double
+their size with the whiffs which reach us from those sky-piercing pines yonder.
+So we will remember that &lsquo;the wide earth is our Father&rsquo;s
+temple.&rsquo; Over there in the woods we will worship him, while millions of
+forest creatures about us, flying, bounding, or building, in obedience to his
+laws, simply worship too.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A music soft, deep, sighing, like the murmur of an organ under the fingers of a
+master musician, rolled through the pine-tops as the band of campers, guides
+included, followed Doc into the forest. They passed the clumps of slender trees
+near the camp, and reached a dimly-lit green aisle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Towering pines, so tall and erect that they seemed shooting upward to kiss the
+clouds, were the pillars of their cathedral. Its roof of tasselled boughs was
+stabbed by flashing needles of sunlight, which let in a flickering, mellow
+radiance, and traced a pattern on the woodland carpet. Every whiff of forest
+air was natural incense.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dr. Phil stood as if in the audience-chamber of the King, and removed his
+wide-brimmed hat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be
+honor and glory, for ever and ever. Amen!&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Cyrus&rsquo;s voice led the worship.
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;Praise God, from whom all blessings flow!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+he sang, in a strong, glad outburst.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Boys and guides, in a great chorus, swelled the familiar words. Each sweetly
+chirping woodland bird, after its own manner, echoed them. The music among the
+pine-tops mingled with them. The forest fairly rang with a magnificent, adoring
+Doxology.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We ought to be decent kind of fellows after this,&rdquo; said Cyrus,
+when the little service was over.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And the doctor answered,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I tell you, boy, the church was never built where a man feels so ready
+to worship the God-Father in spirit and in truth as he does in the wild
+woods.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And looking on the six fresh, manly faces before him, Dr. Phil saw that this
+happy woodland trip would have grander results than adding to the
+campers&rsquo; inches and to the breadth of their shoulders. For each one of
+them had realized this morning that behind all strength and beauties of forest
+growth, behind their own souls&rsquo; gladness, was a Presence which they could
+&ldquo;almost palpably feel.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig10.jpg" width="400" height="164" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap10"></a>Chapter X.<br/>Forward All!</h2>
+
+<p>
+Speculations about the journey, and in especial about the corduroy road, were
+rife in the boys&rsquo; minds during the forty and odd hours which elapsed
+between the Sunday service and the time of their start.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The travellers met at the settler&rsquo;s cabin early on Tuesday morning,
+having broken camp shortly after daybreak. On Monday evening Cyrus and Neal,
+with Uncle Eb, had returned to the bark hut to pack their knapsacks, and make
+ready for a forward march. On the way thither, it being just the hour for the
+deer to be running,&mdash;that is, descending from the hills for an evening
+meal,&mdash;Neal got a successful shot at a small two-year-old buck. This was a
+stroke of luck for the campers, and a necessary deed of death. It supplied them
+with venison for their journey; and, as Cyrus said, &ldquo;they had already put
+a shamefully big hole in Dr. Phil&rsquo;s stores, and must procure a
+respectable supply of meat to make up for it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It also provided Tiger with plenty of bones to crunch during his master&rsquo;s
+absence; for the dog was left behind in charge of the hut, as indeed he often
+was for a week or more while Uncle Eb was away guiding. The sportsmen who
+engaged the latter&rsquo;s services were generally averse to the
+creature&rsquo;s presence with the party, lest he should scare their game.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cyrus and Neal bade him a pathetic farewell, remembering the exciting fun he
+had given them with the raccoon. Dol sent him lots of approving messages, which
+were duly delivered, with rough pats and shakes, by Uncle Eb, who fully
+believed that the brute understood every word of them. Indeed, the sign
+language of Tiger&rsquo;s expressive tail confirmed this opinion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol had remained at the log camp with his new friends, Dr. Phil thinking it
+well that he should rest his feet until the morning of the start. His brother
+promised to bring his knapsack and rifle to the settler&rsquo;s cabin. Uncle Eb
+repossessed himself of his shot-gun, pouch, and powder-horn, which he carried
+back to his hut, and left under Tiger&rsquo;s protection, telling Dol that
+&ldquo;if he wanted to bag any more black ducks he&rsquo;d have to give
+&rsquo;em a dose wid de rifle, for he warn&rsquo;t a-goin&rsquo; to lug dat ole
+fuzzee t&rsquo;rough de woods.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was the perfection of an October morning, sunshiny and pleasant, with a
+mellow freshness in the air which matched the mellow tints of the forest, when
+the travellers joined forces at the farm-settlement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Engaged in the thrilling work of felling a pine-tree to extend his
+father&rsquo;s clearing, they found the settler&rsquo;s son, a brawny fellow
+about Cyrus&rsquo;s age, in buckskin leggings and coon-skin cap, who wielded
+his axe with arms which were tough and knotted as pine limbs. He bawled to them
+in the forceful language of the backwoods, which to unaccustomed ears sounded a
+trifle barbaric, to keep out of the way until his tree had fallen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the pine at last tumbled earthward with a thud which reverberated for
+miles through the forest, he gave a mighty yell, waved his skin cap, and came
+towards the visitors.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hulloa, Lin!&rdquo; boomed the doctor, greeting this native as an old
+acquaintance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hello, Doc!&rdquo; answered Lin. &ldquo;By the great horn spoon! I
+didn&rsquo;t expect to see you here. Who are these fellers?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The doctor introduced his comrades. Lin greeted them with bluff simplicity, and
+called them one and all by their Christian names as soon as these could be
+found out. Doc alone came in for his short title&mdash;if such it could be
+called. Luckily the campers of both nationalities, from Cyrus downward, were
+without any element of snobbery in their dispositions. It seemed to them only a
+jolly part of the untrammelled forest life that man should go back to his
+primitive relations with his brother man; that in the woods, as Doc said,
+&ldquo;manhood should be the only passport,&rdquo; and that titles and
+distinctions should never be thought of by guides or anybody else. They were
+well-pleased to be taken simply for what they were,&mdash;jolly, companionable
+fellows,&mdash;and to be valued according to the amount of grit and good-temper
+they showed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And they learned this morning to appreciate the pioneer courage and resolute
+spirit of the rugged settlers who had cleared a home for themselves amid the
+surrounding wilderness of forest and stream. Their roughness of speech was as
+nothing in comparison with their brave endurance of hardships, their deeds of
+heroism, and their free-handed hospitality.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lin led his visitors straight to a log cabin, before which his father, a
+veteran woodsman, who bore the scars of bears&rsquo; teeth upon his body, was
+digging and planting. This old farmer, too, greeted Doc as a friend, and when
+the wagon was talked about, was quite willing to do anything to serve him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But ye must have a square meal afore ye travel,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;Jerusha! I couldn&rsquo;t let ye go without eatin&rsquo;. Mother!&rdquo;
+shouting to his wife, who was inside the cabin. &ldquo;Say, Mother!
+Ha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t ye got somethin&rsquo; fer these fellers to munch?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Forthwith a big, rosy woman, who had herself fought a bear in her time, and had
+shot him, too, before he attacked her farmyard, hustled round, and got up such
+a meal as the travellers had not tasted since they entered the woods. They had
+a splendid &ldquo;tuck-in,&rdquo; consisting of fried ham, boiled eggs,
+potatoes, hot bread, yellow butter, and coffee. And the meal was accompanied
+with thrilling stories from the lips of the old settler about the hardships and
+desperate scenes of earlier pioneering days. Doc coaxed him to relate these for
+the boys&rsquo; benefit. And many eyes dilated as he told of blood-curdling
+adventures with the &ldquo;lunk soos,&rdquo; or &ldquo;Indian devil,&rdquo; the
+dreadful catamount or panther, which was once the terror of Maine woodsmen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So help me! I&rsquo;d a heap sooner meet a ragin&rsquo; lion than a
+panther,&rdquo; said the old man. &ldquo;My own father came near to bein&rsquo;
+eaten alive by one when I was a kid. He was workin&rsquo; with a gang o&rsquo;
+lumbermen in these forests at timber-makin&rsquo;, and was returnin&rsquo; to
+their camp, when the beast bounced out of a thicket all of a suddint. Poor dad
+was skeered stiff. The thing screeched,&mdash;a screech so turrible that it was
+enough to turn a man&rsquo;s sweat to ice-water, an&rsquo; a&rsquo;most set him
+crazy. Dad hadn&rsquo;t no gun with him; so he shinned up the nighest tree like
+mad, an&rsquo; hollered fit to bust his windpipe, hopin&rsquo; t&rsquo;other
+fellers at the camp &rsquo;ud hear him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But the panther made up another tree hard by, an&rsquo; sprang
+&rsquo;pon him. Fust it grabbed dad by the heel. Then it tore a big piece out
+o&rsquo; the calf of his leg, an&rsquo; devoured it. Think of it, boys!
+Them&rsquo;s the sort o&rsquo; dangers that the fust settlers an&rsquo;
+lumbermen in these woods had to face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wal, dad reckoned he was a goner, sure. But he managed to cut a limb
+from the tree with his huntin&rsquo;-knife, an&rsquo; tied the knife to the end
+of it. With that he fought the beast while his comrades, who had heard his mad
+yells, were gittin&rsquo; to him. With the fust shot that one of &rsquo;em
+fired the catamount made off.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dad was the sickest man ye ever saw fer a spell. His wound healed after
+a bit, under the care of an Injun doctor; but his hair, which had been
+soot-black on that evenin&rsquo; when he was returnin&rsquo; to camp, was as
+white as milk afore he got about again; an&rsquo; he was notional and
+narvous-like as long as he lived.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He said the animal was like a tremenjous big cat, about four feet high
+an&rsquo; five or six feet in length. It was a sort o&rsquo; bluish-gray color.
+An&rsquo; it had a very long tail curled up at the end, which it moved like a
+cat&rsquo;s.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Boys, that catamount is the only animal that an Indian is skeered of.
+Ask a red man to hunt a moose, a bear, or a wolf, an&rsquo; he&rsquo;s ready to
+follow it through forest an&rsquo; swamp till he downs it or drops. But ask him
+to chase a panther, an&rsquo; he&rsquo;ll shake his head an&rsquo; say,
+&lsquo;He all one big debil!&rsquo; He calls the beast, in his own lingo,
+&lsquo;lunk soos,&rsquo; which means &rsquo;Injun devil;&rsquo; an&rsquo; so we
+woodsmen call it too.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was at this moment that Lin put his head in at the cabin-door, and announced
+that &ldquo;the wagon an&rsquo; hosses war a&rsquo; ready.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wal, boys, I swan! it&rsquo;s many a long year since a panther was seen
+in these forests, so ye needn&rsquo;t feel skeery about meetin&rsquo;
+one,&rdquo; said the old settler, as he stood outside his log home, and watched
+his guests start. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll &rsquo;low ye won&rsquo;t find
+travellin&rsquo; too easy &rsquo;long the ole corduroy road. Come again!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was much waving of hats as the wagon, a roomy, four-wheeled vehicle,
+moved off, with a creaking in its joints as if it were squealing a protest
+against its load, which consisted of the five lads, together with knapsacks,
+guns, tents, and the camp duffle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Forward, all!&rdquo; shouted Dr. Phil, who had been chosen to act as
+captain of the two companies during the few days while they journeyed together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lin, who was charioteer, cracked a long whip above his horses. The boys
+cheered, while Doc, Cyrus, and the two guides fell behind, choosing to follow
+the wagon on foot for the first few miles of the journey.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where did you buy that, Lin?&rdquo; asked Neal, climbing over to a perch
+beside the driver, and pointing to a heavy Colt&rsquo;s revolver which the
+young settler was buckling round his waist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t buy it. I traded a calf for it at Greenville more&rsquo;n a
+year ago,&rdquo; was the reply. &ldquo;Fust-rate gun it is, too, I vum!
+I&rsquo;ve stood at our cabin-door, and killed many a buck with it. On&rsquo;y
+&rsquo;tain&rsquo;t much good for tackling a bear. Wish&rsquo;t the bears ud
+get as scarce as the panthers! Then we&rsquo;d be rid o&rsquo; two master
+pests. Hello! Don&rsquo;t y&rsquo;u git to tumbling out jist yet! That&rsquo;s
+on&rsquo;y a circumstance to the jolts there&rsquo;ll be when we strike a bit
+o&rsquo; corduroy road.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lin Hathaway grabbed young Farrar by the elbow while he spoke, and held him
+steady with the horny hand which had swung the axe against the doomed
+pine-tree. For Neal had shown a sudden inclination to pitch headlong out of the
+wagon, as its right wheels were hoisted a foot or more above the left ones by
+rolling over a mossy bump in the ground.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the first five miles the forest road had been simply constructed thus:
+First, the bushy undergrowth had been cut away and thrown to one side, the
+space cleared being about eight feet wide; then all trees growing in the range
+of this track had been sawn off close to the ground, and windfalls which barred
+the way were removed. It was a rude highway, with plenty of deformities, such
+as ends of rotting stumps, twisted roots, ridges and bumps which had never been
+levelled; yet it was beautiful beyond any smooth, well-graded road which the
+travellers had ever seen. As it wound along in graceful curves through the
+woods, it was shaded now by an emerald arch of evergreens, now by a royal
+crimson canopy of maple branches, while patches of buff, orange, and dull red
+commingled where other trees interlaced with these to whisper woodland secrets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the boys soon understood what Doc meant when he spoke of their having
+&ldquo;a bracing ride in more senses than one;&rdquo; for the motion of the
+wagon was a giddy series of jolts and bounces, with just sufficient interval
+between each shock for them to brace themselves, with stiffened backbones, for
+the next upheaval. They had already begun, as Royal said, &ldquo;to have kinks
+in all their limbs,&rdquo; when Lin suddenly announced,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yon&rsquo;s a bit o&rsquo; corduroy road, I declar&rsquo;!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He pointed with his whip ahead, and the travellers shot out their necks to see
+this novel highway. It extended for about a quarter of a mile over a swamp, and
+spoke volumes for the energy and ingenuity of the hardy lumbermen who
+constructed it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These brawny heroes, who are fine types of American grit and manhood, when
+clearing a broad track over which their great timber logs could be hauled from
+the depths of the forest to the landing on some big river, had found the swampy
+tracts an impassable obstacle for animals trammelled with harness and a heavy
+load.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They bridged them by laying down logs cut to even lengths in a slightly
+slanting position across the way for the entire extent of miry ground. Each
+piece of timber was tightly wedged in by its fellow; nevertheless, there was a
+space of several inches between their rounded tops. Hence the track presented a
+striped appearance, which suggested to some spirited genius among woodsmen its
+name of &ldquo;corduroy road.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, Neal, do you think you can tell your folks a thing or two about
+forest travelling when you get back to England?&rdquo; asked Doc, when the
+order of march was changed, young Farrar and the Sinclairs turning out to do
+their share of tramping, while the doctor, Cyrus, and the guides benefited by
+&ldquo;a lift.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I rather think I can,&rdquo; answered Neal; &ldquo;but goodness! I feel
+as if there were aches and bruises all over me. Once or twice my head seemed
+jumping straight off my shoulders. No more going in a wagon over corduroy roads
+for me! I&rsquo;d rather be leg-weary any day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The travellers halted that evening about five o&rsquo;clock on the banks of a
+lonely stream. The guides pitched the two tents&mdash;Joe had provided one for
+his party&mdash;facing each other on a patch of clearing, with a space of about
+fifteen feet between them, in the centre of which blazed a roaring camp-fire.
+Now all the axes and knifes among the band were in demand for cutting and
+sharpening stakes and ridge-poles on which to stretch their canvas.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Moreover, no evergreen boughs could be procured for beds; and the boys had to
+work with a will, helping Uncle Eb and Joe to cut bundles of the long, rank
+grass that grew by the water to form a bed for their tired bodies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Every one was camp-hungry, as they had not halted for a meal since leaving the
+settlement. After a splendid supper of venison, broiled over sizzling logs,
+bread, and fried potatoes,&mdash;for they had added to their stores at the
+farm,&mdash;they had a glorious social hour by the camp-fire. Joe got off any
+amount of &ldquo;ripping&rdquo; stories; and the sound of many a jolly chorus,
+led by Cyrus, and swelled by the musical efforts of the entire crew, mingled
+with the lonely rustle of the night wind among faded and drifting leaves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Doc&rsquo;s summons came to turn in, they stretched themselves upon the
+grassy beds, not undressing, as the night was chilly and the temporary quarters
+were not so snug as their previous ones. Still in their warm jerseys, trousers,
+woollen stockings, and knitted caps, with the heat from the piled-up camp-fire
+streaming under the raised flaps of the tents, they slept as cosily as if they
+lay on spring mattresses, surrounded by pictured walls.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig11.jpg" width="400" height="166" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap11"></a>Chapter XI.<br/>Beaver Works</h2>
+
+<p>
+About noon on the following day they were obliged to bid farewell to Lin
+Hathaway, his wagon and horses, as the logging-road went no farther. The young
+settler turned homeward rather regretfully. It might be many months again
+before he got a chance of talking to anybody beyond his father and mother, and
+the boys had brought a dash of outside life into his woodland solitude.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The travellers proceeded on foot through a dense forest, which, luckily for
+Dol, had little undergrowth and mostly a soft carpet of moss or dry pine
+needles. Still they had plenty of climbing over windfalls, with many rough
+pokes and jibes from forward boughs and rotten limbs, to rob the way of
+sameness. Through this labyrinth they were safely piloted by Uncle Eb and Joe,
+the latter with his compass in his hand, and the former simply studying the
+&ldquo;Indian&rsquo;s compass,&rdquo; which is observing how the moss grows
+upon the tree-trunks, there being always a greater quantity on the side which
+faces north.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before nightfall they reached another log cabin, tenanted by a man who had just
+settled down for the purpose of clearing up a farm. Here they were lodged for
+the night, without trouble of making camp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The third day of their journey was marked by two sensations. They halted for a
+short rest at a point where there was an extensive break in the forest.
+Scarcely had they emerged from the gloom of a dense growth of cedars, when Dol
+exclaimed.&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good gracious! That looks as if people had been building a jolly high
+railroad out here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the right rose a bare, steep ridge of sand and gravel, nearly ninety feet in
+height, and closely resembling a railway embankment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, boy,&rdquo; laughed Dr. Phil, &ldquo;if that&rsquo;s a railroad,
+Nature built it, and by a mighty curious process too. The sand, rocks, and
+
+gravel of which it is mostly formed must have been swept here by a great rush
+of waters that once prevailed over this land. We call the ridge a
+&lsquo;Horseback.&rsquo; If you like, we&rsquo;ll climb to the top of it, after
+we&rsquo;ve had our snack [lunch], and you can get a peep at the surrounding
+country.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So they did. The top was level, and wide enough for two carriages to drive
+abreast; and the view from it was one which could never be forgotten. Around
+them were millions of acres of forest land, beautiful with the contrasts of
+October; here dipping into a cedar valley, in the midst of which they saw the
+silver smile of a woodland lake, there rising into a hill crowned with towering
+pines, some of them over a hundred feet in height.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But, most thrilling sight of all, they beheld, only half a dozen miles away,
+rising in sublime grandeur against the sky, the mountain of mountains in
+Maine,&mdash;great Katahdin. They had caught glimpses of its curved line of
+peaks before. Now they saw its forests, and the rugged slides where avalanches
+of bowlders and earth from the top had ploughed heavily downward, sweeping away
+all growth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cyrus lifted his hat, and waved it at the distant mass.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hurrah!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s the home of storms!
+There&rsquo;s old Katahdin! The Indians named it Ktaadn &lsquo;the biggest
+mountain.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Want to hear the Indian legend about it, lads?&rdquo; asked Dr. Phil.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A general chirp of assent was his reply, and the doctor began:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, when the redskins owned these forests, they believed that the
+summit of Katahdin was the home of their evil spirit, or, as they call him,
+&lsquo;The Big Devil.&rsquo; He was named Pamolah. And he was a mighty
+unpleasant sort of neighbor. Once, so tradition says, he ran away with a
+beautiful Indian maiden, and carried her up to his lonely lair among those
+peaks. When her tribe tried to rescue her, he let loose great storms upon them,
+his artillery being thunder, lightning, hail, and rain, before which they were
+forced to flee helter-skelter. An old red chief long ago told me the story, and
+added gravely that &lsquo;it was sartin true, for han&rsquo;some squaw always
+catch &rsquo;em debil.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The foundation of the legend lies in the fact that there really is a
+very curious granite basin among Katahdin&rsquo;s peaks, and it is the
+birthplace of most storms which sweep over our State. I myself have seen clouds
+forming in it, when I made an ascent of the mountain in my younger days, and
+whirling out in all directions. The roar of its winds may sometimes be heard
+miles away. There are several ponds in the basin; one of them, a tiny, clear
+lake, without any visible outlet, is Pamolah&rsquo;s fishing-ground.
+That&rsquo;s the yarn about the mountain as I heard it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus04"></a>
+<img src="images/illus04.jpg" width="600" height="441" alt="Illustration: " />
+<p class="caption"><b>In The Shadow Of The Katahdin.</b><br/></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ain&rsquo;t it a&rsquo;most time for us to be gittin&rsquo; down from
+this Horseback, Doc?&rdquo; asked Joe, who had been listening with the others.
+&ldquo;I thought we&rsquo;d reach the farm you&rsquo;re heading for to-night,
+but we&rsquo;re half a dozen miles off it yet; and we can&rsquo;t do
+more&rsquo;n another mile or two afore it&rsquo;ll be time to halt and make
+camp. There&rsquo;s some pretty bad travelling and a plaguy bit of swamp
+ahead.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I guess you&rsquo;re about right, Joe,&rdquo; said Doc, rising with
+alacrity from the stone where he had seated himself while telling his yarn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Joe&rsquo;s bad travelling meant a great deal of tripping and floundering
+through soft mud and mire, with slippery moss-stones sandwiched in, and dwarfed
+bushes which ran along the ground, and twisted themselves in an almost
+impassable tangle. These had a knack of catching a fellow&rsquo;s feet, and
+causing him to sprawl forward on his face and hands, whereupon his knapsack
+would hit him an astounding thwack on the back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After three-quarters of an hour of this fun, very muddy, clammy with
+perspiration, and thoroughly winded, the party reached firmer ground, and the
+guides called a halt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Guess we&rsquo;d better rest a bit,&rdquo; said Joe, &ldquo;afore we go
+farther. There&rsquo;s nothing in forest travelling that&rsquo;ll take the
+breath out of a man like crossing a swamp,&rdquo; eying compassionately the
+city folk; for he himself was as &ldquo;fit&rdquo; as when he started.
+&ldquo;Then we&rsquo;d better follow that stream till we strike a good place
+for a camping-ground. What say, Doc?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dr. Phil, as captain, signified his assent. After a short breathing-spell he
+again gave the command, &ldquo;Forward!&rdquo; And his company pushed on into
+the woods, following the course of a dark stream which had gurgled through the
+swamp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There used to be an old beaver-dam somewheres about here,&rdquo; broke
+forth Joe presently, when they had made about a quarter of a mile, the younger
+guide taking the lead, for he was evidently more at home in this part of the
+forest land than his senior, Uncle Eb. &ldquo;Hullo, now! there it is. Look,
+gentlemen!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He pointed to a curved bank of brushwood, mostly alder branches, piled together
+in curious topsyturvy fashion, which formed a dam across the stream. It
+bristled with sticks, poking out and up in every direction; for the bushy ends
+of the boughs had been heavily plastered with mud and stones, to keep them
+down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That a beaver-dam!&rdquo; gasped Neal in amazement. &ldquo;Why, I always
+had an idea that beavers were half human in intelligence, and wove their
+branches in and out in a sort of neat basketwork when making dams. That&rsquo;s
+a funny rough-and-tumble looking old pile.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a good water-tight dam, for all that,&rdquo; answered Cyrus.
+&ldquo;And don&rsquo;t you begin to underrate Mr. Beaver&rsquo;s intelligence
+until you see more of his works. I&rsquo;ve torn the bottom out of a dam like
+this on a cold, rainy night,&mdash;beavers like rainy nights for
+work,&mdash;and then hidden myself in some bushes to watch the result. It was a
+trial of strength and patience, I assure you, to remain there for six mortal
+hours,&mdash;though I had rubber overalls on,&mdash;with wet twigs and leaves
+slapping my face. But the sight I saw was more wonderful than anything I could
+have imagined. There was a cloudy, watery moon; and shortly after it rose, five
+beavers appeared upon the dam, scrambling up and down, and examining the great
+hole through which the water was fast leaking out of their pond. Then,
+following a big fellow, who was evidently the boss beaver, they swam to the
+bank. He stationed himself near a tree about twenty inches in circumference,
+and his four boys at once started to fell it. I tell you they worked like
+hustlers, each one sawing on it in turn with his sharp teeth, and sometimes two
+of them together on different parts of the trunk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At last the tree&mdash;it was an ash&mdash;fell, toppling into the water
+just where the beavers wanted it. They pushed and tugged it down-stream for
+about ten yards, to the dam, and propped it against the opening which I had
+made. I couldn&rsquo;t see the rest of the operations clearly; but I caught
+glimpses of them, marching about on their hind-legs, carrying mud snug up to
+their chins like this,&rdquo; here Cyrus folded his arms across his chest.
+&ldquo;And before daybreak that dam was perfectly repaired, with never a leak
+in it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You know they build the dams in very shallow water, only a few inches
+deep; and they generally roll in a couple of long logs for a solid foundation.
+It was one of these which I had torn out. Now, Neal, what do you say about the
+beaver&rsquo;s intelligence?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I didn&rsquo;t know you, Cyrus, I&rsquo;d say you were making up as
+you went along,&rdquo; answered Neal. &ldquo;It seems one of those things which
+a fellow can scarcely believe in. Hulloa! What&rsquo;s that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A loud report, like the bang of a gun, made all the boys, who had been standing
+very quietly, gazing at the dam, suddenly jump.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s only a beaver striking the water with his tail,&rdquo;
+laughed Cyrus. &ldquo;He has been swimming about somewhere up-stream, and has
+scented us, and dived. I have heard one do that a dozen times in the night, if
+he detected the presence of man; but it&rsquo;s very unusual in the daytime,
+for they rarely venture out in broad light. In diving, if suddenly alarmed,
+they strike the surface of the water a tremendous whack with their tails, as a
+signal of alarm, making this report, which in still weather resounds for a
+great distance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m very glad you heard it, boys; for your chances of seeing the
+master beaver or any of his colony are mighty slim. But we&rsquo;ll probably
+come on their lodge a little higher up.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Above the shallow water where the dam was built, the stream widened into a
+broad, deep pool. About fifty yards ahead, in the centre of this, was a tiny
+island. On its extreme edge Joe pointed out the beaver lodge. It was shaped
+something like a huge beehive, being about a dozen feet in diameter and five
+feet high. The outside seemed to be entirely covered with mud and fibrous
+roots, through which the sticks which formed its framework poked out here and
+there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The doors are all underwater,&rdquo; said Cyrus, &ldquo;and so far down
+that they&rsquo;ll be beneath the ice when the stream freezes in winter.
+Otherwise the beavers could not reach their pile of food-wood, which they keep
+at the bottom, and would starve to death. They are clerks of the weather, if
+you like. They seem to know when the first hard frost is coming, and sink their
+stores a day or two before. Man has not yet discovered their mysterious knack
+of sinking wood, and keeping it stationary through many months.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They feed on the inner bark of poplar, white birch, and willow trees. In
+autumn they fell these along the banks, generally so that they will fall into
+the water, tug and push them down-stream, and float them near to their lodges.
+If the trees are too big to be easily handled, they saw them into convenient
+lengths.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I call it tough luck, not being able to get a sight of the animals,
+after seeing so much of their works,&rdquo; grumbled Royal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ye might wait here till midnight, and not have any better,&rdquo; said
+Joe. &ldquo;That fellow&rsquo;s tail was like a fire-alarm to them. They
+ain&rsquo;t to home now, you bet! They&rsquo;ve dusted out of their house as if
+it was on fire; and they&rsquo;ve either dived to the bottom, or hidden
+themselves in holes along the bank. Guess we&rsquo;d better be moving on.
+It&rsquo;s a&rsquo;most time to think about making camp.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The beavers have been working here!&rdquo; exclaimed the guide a few
+minutes later, as he strode ahead. &ldquo;These white birches were felled by
+&rsquo;em; and a dandy job they did too.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He pointed to two slim birches which lay prone with their tops in the water,
+and to a third, the trunk of which was partly sawn through in more than one
+place. The ground was strewn with little clippings of timber, bearing the
+saw-marks of the beavers&rsquo; teeth. The boys gathered them up as
+curiosities.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, the skilful little animals can beat this work by long odds!&rdquo;
+exclaimed Doc. &ldquo;These trunks only measure from eight to twelve inches in
+circumference. I&rsquo;ve seen a tree fully two feet round which was felled by
+them. Say, Joe! don&rsquo;t you think we&rsquo;d better camp to-night somewhere
+on the <i>brûlée?</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just what I&rsquo;m planning, Doc,&rdquo; answered Joe. &ldquo;We must
+be pretty near it now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A few minutes afterwards the party filed out of the dense woods, passed through
+a grove of young spruces, forded a brook which emptied itself into the stream
+they were following, and came upon a scene blasted, barren, and unutterably
+dreary.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The band of boys, who, in spite of swamps and jungles, had learned to love the
+forest dearly, for its many beauties, and for the wild offspring with which it
+teemed, sorrowfully gasped, as if they saw the skeleton of a friend.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig12.jpg" width="400" height="165" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap12"></a>Chapter XII.<br/>&ldquo;Go It, Old Bruin!&rdquo;</h2>
+
+<p>
+Before them lay a ruined tract of country, extending northward farther than eye
+could reach. It is called by Maine woodsmen a <i>brûlée</i>, name borrowed from
+their French-Canadian neighbors, who dwell across the boundary line which
+separates the Dominion from the United States.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The word signifies &ldquo;burnt tract;&rdquo; but it gives a feeble idea of the
+fire-smitten, blackened region on which the lads looked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The forest until now had been a wilderness truly, but a wilderness where every
+kind and size of growth, from the giant pine to the creeping wintergreen and
+shaded mosses, mingled in beautiful confusion. Here it became a desert. For the
+terrible forest fires, the woodsman&rsquo;s tragic enemy, had swept over it not
+long before, devastating an area of many square miles. Millions of dollars
+worth of valuable timber had been reduced to rotting embers. Storm-defying
+pines had crashed to the earth, and were overridden by the flames in their wild
+rush onward. Sometimes only a smutty stump showed where they had stood;
+sometimes, robbed of life and every limb, portions of the fire-eaten trunks
+still remained erect,&mdash;bare, blackened poles. All smaller growth, and even
+the surface of the ground, parched by summer heats, had burned like tinder.
+Rocks and stones were baked and crumbling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Boys, that&rsquo;s the most mournful sight a woodsman can see,&rdquo;
+said Doc, looking away over the wrecked region, touched with golden lights from
+an October sunset. &ldquo;It makes one who loves the woods feel as if he had
+lost a living friend.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, &rsquo;tain&rsquo;t no manner o&rsquo; use to fret over it,&rdquo;
+declared Joe energetically. &ldquo;Nature don&rsquo;t waste time in fretting,
+you bet! She starts in and tries to cover the stripped ground, as if she was
+sort of ashamed to have it seen.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The guide pointed earthward. At his feet a dwarfed growth of blueberry bushes
+and tiny trees was already springing up to screen the unsightly, ash-strewn
+land.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;True enough, Joe! Nature is a grand one for remedies,&rdquo; answered
+the doctor. &ldquo;Still, it will be half a century or more before she can
+raise a timber growth here again. Hulloa! Dol, what are you fellows up
+to?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While his elders were studying the <i>brûlée</i>, Dol, who objected to dreary
+sights, had marched down to the brink of the stream, accompanied by
+Royal&rsquo;s young brothers, Will and Martin Sinclair. The little river
+gurgled and frisked along beside the burnt tract, like a line of life bordering
+death. It seemed to the boys to prattle about its victory over the flames when
+it stopped their sweeping course, so that the woods on its opposite bank were
+uninjured, as were those beyond the brook in the rear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;re studying the ways of the great sea-serpent!&rdquo; shouted
+back Dol, who was splashing about in a sedgy pool.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By and by when the guides had finished their work of making camp, when they had
+pitched the tents, cut boughs for beds and fuel in the spruce grove behind, and
+were cooking an odorous supper, the three juveniles came slowly towards the
+camp-fire from the water.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What on earth have you got there, young one?&rdquo; asked Dr. Phil; for
+Adolphus Farrar was bareheaded, and carried his hat very gingerly, with its
+corners clutched together to form a bag.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The big sea-serpent himself,&rdquo; answered Dol mysteriously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of a sudden he opened his dripping hat, and spilled out a small water-snake,
+about ten inches long, upon the doctor&rsquo;s lap.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a great roar of laughter, in which Dol&rsquo;s abettors, Will and
+Martin, joined with cheerful shouts. The little joke had the effect of winning
+everybody&rsquo;s thoughts from roaring flames, wrecked forests, and the dreary
+<i>brûlée</i>. Uncle Eb killed the snake, maintaining that water-snakes were
+&ldquo;plaguy p&rsquo;isonous,&rdquo; while Cyrus scouted the idea. The supper
+that evening was a merry enough meal. The camp, lit by the ruddy glow from its
+great fire, looked an oasis of light, warmth, and jollity in the black and
+burnt desert.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The darky, hearing Cyrus declare that he was fearfully hungry, mixed some
+flapjacks to form a second course, after the venison steaks and potatoes. He
+had exhausted his stock of maple sugar, but he produced a small wooden keg of
+the apparently inexhaustible molasses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He! he! he! Dat jest touches de spot, don&rsquo;t it?&rdquo; he
+chuckled, when, having carefully served each member of the party, he seated
+himself about three feet from the camp-fire, with a round dozen of the thin
+cakes for his own eating.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He coated them with the thick molasses, and set the keg down side by side with
+a bag of potatoes which had been brought from the settlement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There these provisions remained when, earlier than usual, the party turned in,
+and stretched their tired limbs to rest, lying down, as they had done before
+when sleeping under canvas, with all their garments on save coats and
+moccasins. Whether Uncle Eb forgot his &ldquo;m&rsquo;lasses,&rdquo; or whether
+he purposely left it without, there not being a spare inch of room in the small
+tents, no one then or afterwards inquired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As a result of the jolly intimacy that had sprung up between the two companies
+during the few days when they had all things in common, the boys disposed of
+themselves for the night as they pleased. Neal turned in with the doctor,
+Royal, and Joe, the four stretching themselves on the evergreen boughs, with
+their feet to the opening of the tent, and their rifles and ammunition within
+reach. Of course the Winchesters were empty, it being a strict rule that
+firearms should not be brought into camp loaded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The younger Sinclairs, with Cyrus, Dol, and Uncle Eb, occupied the other tent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It seemed to Neal that he had hardly slept one hour,&mdash;probably it was
+nearer to three,&mdash;during which time he had been dreaming with vague
+foreshadowings of the final and crowning sport of the trip, the grand
+moose-stalking, and of Herb Heal, the mighty hunter, when he was awakened by a
+shrill scream just outside the canvas. He started, with his heart going
+whackety-whack. The cry was sudden and intensely startling, appearing twice as
+loud as it really was when it broke the pathetic stillness of the
+<i>brûlée</i>, where not a tree rustled or twig snapped, and the night wind
+only sighed faintly and fitfully through the newly springing growth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again sounded that startling screech; and yet again, making a dreary, piercing
+din.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By all that&rsquo;s funny! it&rsquo;s another coon,&rdquo; gasped Neal;
+and he gently pinched the shoulder of Joe, who lay on his left.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Joe!&rdquo; he whispered. &ldquo;Wake up! There&rsquo;s a raccoon just
+outside the tent. I heard his cry.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The guide was awake and alert in an instant. So, too, was Dr. Phil.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s up, boys?&rdquo; asked the latter, hearing a murmur.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a coon close by,&rdquo; said Neal again. &ldquo;Listen to
+him!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Even while he spoke, young Farrar caught sight of two feathered things hopping
+along the avenue of light which lay between him and the camp-fire, the red
+flare of the flames mingling with the white radiance of a cloudless moon. At
+the same time the screech sounded and resounded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Coon!&rdquo; exclaimed Joe derisively. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s no coon.
+It&rsquo;s only a little owl. Bless ye! I&rsquo;ve had five or six of &rsquo;em
+come right into this tent of a night, and ding away at me till I had to talk to
+&rsquo;em with the rifle to scare &rsquo;em off. I&rsquo;ll give &rsquo;em a
+dose o&rsquo; lead now if they don&rsquo;t scoot mighty quick; that&rsquo;ll
+stop their song an&rsquo; dance.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Their cry is pretty much like a raccoon&rsquo;s, Neal,&rdquo; said Doc.
+&ldquo;Only it&rsquo;s a great deal weaker. Lie down, boy. Go to sleep, and
+don&rsquo;t mind them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The owls perhaps apprehended danger. At all events, they were silent for a
+while; and in three minutes each occupant of the tent was fast asleep again,
+with the exception of Neal. The sharp awakening had upset his nerves a bit. He
+obeyed the doctor, and hugged his blankets round him, hoping sleep would
+return; but he lay with eyes narrowed into two slits, peeping at the ruddy
+camp-fire, involuntarily listening for the screeching of the birds, and wishing
+that he had not been such a greenhorn as to disturb his comrades for nothing.
+Royal, who lay on his right, was of a less excitable temperament. Although he
+had been awakened, he was now snoring lustily, insomnia being a rare affliction
+in camps.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+About half an hour had passed when Neal Farrar suddenly and sharply rapped out
+these words close to Joe&rsquo;s ear. He felt certain that he would not now
+bring upon him the woodsman&rsquo;s good-natured scorn for making a disturbance
+about nothing. A heavy, stealthy tread, as of some big animal, was crushing the
+pygmy bushes near the tent. Immediately afterwards he saw an uncouth black
+shape in the lane of light between himself and the fire. It disappeared while
+his heart was giving one jump, and he heard a dull, mumbling noise, such as a
+pig might make when rooting amid rubbish, varied with an occasional low growl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Joe was already awake. His hunter&rsquo;s instinct told him that something
+truly exciting was on now.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My cracky! I b&rsquo;lieve it&rsquo;s a bear!&rdquo; he muttered,
+forming his words away down in his throat, so that Neal only caught the last
+one. &ldquo;Keep still as death!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The guide reached out a long arm, and clutched his rifle. Hurriedly he jammed
+half a dozen cartridges into its magazine. Then lightly and silently, as if he
+was made of cork, he got upon his feet, and bounded out of the tent, Neal
+copying his actions nimbly and noiselessly as he could; though, in his
+excitement, he only succeeded in getting two cartridges into his Winchester.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Royal&rsquo;s snoring ceased. Doc&rsquo;s eager question, &ldquo;What&rsquo;s
+up now, boys?&rdquo; reached the two just as they quitted shelter, and passed
+into the broad moonlight, crossed with red gleams from their fire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A bear!&rdquo; yelled Joe in answer, his rifle and he breaking silence
+together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Three times the Winchester sharply cracked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then with a mad &ldquo;Halloo!&rdquo; the guide seized a flaming stick from the
+fire, and, swinging it above his head, started after the big black animal of
+which Neal had caught a glimpse before. He now saw it plainly as, already fifty
+yards ahead, it made off at a plunging gallop across the moonlit <i>brûlée</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Young Farrar had been the champion runner of his school, and he blessed his
+trained legs for giving him a prominent part in the wild chase that followed.
+Still imitating the woodsman, he pulled another half-lighted stick from the
+camp-fire, and waved it in a frenzy of excitement, while he ran like a buck at
+Joe&rsquo;s side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tumble out! Tumble out, boys! A bear! A bear!&rdquo; now rang from one
+tent to another.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In two minutes every camper, in his stocking feet, just as he had risen from
+his bed, was tearing across the <i>brûlée</i> in the wake of Bruin, yelling,
+leaping, and swinging smouldering firebrands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a scene and a chase such as the boys, in their most far-fetched dreams,
+had never pictured,&mdash;the white moonlight glimmering on the black stumps
+and tottering trunks of the ruined tract, the hunted bear plunging off among
+them, frightened by the shouting and the lights, the heavy, lumbering gallop
+enabling it at first to distance its pursuers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Owing to their fleetness and the odds they had at the start, the guide and Neal
+kept far ahead of their comrades. The noise which Bruin made as he lumbered
+over the pygmy growth, and the charred, rotting timber that littered the ground
+beneath it, were quiet enough to guide Joe unerringly in the bear&rsquo;s wake,
+even when that bulky shape was not distinguishable.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s this?&rdquo; screeched the woodsman suddenly, as he
+stumbled upon something at his feet. &ldquo;By gracious! it&rsquo;s our keg of
+m&rsquo;lasses. He made off with that, and has dropped it out o&rsquo; sheer
+fright, or because he&rsquo;s weakening. I know I hit him twice when I fired;
+but he&rsquo;s not hurt too badly to run, or to fight like a fiend if we come
+to close quarters. Like as not &rsquo;twill be a narrow squeak with us if we
+tackle him. If you&rsquo;re scared a little bit, Neal, let up, an&rsquo;
+I&rsquo;ll finish him alone.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Scared!&rdquo; Neal flung the word back with scorn, as if he was
+returning a blow. For the life of him he could not bring out another syllable,
+going at a faster rate than ever he had done in the most stubbornly contested
+handicap. The strong-winded guide rapped out his sentences as he ran,
+apparently without waste of breath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The feverish enthusiasm of the hunter, which he had never felt before, was now
+alive in Neal. His blood raced through his veins like liquid fire. He had been
+long enough in Maine to know that in wreaking vengeance on Bruin for many
+misdeeds he would be acting in the interests of justice. For the black bear is
+still such a master pest to the settlers who are trying to establish their
+farms amid the forests where it roams, that the State has outlawed the beast,
+and pays a bounty for its skin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Joe thought little about this; for a gentleman whom he had guided early in the
+summer had lately written to him, offering a price of fifteen dollars for a
+good bearskin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here was the woodsman&rsquo;s golden opportunity&mdash;an opportunity for which
+he had been thirsting since the receipt of that letter.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus05"></a>
+<img src="images/illus05.jpg" width="372" height="600" alt="Illustration: " />
+<p class="caption"><b>&ldquo;Go It, Old Bruin! Go It While You Can!&rdquo;</b><br/></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+He already regarded his triumph over the bear as secure, and its hide as
+forfeited. He nearly caused Neal Farrar to burst a blood-vessel from the
+combined effects of struggling laughter and running, when he began to
+apostrophize the flying foe with grim humor, thus:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go it, old Bruin! Go it while ye can! There ain&rsquo;t a hair on yer
+back that b&rsquo;longs to ye!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But it soon became evident that the bear couldn&rsquo;t go on much longer at
+this breakneck pace. Its pursuers heard its steps with increasing distinctness,
+and then its labored breathing. They were gaining on it fast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The brute came into full view about forty yards ahead, as it ascended a slight
+elevation, crowned with blasted tree trunks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll draw bead on him from here,&rdquo; said Joe, stopping short.
+&ldquo;Get ready to fire, lad, if he turns. It&rsquo;ll take lots o&rsquo; lead
+to finish that fellow.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Twice Joe&rsquo;s rifle spoke again. One shot took effect. There was a fearful
+growl from the beast, but it was not yet mortally wounded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Maddened and desperate, it wheeled about, and came straight for its pursuers.
+Again the guide fired. Still the bear advanced, gnashing its teeth and mumbling
+horribly; Neal saw its black shape not thirty yards from him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shoot! shoot, boy!&rdquo; screamed Joe. &ldquo;Or give me your rifle. I
+haven&rsquo;t got a charge left!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For half a minute Farrar shook all over as with ague. His nostrils felt choked.
+His mouth was wide open in his efforts to breathe. His heart pounded like a
+sledge-hammer. With that mumbling brute advancing upon him, he felt as if he
+couldn&rsquo;t fire so as to hit a haystack or a flock of hens at a barn-door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then, suddenly, he was cool again, seeing and hearing with extraordinary
+clearness. The ignominious alternative of giving his rifle to Joe produced a
+revulsion. His fingers were on the trigger, his left hand firmly gripped the
+barrel of his Winchester; he brought it to his shoulder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Aim low! Try to hit him in the front of the neck where it joins the
+body,&rdquo; said Joe, in tones sharp as a razor, which cut his meaning into
+Neal&rsquo;s brain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bruin was only fifteen yards away when Farrar&rsquo;s rifle cracked
+once&mdash;twice&mdash;sending out its messengers of death.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a last terrible growl, a plunge, and a thud which seemed to shake the
+ground under Neal&rsquo;s feet. As the smoke of his shots cleared away, Joe
+beheld him leaning on his
+
+rifle, with a face which in the moonlight looked white as chalk, and the bear
+lying where it had fallen headlong towards him. It made a desperate struggle to
+regain its feet, then rolled on its side, dead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One bullet had pierced the spot which Joe mentioned, and had passed through the
+region of the heart.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig13.jpg" width="400" height="167" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap13"></a>Chapter XIII.<br/>&ldquo;The Skin Is Yours.&rdquo;</h2>
+
+<p>
+A regular war-dance was performed about the slain marauder by the young
+Sinclairs and Dol Farrar, when these laggards in the chase reached the spot
+where he fell. The firebrands had all died out before the enemy turned; but in
+the white moon-radiance the bear was seen to be a big one, with an uncommonly
+fine skin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Neal took no part in the triumphal capers. He still leaned upon his rifle, his
+breath coming in gusty puffs through his nostrils and mouth. Not alone the
+desperate sensations of those moments when he had faced the gnashing, mumbling
+brute, but the unexpected success of his first shot at big game, had unhinged
+him. By his endurance in the chase, by the pluck with which he stood up to the
+bear, above all, by his being able, as Joe phrased it, to &ldquo;take a sure
+pull on the beast at a paralyzing moment,&rdquo; he had eternally justified his
+right to the title of sportsman in the eyes of the natives. The guides, Joe and
+Eb, were not slow in telling him that he had behaved from start to finish like
+no &ldquo;greenhorn,&rdquo; but a regular &ldquo;old sport.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My cracky! &rsquo;twas lucky for me that you had game blood in you,
+which showed up,&rdquo; exclaimed Joe, catching the boy&rsquo;s arm in a
+friendly grip, with an odd respect in his touch, which marked the admission of
+young Farrar into the brotherhood of hunters. &ldquo;I hadn&rsquo;t a charge
+left, an&rsquo; not even my hunting-knife. Lots o&rsquo; city swells
+&rsquo;u&rsquo;d have been plumb scared before a growler like
+that,&rdquo;&mdash;touching Bruin&rsquo;s carcass with his
+foot,&mdash;&ldquo;even if they had a small arsenal to back &rsquo;em up.
+They&rsquo;d have dropped rifle and cartridges, and hugged the nearest trunk.
+I&rsquo;ve seen fellers do it scores o&rsquo; times, bless ye! after they came
+out here rigged up in sporting-book style, talking fire about hunting bears and
+moose. But that was all the fire there was to &rsquo;em.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet Neal&rsquo;s triumph over the poor brute, which had raced well for its
+life, was not without a faint twinge of pain; and he was too manly to look on
+this as a weakness. A sportsman he might be, of the sort who can shoot straight
+when necessity demands it, but never of that class who prowl through the
+forests with fingers tingling to pull the trigger, dreading to lose a chance of
+&ldquo;letting blood&rdquo; from any slim-legged moose or velvet-nosed buck
+which may run their way. It needed Doc&rsquo;s praise to make him feel fully
+satisfied with his deed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was a crack shot, boy,&rdquo; said the doctor proudly. &ldquo;And I
+guess the farmer at the next settlement will feel like giving you a medal for
+it. Old Bruin has only got what he gave to every creature he could
+master.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There being no tree conveniently near to which they could string up the dead
+bear, the guides decided to leave the ugly matter of skinning and dissecting
+him for morning light. The excited party returned to camp, but not to sleep.
+They built up their scattered fire, squatted round it, and discoursed of the
+night&rsquo;s adventure until a clear dawn-gleam brightened the eastern sky.
+Then Uncle Eb and Joe started out again across the <i>brûlée</i>. They
+reappeared before breakfast-time, bringing Bruin&rsquo;s skin and a goodly
+portion of his meat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Joe laid the hide at Neal&rsquo;s feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There, boy,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;the skin is yours. It belongs rightly
+to the man who killed the bear; and I guess the brute wasn&rsquo;t mortally
+hurt at all till your bullet nipped him in the neck.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But what about the fifteen dollars from that New York man, Joe?
+You&rsquo;ll lose it,&rdquo; faltered young Farrar, with a triumphant
+heart-leap at the thought of taking this trophy back to England, but loath to
+profit by the woodsman&rsquo;s generosity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you bother about that; let it go,&rdquo; answered Joe, whose
+business of guiding was profitable enough for him. &ldquo;&rsquo;Tain&rsquo;t
+enough for the skin, anyhow. Nary a finer one has been taken out o&rsquo; Maine
+in the last five years; and mighty lucky you Britishers were to git a chance of
+a bear-hunt at all. Old Bruin must have been powerful hungry to come around our
+camp.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a grand breakfast before the travellers broke camp that morning. The
+guides and Doc&mdash;who had got accustomed to the luxury during visits to
+settlers and lumber-camps&mdash;feasted off bear-steaks. Cyrus and the boys,
+American and English, declined to touch it. The whole appearance of Bruin as he
+lay stretched on the ground the night before made their &ldquo;department of
+the interior&rdquo; revolt against it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When a start was made for the settlement, Joe bundled up the skin, and, as a
+tribute of respect to Neal&rsquo;s &ldquo;game blood,&rdquo; carried it, in
+addition to his heavy pack, for a distance of four miles over the desolate
+<i>brûlée</i> and across a soft, miry bog. On reaching the farm clearing, he
+cut the stem of a tall cedar bush, which he bent into the shape of a hoop,
+binding the ends together with cedar bark. He then pricked holes all around the
+edges of the hide with the sharp point of his hunting-knife, stretched it to
+its full extent, and fastened it to the hoop, which he hung up to a tree near
+the settler&rsquo;s cabin, telling Neal that in a few days it would be dry
+enough to pack away in a bag.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But as it was a cumbersome article to carry while tramping a dozen miles
+farther to the camp on Millinokett Lake, the farmer offered to take charge of
+it for its owner until he passed that way again on his return journey; an offer
+which Neal thankfully accepted. The old backwoodsman was, truth to tell,
+delighted to see hanging up near his cabin door the skin of an enemy who had
+ofttimes plundered him so unmercifully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He made the travellers royally welcome, let them have the roomy kitchen of his
+log shanty to sleep in, with a soft bed of hay. Here he lay with them, while
+his wife and sickly little girl occupied an adjoining space about twelve feet
+square, which had been boarded off. This was all the accommodation the log home
+afforded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The forest child was a puzzle to the lads. To them she looked as if the soul of
+a grandmother had taken possession of a thin, long-limbed body which ought to
+belong to a girl of ten. Her pinched features and over-wise eyes told a tale of
+suffering, and so did her high-pitched, quivering voice, as it made elfishly
+sharp remarks about the boys until they blenched before her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was the little one of whom the doctor had said &ldquo;that she fretted if
+he did not come to see her once in a while.&rdquo; And with Doc she was a
+different being. Her voice softened, her eyes became childlike, and thin
+tinkles of laughter broke from her as she clung to him, and received certain
+presents of medicines and picture-books which he had brought for her in a
+corner of his knapsack.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For two nights the travellers slept in a row on their hay bed; for two
+long-remembered days the five boys roamed the country round the clearing,
+starting deer, catching glimpses of a wildcat, a marten or two, and of another
+coon. Then came, to use Dol&rsquo;s expression, &ldquo;the beastly nuisance of
+saying good-by.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dr. Phil was obliged to return to Greenville; and he declared that now he must
+surely start his nephews homeward, for Royal expected to graduate from the High
+School during the following year, and to let him waste more time from study
+would be questionable kindness. Joe Flint of course would go back with his
+party. And here Cyrus paid Uncle Eb&rsquo;s fees for guiding, and dismissed him
+too.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Only a dozen miles of tolerably easy travelling now separated Garst and his
+English comrades from the camp on Millinokett Lake, where they were to meet the
+redoubtable Herb Heal. The settler, knowing this tract of country as thoroughly
+as he knew his own few fields, offered to lead our trio for the first half of
+their onward march; and as they could follow a plain trail for the remainder of
+the
+
+way, they had no further need of their guide&rsquo;s services. They promised to
+visit Eb at his bark hut on their return journey, to bid him a final farewell,
+and hear one more stave of:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;Ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good-by, you lucky fellows!&rdquo; said Royal Sinclair huskily, as he
+gripped Neal&rsquo;s hand, then Dol&rsquo;s, in a brotherly squeeze when the
+hour of parting came. &ldquo;I wish I was going on with you. We&rsquo;ve had a
+stunning good time together, haven&rsquo;t we? And we&rsquo;ll run across each
+other in these woods some time or other again, I know! You&rsquo;ll never feel
+satisfied to stay in England, where there&rsquo;s nothing to hunt but hares and
+foxes, after chasing bears and moose.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh! we&rsquo;ll come out here again, depend upon it,&rdquo; answered
+Neal. &ldquo;Drop me a line occasionally, won&rsquo;t you, Roy? Here&rsquo;s
+our Manchester address.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will, if you&rsquo;ll do the same.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Agreed. Good-by again, old fellow!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got the slip of birch-bark and the horn safe in my knapsack,
+Doc,&rdquo; Dol was saying meanwhile, feeling his eyes getting leaky as he bade
+farewell to the doctor. &ldquo;I&mdash;I&rsquo;ll keep them as long as I
+live.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Doctor Phil had been as good as his word. He had made Joe rip the slip of white
+bark, with the rude writing on it, off the pine-tree near the swamp, and had
+presented it to Dol ere the boy quitted his camp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, confusion to partings anyhow!&rdquo; broke in Joe.
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t like &rsquo;em a bit. Hope you&rsquo;ll get that bear-skin
+safe to England, Neal. When you show it to your folks at home, tell &rsquo;em
+Joe Flint said he knew one Britisher who would make a woodsman if he got a
+chance. Don&rsquo;t you forgit it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good-by,&rdquo; said the doctor, as he clasped in turn the hands of the
+departing three. &ldquo;Good luck to you, boys! Keep your souls as straight as
+your bodies, and you&rsquo;ll be a trio worth knowing. We&rsquo;ll meet again
+some day; I&rsquo;m sure of it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Martin and Will were chirping farewells, and lamenting that they would have no
+more chances of studying water-snakes in sedgy pools with Dol. Amid cheers and
+waving of hats the campers separated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Forward, Company Three!&rdquo; cried Cyrus encouragingly, stepping
+briskly ahead, his comrades following. &ldquo;Now for a sight of the
+&lsquo;Jabberwock&rsquo; of the forest, the mighty moose. Hurrah for the wild
+woods and all woodsmen!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig14.jpg" width="400" height="164" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap14"></a>Chapter XIV.<br/>A Lucky Hunter</h2>
+
+<p>
+Amid cracking of jokes, and noise which would have disgraced a squad of
+Indians, &ldquo;Company Three,&rdquo; as Cyrus dubbed his reduced band, reached
+the crowning-point of their journey, the log camp on the shore of Millinokett
+Lake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During the first half-dozen miles of the way, though each one manfully did his
+best to be lively, a sense of loss made their fun flat and pointless.
+Royal&rsquo;s tear-away tongue, his brothers&rsquo; racket, Joe&rsquo;s racy
+talk, Uncle Eb&rsquo;s kind, dark face, and more than all, Doc&rsquo;s
+companionship, which was as tonic to the hearts of those who travelled with
+him, were missed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But spirits must be elastic in forest air. When they halted at noon to eat
+their &ldquo;snack&rdquo; on the side of a breezy knoll, with a tiny brook
+purling through a pine grove beneath them, with Katahdin&rsquo;s rugged sides
+and cloud-veiled peaks looming in majesty to the north, the thought of what lay
+behind was inevitably lost in what lay before. Enthusiasm replaced depression.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s no use grizzling because we can&rsquo;t have those fellows
+with us all the time,&rdquo; remarked Neal philosophically. &ldquo;&rsquo;Twas
+a big piece of luck our running against them at all. And I&rsquo;ve a sort of
+feeling that this won&rsquo;t be the end of it; we&rsquo;ll come across them
+again some day or other.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And at all events we&rsquo;ll probably get a sight of Doc at Greenville
+as we go back,&rdquo; said Dol, to whom this was no small comfort.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, needless to say, I&rsquo;d have been glad of their company for the
+rest of the trip. But still, if they had taken a notion to come on with us, it
+would have reduced to nothing our chances of seeing a moose. We&rsquo;re a big
+party already for moose-calling or stalking&mdash;three of us, with
+Herb;&rdquo; this from Cyrus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, fellows, don&rsquo;t you think we&rsquo;d better get a move on
+us?&rdquo; added the leader. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve half a dozen miles to do yet;
+but the trail begins right here, and is clearly blazed all the way to our camp.
+Let&rsquo;s keep a stiff upper lip, and the journey will soon be over.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was very delightful to sit there in the crisp October air, with the brook
+seemingly humming tender legends of the woods, which witless men could not
+translate, with an uncertain breeze playing through the newly fallen
+maple-leaves, now turning them one by one in lazy curiosity, then of a sudden
+making them caper and swirl in a scarlet merry-go-round. Still, the young
+Farrars were not loath to move on. Now that they were nearing the climax of
+their journey, their minds were full of Herb Heal. Their longing to meet this
+lucky hunter grew with each mile which drew them nearer to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They pressed hard after their leader, looking neither right nor left, while he
+carefully followed the trail; and one hour&rsquo;s tramping brought them to the
+shores of Millinokett Lake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here, despite their eagerness to reach their new camp, they were forced to stop
+and admire the great sheet of forest-bound water, smiling back the sky in tints
+of turquoise and pearl, dotted with apparently countless islets, like specks
+upon the face of a mirror.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The irregular shores of the lake were broken by &ldquo;logons,&rdquo; narrow
+little bays curving into the land, shining arms of water, sometimes bordered by
+evergreens, sometimes by graceful poplars and birches. From the opposite bank
+the woods stretched away in undulating waves of ridge and valley to the foot of
+Mount Katahdin, which still showed grandly to the northward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Millinokett Lake,&rdquo; said Cyrus, prolonging the syllables with a
+soft, liquid sound. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s an Indian name, boys; it signifies
+&lsquo;Lake of Islands.&rsquo; Whatever else the red men can boast of, the
+music of their names is unequalled. I don&rsquo;t know exactly how many of
+those islets there are, but I believe Millinokett has over two hundred of them
+anyhow. Our camp is on the western shore. Shall we be moving?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After skirting the water for another mile or two, the travellers reached a
+broad, open tract, bare of timber. At the farther end of this clearing were two
+log cabins, low, but very roomy, situated at a distance of a few hundred yards
+from the lake, with a background of splendid firs and spruces, the lively green
+of the latter making the former look black in contrast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is that our camp? How perfectly glorious!&rdquo; boomed Neal and Dol
+together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s our camp, sure enough,&rdquo; answered Garst, with no less
+enthusiasm. &ldquo;At least the first cabin will be ours. I don&rsquo;t know
+whether there are any hunters in the other one just now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The log shanties had been put up by an enterprising settler to accommodate
+sportsmen who might penetrate to this far part of the wilds in search of moose
+or caribou. Cyrus had arranged for the use of one during the months of October
+and November. Here it was that Herb Heal had engaged to await him. And as he
+had commissioned this famous guide to stock the camp with all such provisions
+as could be procured from neighboring settlements, such as flour, potatoes,
+pork, etc., he expected to slide into the lap of luxury.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In one sense he did. When the trio, their hearts thumping with anticipation,
+reached the low door of the first cabin, they found it securely fastened on the
+outside, so that no burglar-beast could force an entrance, but easily opened by
+man. Cyrus hurriedly undid the bolts, and stepped under the log roof, followed
+by his comrades. The camp was in beautiful order, clean, well-stocked, and
+provided with primitive comforts. An enticing-looking bed of fresh fir-boughs
+was arranged in a sort of rude bunk which extended along one side of the cabin,
+having a head-board and foot-board. The latter was fitted to form a bench as
+well. A man might perch on it, and stretch his toes to the fire in the great
+stone fireplace only two feet distant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boys could well imagine that this would make an ideal seat for a hunter at
+night, where he might lazily fill his pipe and tell big yarns, while the winter
+storm howled outside, and snow-flurries drifted against his log walls. But they
+looked at it wistfully now, for it was empty. There was no figure of a
+moccasined forest hero on bench or in bunk. There was no Herb Heal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bless the fellow! Where on earth is he?&rdquo; Garst exclaimed.
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s been here, you see, and has the camp provisioned and ready.
+Perhaps he&rsquo;s only prowling about in the woods near. I&rsquo;ll give him a
+&lsquo;Coo-hoo!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus06"></a>
+<img src="images/illus06.jpg" width="479" height="600" alt="Illustration: " />
+<p class="caption"><b>&ldquo;Herb Heal.&rdquo;</b><br/></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+He stepped forth from the cabin to the middle of the clearing, and sent his
+voice ringing out in a distance-piercing hail. He loaded his rifle and blazed
+away with it, firing a volley of signal-shots.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Neither shout nor shots brought him any answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The second cabin was likewise empty, and, judging from the withered remains of
+a bed, had evidently been long unused.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, fellows!&rdquo; said the leader, with manifest chagrin,
+&ldquo;we&rsquo;ll only have to fix up something to eat, make ourselves
+comfortable, and wait patiently until our guide puts in an appearance. Herb
+Heal never broke an engagement yet. He&rsquo;s as faithful a fellow as ever
+made camp or spotted a trail in these forests. And he promised to wait for me
+here from the first of October, as it was uncertain when I might arrive.
+I&rsquo;m mighty hungry. Who&rsquo;ll go and fetch some water from the lake
+while I turn cook?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol volunteered for this business, and brought a kettle from the cabin. He
+found it near the hearth, on which a fire still flickered, side by side with a
+frying-pan and various articles of tinware. Cyrus rolled up his sleeves, took
+the canisters of tea and coffee with other small stores from his knapsack,
+proceeded to mix a batter for flapjacks, and showed himself to be a genius with
+the pan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The meal was soon ready. The food might be a little salt and greasy; but
+camp-hunger, after a tramp of a dozen miles, is not dulled by such trifles. The
+trio ate joyously, washing the fare down with big draughts of tea, rather
+fussily prepared by Neal, which might have &ldquo;done credit to many a Boston
+woman&rsquo;s afternoon tea-table&rdquo;&mdash;so young Garst said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet from time to time longing looks were cast at the low camp-door. And when
+daylight waned, when stars began to glint in a sky which was a mixture of soft
+grays and downy whites like a dove&rsquo;s plumage, when the islets on
+Millinokett&rsquo;s bosom became black dots on a slate-gray sheet, and no laden
+hunter with rifle and game put in an appearance, even Cyrus became fidgety and
+anxious.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hope the fellow hasn&rsquo;t come to grief somewhere in the
+woods,&rdquo; he said, while a shiver of apprehension shot down his back.
+&ldquo;But Herb has had so many hairbreadth escapes that I believe the animal
+has yet to be born which could get the better of him. And he can find his way
+anywhere without a compass. Every handful of moss on a trunk or stone, every
+turn of a woodland stream, every sun-ray which strikes him through the trees,
+every glimpse of the stars at night, has a meaning for him. He reads the forest
+like a book. No fear of his getting lost anyhow. Come, boys, I guess we&rsquo;d
+better build up our fire, make things snug for the night, and turn in.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rather dejectedly the trio set about these preparations. In twenty
+minutes&rsquo; time they were stretched side by side in the wide bunk, with
+their blankets cuddled round them, already venting random snores.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hello! So you&rsquo;ve got here at last, have you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The exclamations were loud and snappy, and awoke the sleeping campers like the
+banging of rifle-shots. With jumping pulses they sprang up, feeling a wave of
+cold air sweep their faces; for the cabin-door, which they had closed ere lying
+down, was now ajar.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The camp was almost in darkness. Only one dull, red ray stole out from the
+fire, on which fresh logs had been piled. But while the young Farrars rubbed
+their sleep-dimmed eyes, and slowly realized that the woodsman whom they had
+been expecting had at last arrived, a strangely brilliant illumination lit up
+the log walls.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This sudden and bewildering light showed them the figure of a hunter in
+mud-spattered gray trousers, with coarse woollen stockings of lighter hue drawn
+over them above his buckskin moccasins. His battered felt hat was pushed back
+from his forehead, a guide&rsquo;s leathern wallet was slung round him, and the
+rough, clinging jersey he wore, being stretched so tightly over his swelling
+muscles that its yarn could not hold together, had a rent on one shoulder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His slate-gray eyes with jetty pupils, which were miniatures of Millinokett
+Lake at this hour, gazed at the awakened trio in the bunk, with a gleam of
+light shooting athwart them, like a moonbeam crossing the face of the lake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The hunter held in his hand a big roll of the inflammable paper-like bark of
+the white birch-tree, which he had brought in with him to kindle his fire,
+expecting that it had gone out during his absence. Seeing a glow still on the
+hearth, and feeling instantly that the cabin was tenanted, he had applied a
+match to his bark, causing the vivid flare which revealed him to the eyes of
+those who had longed for his presence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Herb Heal, man, is it you?&rdquo; shouted Cyrus, his voice like a
+midnight joy-chime, as he sprang from the fir-boughs and gripped the
+woodsman&rsquo;s arm. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m delighted to see you, though I was ready
+to swear you wouldn&rsquo;t disappoint us! I didn&rsquo;t fasten the
+cabin-door, for I thought you might possibly get back to camp during the
+night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Cyrus, old fellow, how goes it?&rdquo; was Herb&rsquo;s greeting.
+&ldquo;I had a&rsquo;most given up looking for you. But I&rsquo;m powerful glad
+you&rsquo;ve got here at last.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The hunter&rsquo;s voice had still the quick snap and force which made it
+startling as a rifleshot when he entered the cabin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;These are my friends, Neal and Adolphus Farrar,&rdquo; said Cyrus,
+introducing the blanketed youths, who had now risen to their feet. &ldquo;Boys,
+this is Herb Heal, our new guide, christened Herbert Healy&mdash;isn&rsquo;t
+that so, Herb?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I reckon it is;&rdquo; answered the young hunter, laughing. &ldquo;But
+no woodsman could spring a sugary, city-sounding name like that on me.
+I&rsquo;ve been Herb Heal from the day I could handle a rifle.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He nodded pleasantly as he spoke to the strange lads, and began to chat with
+them in prompt familiarity, looking straight and strong as a young pine-tree in
+the halo of his birch torch. Garst, whose inches his juniors had hitherto
+coveted, was but a stripling beside Herb Heal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is this your first trip into Maine woods, younkers?&rdquo; he asked.
+&ldquo;Well, I guess you&rsquo;ve come to the right place for sport. I&rsquo;m
+sorry I wasn&rsquo;t on hand to welcome you when you arrived. A pretty forest
+guide you must have thought me. But I guess I&rsquo;ll show you a sight
+to-morrow that&rsquo;ll wipe out all scores.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was such triumph in the hunter&rsquo;s eye that the voices of the trio
+blended into one as they breathlessly asked,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What sight is it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A dead king o&rsquo; the woods, boys,&rdquo; answered Herb Heal, his
+voice vibrating. &ldquo;A fine young bull-moose, as sure as this is a land of
+liberty. I dropped him by a logon on the east bank of Fir Pond, about four
+miles from here. I started out early, hoping to nab a deer; for I had no fresh
+meat left, and I didn&rsquo;t want to have a bare larder when you fellows came
+along. But the woods were awful still. There didn&rsquo;t seem to be anything
+bigger than a field-mouse travelling. Then all of a sudden I heard a tormented
+grunting, and the moose came tearing right onto me. I was to leeward of him, so
+he couldn&rsquo;t get my scent. A man&rsquo;s gun doesn&rsquo;t take long to
+fly into position at such times, and I dropped him with two shots. There he
+lies now by the water, for I couldn&rsquo;t get him back to camp till morning.
+He&rsquo;s not full-grown; but he&rsquo;s a fine fellow for all that, and has a
+dandy pair of antlers. By George! I&rsquo;d give the biggest guide&rsquo;s fees
+I ever got if you fellows had been there to hear him striking the trees with
+&rsquo;em as he tore along. He was a buster.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you&rsquo;ll see him to-morrow anyhow, and have a taste of
+moose-meat for the first time in your lives, I guess.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here Herb waved the fag-end of his bark roll, threw it down as it scorched his
+horny fingers, and stamped upon it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The interior of the log cabin, ere it was extinguished, was a scene for a
+painter,&mdash;the lithe, muscular figure, tanned face, and gleaming eyes of
+the lucky hunter shown by the flare of his birch torch, and the three staring
+listeners, with blankets draped about them, who feared to miss one point of his
+story.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cyrus was grinding his teeth in vexation that he had narrowly missed seeing the
+moose alive. The two Farrars were burning with excitement at the thought of
+beholding the monarch of the forest at all, even in death. For they had heard
+enough wood-lore to know that the bull-moose, with his extreme caution, is like
+a tantalizing phantom to hunters. Continually he lures them to disappointment
+by his uncouth noises, or by a sight of his freshly made tracks, while his
+sensitive ears and super-sensitive nose, which can discriminate between the
+smell of man and every other smell on earth, will generally lead him off like a
+wind-gust before man gets a sight of him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry to keep you awake, boys,&rdquo; said Herb Heal, making
+for the fire, after he had finished his story; &ldquo;but I haven&rsquo;t had a
+bite since morning, and I&rsquo;m that hungry I could chaw my moccasins.
+I&rsquo;ll get something to eat, and then we&rsquo;ll turn in. We&rsquo;ll have
+mighty hard work to-morrow, getting the moose to camp.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Herb was not long in making ready the stereotyped camp-fare of flapjacks and
+pork. To light his preparations, he took a candle out of a precious bundle
+which he had brought from a town a hundred miles distant, and set it in a
+primitive candlestick. This was simply a long stick of white spruce wood, one
+end of which was pointed, and stuck into the ground; the other was split, and
+into it the candle was inserted, the elasticity of the fresh wood keeping the
+light in place.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The tired hunter did not dawdle over his supper. In a quarter of an hour he had
+finished it, and was building up the fire again. Then he stretched himself
+beside the trio in the rude bunk, drawing one thin blanket over him. Neal, who
+lay on his right, was conscious of some prickings of excitement at having such
+a bedfellow on the fir-boughs,&mdash;the camper&rsquo;s couch which levels all.
+There flashed upon the fair-haired English boy a remembrance of how Cyrus had
+once said that &ldquo;in the woods manhood is the only passport.&rdquo; He
+thought that, measured by this standard, Herb Heal had truly a royal charter,
+and might be a president of the forest land; for he looked as free, strong, and
+unconquerable as the forest wind.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig15.jpg" width="400" height="168" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap15"></a>Chapter XV.<br/>A Fallen King</h2>
+
+<p>
+The hunter was the only one who slept soundly that night on the fragrant
+boughs. Nevertheless, the moose was on his mind. Again in his dreams he
+imagined himself back by the quiet, shining logon, listening to the ring of the
+antlers as they struck the trees, and to the heaving snorts and deep grunts of
+the noble game as it tore through the forest to its death.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The moose was on the minds of his companions too. Again and again they awoke,
+and pictured him lying by the pond, where he had fallen,&mdash;a dead monarch.
+They tossed and grumbled, longing for day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Neal and Dol surprised themselves and their elders by being up and dressed
+shortly after five, before a streak of light had entered the cabin. But their
+guide was not much behind them. Herb had the camp-fire going well, and was
+preparing breakfast before six o&rsquo;clock. The campers tucked away a
+substantial meal of fried pork, potatoes, and coffee. The first glories of the
+young sun fell on their way as they started across the clearing and away
+through the woods beyond, towards the distant pond where the hunter had got his
+moose.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lying amid the small growth and grasses, by a lonely, glinting logon, they
+found the conquered king, sleeping that sleep from which never sun again would
+wake him. A bullet-hole, crusted with dark blood, showed in his side. The slim
+legs were bent and stiff, and the mighty forefeet could no more strike a
+ripping blow which would end a man&rsquo;s hunting forever. The antlers which
+had made the forest ring were powerless horn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you know, boys,&rdquo; said Herb, as he stooped and touched them,
+fingering each prong, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve hunted moose in fall and winter since I
+was first introduced to a rifle. I&rsquo;ve still-hunted &rsquo;em, called
+&rsquo;em, and followed &rsquo;em on snowshoes; but I never felt so thundering
+mean about killing an animal as I did about dropping this fellow. After his
+antics in the woods, when he tramped out onto the open patch where I was
+waiting under cover of those shrubs, I popped up and covered him with my
+Winchester. He just raised the hair on his back and looked at me, with a way
+wild animals sometimes have, as if I was a bad riddle. Like as not he&rsquo;d
+never seen a human being before, and a moose&rsquo;s eyes ain&rsquo;t good for
+much as danger-signals. It&rsquo;s only when he hears or smells mischief that
+he gets mad scared.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus07"></a>
+<img src="images/illus07.jpg" width="600" height="445" alt="Illustration: " />
+<p class="caption"><b>A Fallen King.</b><br/></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I was out for meat, and bound to have it; so I pulled the trigger,
+and killed him with two shots. When the first bullet stung him he reared up,
+making a sharp noise like a wounded horse. Then he swung round as if to bolt;
+but the second went straight through his heart, and he fell where you see him
+now. I made sure that he was past kicking, and crept close to his head,
+thinking he was dead. He wasn&rsquo;t quite gone, though; for he saw me, and
+laid back his ears, the last pitiful sign a moose makes when a hunter gets the
+better of him. I tell you it made me feel bad&mdash;just for a minute.
+I&rsquo;ve got my moose for this season, and I&rsquo;m sort o&rsquo; glad that
+the law won&rsquo;t let me kill another unless it&rsquo;s a life-saving
+matter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How tall should you say this fellow was when alive?&rdquo; asked Cyrus,
+stroking the creature&rsquo;s shaggy hair, which was a rusty black in color.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh! I guess he stood about as high as a good-sized pony. But I&rsquo;ve
+shot moose which were taller than any horse. The biggest one I ever killed
+measured between seven and eight feet from the points of his hoofs to his
+shoulders, and the antlers were four feet and nine inches from tip to tip. He
+was a monster&mdash;a regular jing-swizzler! A mighty queer way I got him too!
+I&rsquo;ll tell you all about it some other time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh! you must,&rdquo; answered Garst. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll have to give us
+no end of moose-talk by the camp-fire of evenings. These English fellows want
+to learn all they can about the finest game on our continent before they go
+home.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, for evermore!&rdquo; gasped Herb, in broad amazement. &ldquo;Are
+you Britishers? And have you crossed the ocean to chase moose in Maine woods?
+My word! You&rsquo;re a gamy pair of kids. We&rsquo;ll have to try to
+accommodate you with a sight of a moose at any rate&mdash;a live one.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Though they would gladly have appropriated the compliment, the &ldquo;gamy
+kids&rdquo; were obliged to acknowledge that hunting had not been in their
+thoughts when they traversed the Atlantic. But they avowed that they were the
+luckiest fellows alive, and that the American forest-land, with its camps and
+trails and wild offspring, was such a glorious old playground that they would
+never stop singing its praises until a swarm of boys from English soil had
+tasted the novel pleasures which they enjoyed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, then, gentlemen!&rdquo; said the guide, &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t much
+idea that we&rsquo;ll be able to haul this moose along to camp whole. If I skin
+and dress him here, are you all ready to help in carrying home the meat?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The trio briskly expressed their willingness, and Herb began the dissecting
+business; while from a tree near by that strange bird which hunters call the
+&ldquo;moose-bird&rdquo; screamed its shrill &ldquo;What cheer? What
+cheer?&rdquo; with ceaseless persistence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, hold your noise, you squalling thing!&rdquo; said the guide,
+answering it back. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s good cheer this time. We&rsquo;ll have a
+feast of moose-meat to-night, and there&rsquo;ll be pickings for you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He then explained, for the benefit of the English lads, that this bird, whose
+cry is startlingly like the hunters&rsquo; translation of it, haunts the spot
+where a moose has been killed, waiting greedily for its meal off the creature
+after men have taken their share of the meat. Herb declared that it had often
+followed him for hours while he was stealthily tracking a moose, to be in at
+the death. And now it kept up the din of its unceasing question until he had
+finished his disagreeable work.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As the party started back to camp, each one weighted with forty pounds or more
+of meat, Herb carrying a double portion, with the antlers hooked upon his
+shoulders, they heard the moose-bird still insatiably shrieking &ldquo;What
+cheer?&rdquo; over its meal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say, boys,&rdquo; said the guide, as he stalked along with his heavy
+load, never blenching, &ldquo;if you want to get a pair o&rsquo; moose-antlers,
+now&rsquo;s your time. I ain&rsquo;t a-going to sell these, but I&rsquo;ll give
+&rsquo;em outright to the first fellow who can learn to call a moose
+successfully while he&rsquo;s hunting with me. I know what sort of sportsman
+Cyrus Garst is. He&rsquo;ll go
+
+prowling through the woods, starting moose and coolly letting &rsquo;em get off
+without spilling a drop of blood, while he&rsquo;s watching the length of their
+steps. I b&rsquo;lieve he&rsquo;d be a sight prouder of seeing one crunch a
+root than if he got the finest head in Maine. So here&rsquo;s your chance for a
+trophy, boys. I guess &rsquo;twill be your only one.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hurrah! I&rsquo;m in for this game!&rdquo; cried Neal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I too,&rdquo; said Cyrus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m in for it with a vengeance!&rdquo; whooped Dol. &ldquo;Though
+I&rsquo;m blessed if I&rsquo;ve a notion what &lsquo;calling a moose&rsquo;
+means.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How much have you larned, anyhow, Kid, in the bit o&rsquo; time
+you&rsquo;ve been alive?&rdquo; asked the woodsman, with good-humored sarcasm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Enough to make my fists talk to anybody who thinks I&rsquo;m a
+duffer,&rdquo; answered Dol, squaring his shoulders as if to make the most of
+himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good for you, young England!&rdquo; laughed Cyrus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Herb turned his eyes, and regarded the juvenile Adolphus with amused criticism.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Britisher or no Britisher, I&rsquo;ll allow you&rsquo;re a little
+man,&rdquo; he muttered. &ldquo;Keep a stiff upper lip, boys; we&rsquo;re not
+far from camp now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A word of cheer was needed. Not one of the trio had growled at their load, but
+the flannel shirts of the two Farrars clung wetly to their bodies. Their breath
+was coming in hard puffs through spread nostrils. A four-mile tramp through the
+woods, heavily laden with raw meat, was a novel but not an altogether
+delightful experience.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+However, the smell of moose-steak frying over their camp-fire later on fully
+compensated them for acting as butcher&rsquo;s boys. When the taste as well as
+the smell had been enjoyed, the rest which followed by the blazing birch-logs
+that evening was so full of bliss that each camper felt as if existence had at
+last drifted to a point of superb content.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Their camp-door stood open for ventilation; and a keen touch of frost, mingling
+with the night air which entered, made the fragrant warmth delightful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When supper was ended, and the tin vessels from which it had been eaten,
+together with all camp utensils, were duly cleaned, Herb seated himself on the
+middle of the bench, which he called &ldquo;the deacon&rsquo;s seat,&rdquo; and
+luxuriously lit his oldest pipe. His brawny hands had performed every duty
+connected with the meal as deftly and neatly as those of a delicate-fingered
+woman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, for downright solid comfort, boys, give me a cosey camp-fire in
+the wilderness, when a fellow is tired out after a good day&rsquo;s outing.
+City life can offer nothing to touch it,&rdquo; said Cyrus, as he spread his
+blankets near the cheerful blaze, and sprawled himself upon them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Neal and Dol followed his example. The three looked up at their guide, on whose
+weather-tanned face the fire shed wavering lights, in lazy expectation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, Herb,&rdquo; said Garst, &ldquo;we want to think of nothing but
+moose for the remainder of this trip; so go ahead, and give us some moose-talk
+to-night. Begin at the beginning, as the children say, and tell us everything
+you know about the animal.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Herb Heal swung himself to and fro upon his plank seat, drawing his pipe
+reflectively, and letting its smoke filter through his nostrils, while he
+prepared to answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said at last, slowly, &ldquo;it seems to me that a moose
+is a troublesome brute to tackle, however you take him. It&rsquo;s plaguy hard
+for a hunter to get the better of him, and if it&rsquo;s only knowledge
+you&rsquo;re after, he&rsquo;ll dodge you like a will-o&rsquo;-the-wisp till
+you get pretty mixed in your notions about his habits. I guess these English
+fellows know already that he&rsquo;s the largest animal of the deer tribe, or
+any other tribe, to be seen on this continent, and as grand game as can be
+found on any spot of this here earth. I hain&rsquo;t had a chance to chase
+lions an&rsquo; tigers; but I&rsquo;ve shot grizzlies over in Canada,&mdash;and
+that&rsquo;s scarey work, you better b&rsquo;lieve!&mdash;and I tell you
+there&rsquo;s no sport that&rsquo;ll bring out the grit and ingenuity
+that&rsquo;s in a man like moose-hunting. Now, boys, ask me any questions you
+like, an&rsquo; I&rsquo;ll try to answer &rsquo;em.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You said something to-day about moose &lsquo;crunching
+twigs,&rsquo;&rdquo; began Neal eagerly. &ldquo;Why, I always had a hazy idea
+that they fed on moss altogether, which they dug up in the winter with their
+broad antlers.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Land o&rsquo; liberty!&rdquo; ejaculated the woodsman. &ldquo;Where on
+earth do you city men pick up your notions about forest
+creatures&mdash;that&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;d like to know? A moose can&rsquo;t
+get its horns to the ground without dropping on its knees; and it can&rsquo;t
+nibble grass from the ground neither without sprawling out its long
+legs,&mdash;which for an animal of its size are as thin as
+pipe-stems,&mdash;and tumbling in a heap. So I don&rsquo;t credit that yarn
+about their digging up the moss, even when there&rsquo;s no other food to be
+had; though I can&rsquo;t say for sure it&rsquo;s not true. In summer moose
+feed about the ponds and streams, on the long grasses and lily-pads.
+They&rsquo;re at home in the water, and mighty fine swimmers; so the red men
+say that they came first from the sea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In the fall, and through the winter too, so far as I can make out, they
+eat the twigs and bark of different trees, such as white birches and poplars.
+They&rsquo;re powerful fond of moose-wood&mdash;that&rsquo;s what you call
+mountain ash. I guess it tastes to them like pie does to us.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, Dol, I feel that you&rsquo;re twitching all over with some
+question,&rdquo; said Cyrus, detecting uneasy movements on the part of the
+younger boy who lay next to him. &ldquo;What is it, Chick? Out with it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want to hear about moose-calling,&rdquo; so spoke Dol in heart-eager
+tones.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The guide swung his body to the music of a jingling laugh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh; that&rsquo;s it; is it?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re stuck on
+winning those antlers; ain&rsquo;t you, Dol? Well, calling is the
+&lsquo;moose-hunter&rsquo;s secret,&rsquo; and it&rsquo;s a secret that he
+don&rsquo;t want to give away to every one. When a man is a good caller
+he&rsquo;s kind o&rsquo; jealous about keeping the trick to himself. But
+I&rsquo;ll tell you how it&rsquo;s done, anyhow, and give you a lesson
+sometime. Sakes alive! if you Britishers could only take over a birch-bark
+trumpet, and give that call in England, you&rsquo;d make nearly as much fuss as
+Buffalo Bill did with his cowboys and Injuns. Only &rsquo;twould be a onesided
+game, for there&rsquo;d be no moose to answer.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The young Farrars were silent, breathlessly waiting for more. The
+camp-firelight showed their absorbed faces; it played upon bronzed cheeks,
+where the ruddy tints of English boyhood had been replaced by a duller, hardier
+hue. On Neal&rsquo;s upper lip a fine, fair growth had sprouted, which looked
+white against his sun-tinged skin. As for Cyrus, he had never brought a razor
+into the woods since that memorable trip when the bear had overhauled his
+knapsack; so the Bostonian&rsquo;s chin was covered with a thick black stubble.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Neither of the youths, however, was at present giving a thought to his hirsute
+adornment, about which questionable compliments were frequently bandied. Their
+minds were full of moose, and their ears alert for the guide&rsquo;s next
+words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;P&rsquo;raps you folks don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; went on the woodsman,
+&ldquo;that there are four ways o&rsquo; hunting moose. The first and fairest
+is still-hunting &rsquo;em in the woods, which means following their signs, and
+getting a shot in any way you can, <i>if</i> you can. But that&rsquo;s a stiff
+&lsquo;if&rsquo; to a hunter. Nine times out o&rsquo; ten a moose will baffle
+him and get off unhurt, even when a man has tracked him for days, camping on
+his trail o&rsquo; nights. The snapping of a twig not the size of my little
+finger, or one tramping step, and the moose&rsquo;ll take warning. He&rsquo;ll
+light out o&rsquo; the way as silently as a red man in moccasins, and the
+hunter won&rsquo;t even know he&rsquo;s gone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The second way is night-hunting, going after &rsquo;em in a canoe with a
+jack-light; same thing as jacking for deer. I guess you&rsquo;ve tried that, so
+you&rsquo;ll know what it&rsquo;s like&mdash;skeery kind o&rsquo; work.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Neal nodded an eloquent assent, and Herb went on:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The third method is a dog&rsquo;s trick. It&rsquo;s following &rsquo;em
+on snowshoes over deep snow. I&rsquo;ve tried that once, and I&rsquo;m blamed
+if I&rsquo;ll ever try it again. It&rsquo;s butchery, not sport. The crust of
+snow will be strong enough for a man to run on, but it can&rsquo;t support the
+heavy moose. The creature&rsquo;ll go smashing through it and struggling out,
+until its slim legs are a sight to see for cuts and blood. Soon it gets blowed,
+and can stumble no farther. Then the hunter finishes it with an axe.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Disgust thickened the voices of the listening three, as with one accord they
+raised an outcry against this cruel way of butchering a game animal, without
+giving it a single chance for its life. When their indignation had subsided,
+the hunter went on to describe the fourth and last method of entrapping
+moose&mdash;the calling in which Dol was so interested.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;P&rsquo;raps you won&rsquo;t think this is fair hunting either,&rdquo;
+he said; &ldquo;for it&rsquo;s a trick, and I&rsquo;ll allow that there&rsquo;s
+times when it seems a pretty mean game. Anyhow, I&rsquo;d rather kill one moose
+by still-hunting than six by calling. But if you want to try work that&rsquo;ll
+make your blood race through your body like a torrent one minute, and turn you
+as cold as if your sweat was ice-water the next, you go in for moose-calling. I
+guess you know all about the matter, Cyrus; but as these Britishers do not,
+I&rsquo;ll try and explain it to&rsquo; em.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Early in September the moose come up from the low, swampy lands where
+they have spent the summer alone, and begin to pair. Then the bull-moose, as we
+call the male, which is generally the most wide-awake of forest creatures,
+loses some of his big caution, an&rsquo; goes roaming through the woods,
+looking for a mate. This is the time for fooling him. The hunter makes a horn
+out o&rsquo; birch-bark, somewheres about eighteen inches long, through which
+he mimics the call of the cow-moose, to coax the bull within reach of his
+rifle-shots.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is the call like?&rdquo; asked Neal, his heart thumping while he
+remembered that strange noise which had marked a new era in his experience of
+sounds, as he listened to it at midnight by Squaw Pond.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sho! a man might keep jawing till crack o&rsquo; doom, and not give you
+any idea of it without you heard it,&rdquo; answered Herb Heal, the dare-all
+moose-hunter. &ldquo;The noise begins sort o&rsquo; gently, like the lowing of
+a tame cow. It seems, if you&rsquo;re listening to it, to come
+rolling&mdash;rolling&mdash;along the ground. Then it rises in pitch, and gets
+impatient and lonely and wild-like, till you think it fills the air above you,
+when it sinks again and dies away in a queer, quavery sound that ain&rsquo;t a
+sigh, nor a groan, nor a grunt, but all three together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The call is mostly repeated three times; and the third time it ends with
+a mad roar as if the lady-moose was saying to her mate, &lsquo;<i>Come</i> now,
+or stay away altogether!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Joe Flint was right, then!&rdquo; exclaimed Neal, in high excitement.
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the very noise I heard in the woods near Squaw Pond, on the
+night when we were jacking for deer, and our canoe capsized.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;P&rsquo;raps it was,&rdquo; answered Herb, &ldquo;though the woods near
+Squaw Pond ain&rsquo;t much good for moose now. They&rsquo;re too full of
+hunters. Still, you might have heard the cow-moose herself calling, or some man
+who had come across the tracks of a bull imitating her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But if the bull has such sharp ears, can&rsquo;t he tell the real call
+from the sham one?&rdquo; asked Dol.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Lots of times he can. But if the hunter is an old woodsman and a clever
+caller, he&rsquo;ll generally fool the animal, unless he makes some awkward
+noise that isn&rsquo;t in the game, or else the moose gets his scent on the
+breeze. One whiff of a man will send the creature off like a wind-gust, and
+earthquakes wouldn&rsquo;t stop him. And though he sneaks away so silently when
+he <i>hears</i> anything suspicious, yet when he <i>smells</i> danger
+he&rsquo;ll go through the forest at a thundering rush, making as much noise as
+a demented fire-brigade.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good gracious!&rdquo; ejaculated Neal and Dol together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is the moose ever dangerous, Herb?&rdquo; asked the former.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I guess he is pretty often. Sometimes a bull-moose will turn on a
+hunter, and make at him full tilt, if he&rsquo;s in danger or finds himself
+tricked. And he&rsquo;ll always fight like fury to protect his mate from any
+enemy. The bulls have awful big duels between themselves occasionally. When
+they&rsquo;re real mad, they don&rsquo;t stop for a few wounds. They prod each
+other with their terrible brow antlers till one or the other of &rsquo;em is
+stretched dead. If a moose ever charges you, boys, take my advice, and
+don&rsquo;t try to face him with your rifles. Half a dozen shots mightn&rsquo;t
+stop him. Make for the nearest tree, and climb for your lives. Fire down on him
+then, if you can. But once let him get a kick at you with his forefeet, and one
+thing is sure&mdash;<i>you&rsquo;ll</i> never kick again. Are you tired of
+moose-talk yet?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not by a jugful!&rdquo; answered Cyrus, laughing. &ldquo;But tell us,
+Herb, how are we to proceed to get a sight of this &lsquo;Jabberwock&rsquo;
+alive?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If to-morrow night happens to be dead calm, I might try to call one
+up,&rdquo; answered the guide. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a pretty good calling-place
+near the south end of the lake. As this is the height of the season, we might
+get an answer there. We&rsquo;ll try it, anyhow, if you&rsquo;re
+willing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Willing! I should say we are!&rdquo; answered Garst. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re
+our captain now, Herb, and it&rsquo;s a case of &lsquo;Follow my leader!&rsquo;
+Take us anywhere you like, through jungles or mud-swamps. We won&rsquo;t kick
+at hardships if we can only get a good look at his mooseship. Up to the
+present, except for that one moonlight peep, he has always dodged me like a
+phantom.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you going to be satisfied with a look?&rdquo; The guide&rsquo;s eyes
+narrowed into two long slits, on which the firelight quivered, as he gazed
+quizzically down upon Cyrus. &ldquo;If the moose comes within reach of our
+shots, ain&rsquo;t anybody going to pump lead into him? Or is he to get off
+again scot-free? I&rsquo;ve got my moose for this season, and I darsn&rsquo;t
+send my bullets through the law by dropping another, so I can&rsquo;t do the
+shooting.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My friends can please themselves,&rdquo; said the Bostonian, glancing at
+the English lads. &ldquo;For my own part I&rsquo;ll be better pleased if Mr.
+Moose manages to keep a whole skin. Our grand game is getting scarce enough; I
+don&rsquo;t want to lessen it. I once saw the last persecuted deer in a county,
+after it had been badgered and wounded by men and dogs, limp off to die alone
+in its native haunts. The sight cured me of bloodthirst.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I guess &rsquo;twould be enough to cure any man,&rdquo; responded Herb.
+&ldquo;And we don&rsquo;t want meat, so this time we won&rsquo;t shoot our
+moose after we&rsquo;ve tricked him. Good land! I wouldn&rsquo;t like any
+fellow to imitate the call of my best girl, that he might put a bullet through
+me. Come, boys, it&rsquo;s pretty late; let&rsquo;s fix our fire, and turn
+in.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig16.jpg" width="400" height="168" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap16"></a>Chapter XVI.<br/>Moose-Calling</h2>
+
+<p>
+Nothing was talked about among the campers on the following day but the
+forthcoming sport of the evening&mdash;moose-calling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Herb Heal had decided that his call should be given from the water, his
+&ldquo;good calling-place&rdquo; being an alder-fringed logon at the loneliest
+extremity of the lake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During the afternoon he took Neal and Dol with him into a grove of poplars and
+birches which bordered one end of the clearing, leaving Cyrus lounging by the
+camp-fire. Here the woodsman began the exciting work of preparing his
+birch-bark horn, that primitive but potent trumpet through which he would sigh,
+groan, grunt, and roar, imitating each varying mood of the cow-moose. To her
+call he had often listened as he lay for hours on a mossy bed in the far depths
+of the forest, learning to interpret the language of every woodland creature.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Unsheathing his hunting-knife, and selecting a sound white-birch tree, Herb
+carefully removed from it a piece of bark about eighteen inches in length and
+six in width. This he carefully trimmed, and rolled into a horn as a child
+would twist paper into a cornucopia package for sweets, tying it with the
+twine-like roots of the ground juniper. The tapering end of the trumpet, which
+would be applied to the caller&rsquo;s lips, measured about one inch across;
+its mouth measured five.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Returning to camp, Herb dipped the horn in warm water and then let it dry,
+saying that this would produce a mellow ring. He stoutly refused all appeals
+from the boys to give them a few illustrations of moose-calling there and then,
+with a lesson in the art, declaring that it would spoil the night&rsquo;s
+sport, and that they must first hear the call amid proper surroundings. From
+time to time he impressed upon them that they were going to engage in an
+expedition which required absolute silence and clever stratagem to make it
+successful. He vowed to wreak a woodsman&rsquo;s vengeance on any fellow who
+balked it by shaking the boat, or by moving body or rifle so as to make a
+noise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A light, humming breeze had been blowing all day; but as the afternoon waned,
+it died down. The evening proved clear, chilly, and still.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is this a likely night for calling, Herb?&rdquo; asked Cyrus anxiously,
+taking a survey of sky and lake from the camp-door about an hour before the
+start.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Fine,&rdquo; answered Herb with satisfaction. &ldquo;Guess we&rsquo;ll
+get an answer sure, if there&rsquo;s a moose within hearing. There ain&rsquo;t
+a puff of wind to carry our scent, and give the trick away. But rig yourselves
+up in all the clothing you&rsquo;ve got, boys; the cold, while we&rsquo;re
+waiting, may be more than you bargain for.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The guide had a light boat on the lake, moored below the camp. At six
+o&rsquo;clock he seated himself therein, taking the oars in his brawny hands.
+Cyrus and Neal took their places in the stern; while Dol disposed of himself
+snugly in the bow, right under a jack-lamp which Herb had carefully trimmed and
+lit. But he had closed its sliding door, which, being padded with buckskin,
+could be opened and shut without a sound, so that not a ray of light at present
+escaped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Moose won&rsquo;t stand to watch a jack as deer do,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;Twill only scare &rsquo;em off. They&rsquo;re a heap too cute to be
+taken in by an onnatural big star floating over the water. But &rsquo;taint the
+lucky side of the moon for us. She&rsquo;ll rise late, and her light&rsquo;ll
+be so feeble that it wouldn&rsquo;t show us an elephant clearly if he was under
+our noses. So if I succeed in coaxing a bull to the brink of the water,
+I&rsquo;ll open the jack, and flash our light on him. He&rsquo;ll bolt the next
+minute as quick as greased lightning on skates; but if you only get a short
+sight of him, I promise that &rsquo;twill be one you&rsquo;ll remember.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And if he should take a notion to come for us?&rdquo; said Cyrus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He won&rsquo;t, if we don&rsquo;t fire. The boat will be lying among the
+black shadows, snug in by the bank, and he&rsquo;ll see nothing but the
+dazzling light. But you fellows must keep still as death. Off we go now, boys,
+and mum&rsquo;s the word!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was almost the last sentence spoken. Not a syllable moved the lips of any
+one of the four, as the boat glided away from camp towards the south end of the
+lake, the oars making scarcely a sound as Herb handled them. By and by he
+ceased rowing for an instant, took his pipe from his mouth, knocked out its
+ashes, and put it in his pocket with a wise look at his companions, murmuring,
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t want no tobacco incense floating around!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the same time, from a distant ridge upon the eastern shore, covered with
+evergreens which stood out like dark steeples against the evening sky, came a
+faint, dull noise, as if some belated woodsman was driving a blunt axe against
+a tree. The sound itself would scarcely have awakened a hope of anything
+unusual in the minds of the inexperienced; but, combined with the guide&rsquo;s
+aspect as he pocketed his pipe, it made Cyrus and his comrades sit suddenly
+erect, listening as if ears were the only organs they possessed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The queer, dull noise was once repeated. Then again there was silence almost
+absolute, Herb&rsquo;s oars moving with the softest swish imaginable, as the
+boat skimmed along the lonely, curved bay which he had chosen for a
+calling-place. It came to a stop amid shadows so dense and black that they
+seemed almost tangible, close to a bank fringed with overhanging bushes, having
+a background of evergreens. These last, in the fast-gathering darkness, looked
+like a sable array of mourners in whose ranks a pale ghost or two mingled, the
+spectres being slim white-birch trees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The opposite bank presented a similar scene.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was amid such surroundings that Neal Farrar heard for the second time in his
+life the weird sound of the moose-hunter&rsquo;s call. He was a strong,
+well-balanced young fellow; yet here again he knew the sensation as if needles
+were pricking him all over, which he had felt once before in these wilds, while
+his heart seemed to be performing athletic sports in his body.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cyrus and Dol confessed afterwards that they were &ldquo;all shivers and
+goose-flesh&rdquo; as the call rose upon the night air.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After he had shipped his oars, and laid them down, Herb Heal noiselessly turned
+his body to face the bow, and took up the birch-bark horn which lay beside him.
+He breathed into it anxiously once or twice, then paused, drew in all the air
+which his big lungs could contain, put the trumpet again to his lips with its
+mouth pointing downward, and began his summons.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first part of the call lasted half a minute, or so, without a break. During
+its execution the hunter moved his neck and shoulders first to the left, then
+to the right, and slowly raised the horn above his head, the rolling, plaintive
+sounds with which he commenced gathering power and pitch with the ascending
+motion. As the birch trumpet pointed straight upward, they seemed to sweep
+aloft in a surging crescendo, and boom among the tree-tops.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Carrying his head again to the left and right, Herb gradually lowered the horn
+until it was once more pointed towards the bottom of the boat, having in its
+movements described in the air a big figure of eight. The call sank with it,
+and died away in a lonely, sighing, quavering grunt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two seconds&rsquo; pause, two slow, great throbs of the boys&rsquo; hearts, so
+loud that they threatened to burst the stillness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the call began again, low and grumbling. Again it rose, swelled, quavered,
+and sank, full of lonely longing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A third time it surged up, and ended abruptly in a wild, ear-splitting roar,
+which struck the tops of distant hills, and rolled off in thunder-like echoes
+among them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Silence followed. Not a gasp came from Herb after his efforts. Cyrus and the
+Farrars tried to still their heaving chests, while each quick breath was an
+expectation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An answer! Surely it was an answer! The boys never doubted it; though the
+responding sound they caught was only a repetition of that far-away chopping
+noise, which resembled the heavy thud of an axe against wood. This came
+nearer&mdash;nearer. It was followed once by a sort of short, sharp bark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the motionless occupants of the boat heard random, guttural grunts, a
+smashing of dead branches, crashing of undergrowth, and the proud ring of
+mighty antlers against the trees. The lord of the forest, a big bull-moose, was
+tearing recklessly through the woods towards the lake, in answer to the call of
+his imaginary mate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To say that the hearts of our trio were performing gymnastic feats during these
+awfully silent minutes of waiting, is to say little. All the repressed motion
+of their bodies seemed concentrated in these organs, which raced, leaped,
+stopped short, and pounded, vibrating to such questions as:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will he come? Where shall we first see him? How near is he now? Does he
+suspect the trick? Will he give us the slip after all?&mdash;<i>Has he
+gone</i>?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For of a sudden dead stillness reigned in the forest. No more trampling,
+grunting, and knocking of antlers. The spirits of the three sank to zero. Their
+breathing became thick. The blood, which a moment before had played like
+wildfire in their veins, now stirred sluggishly as if it was freezing.
+Disappointment, blank and bitter, shivered through them from neck to foot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So passed quarter of an hour. A filmy mist rose from the surface of the water,
+and drifted by their faces like the brushing of cold wings. For lack of motion
+hand and feet felt numb. Mid the pitch-black shadows, snug in by the bank, no
+man could see the face of his fellow, though the trio would have given a
+fortune to read their guide&rsquo;s. Not a word was spoken. Once, when a deep
+breath of impatience escaped him, Neal heard the folds of his coat rub each
+other, and clenched his teeth to stop an exclamation at the sound, which he had
+never noticed before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nearly twenty minutes had elapsed since the last noise had been heard in the
+woods, when Herb took up the horn which he had laid down, and put it to his
+mouth. Again the call rolled up. It was neither loud nor long this time, ending
+with a quick, short roar.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As it ceased the guide plunged his arm into the water and slowly withdrew it,
+letting drops dribble from his fingers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The novices could only suspect that this manoeuvre was another lure for the
+bull-moose, if he chanced to be still within hearing. Its success took their
+breath away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The wary bull which had answered, having doubtless harbored a suspicion that
+all was not exactly right with the first call, had halted in his on-coming
+rush, with head upreared, and nostrils spread, trying to catch any taint in the
+air which might warn him of danger. But in the dead calm the heavy evergreens
+stirred not; no whiff reached him. The second call upset his prudence. Then he
+heard that splash and dribble in the water, and imagined that his impatient
+mate was dipping her nose into the lake for a cool drink.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A snort! A bellowing challenge quite indescribable! On he came again with a
+thundering rush!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bushes were thrashed and spurned by his sharp hoofs. Branches snapped. Trees
+echoed as his antlers struck them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A musk-rat leaped from the bank ahead, and dived to reach his hole in the bank.
+Under cover of the noisy splash which the little creature made, one whisper was
+hissed by Herb&rsquo;s tongue into the ears of his comrades. It was:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Gee whittaker! he&rsquo;s a big one! Listen to them shovels against the
+trees!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A minute later, with a deep gulp of intense excitement, and a general racket as
+if an engine had broken loose from brakes and checks, and was carrying all
+before it, the monarch of the woods crashed through the alders and halted, with
+his hoofs in the water, scarcely thirty yards from where the boat lay in
+shadow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was a supreme moment for our travellers. Leaning forward, fearful lest
+their heart-beats should betray them, they could barely distinguish the
+outlines of the moose, as he stood with his enormous nose high in air, giving
+vent to deep gulps and grunts, and looking to right and left in bewilderment
+for that cow which he had heard calling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For fully five minutes he stood thus, badly puzzled, now and again stamping a
+hoof, and scattering spray in rising wrath. Then Herb bent forward, shot out a
+long arm, and silently opened the jack.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meteor-like its silver light flashed forth, to reveal a sight which could never
+be wiped from the memories of the beholders, though it affected each of them
+differently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Herb Heal involuntarily gripped the loaded rifle which lay beside him,&mdash;he
+was too wary a woodsman to be unprepared for emergencies; but he did not cock
+it, for he remembered the law, and the bargain which he had made about
+to-night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cyrus&rsquo;s eyes gleamed like fires in a face pale from eagerness, as he
+strove in a minute of time to take in every feature of the monster before him,
+from hoof to horn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Neal sat as if paralyzed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol&mdash;well, Dol lost his head a bit. A deep, throaty gulp, which was a weak
+reproduction of the sound made by the moose, as if the boy and the animal were
+sharing the same throes of excitement, burst from him. There was a rattle and
+struggle of his vocal organs, which in another second would have become a
+shout, had not Herb&rsquo;s masterful left hand gripped him. Its touch held in
+check the speech which Dol could no longer control.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The moose was a big one, &ldquo;about as big as they grow,&rdquo; as the guide
+afterwards declared. Under the jack-light he looked a regular behemoth. He must
+have been over seven feet high at the shoulders, for he was taller than the
+tallest horse the boys had ever seen. His black mane bristled. His antlers were
+thrown back. His great nose, with its dilated nostrils, looked as if it were
+drinking in every scent of the night world. His eyes had a green glare in them,
+as for ten seconds he gazed at the strange light which had suddenly burst into
+view, its silver radiance so dazzling him that he saw not the screened boat
+beneath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the rash noise which Dol made his ears twitched. He splashed a step forward
+as if to investigate matters, seeing which, Herb held his Winchester in
+readiness to fly to his shoulder at a moment&rsquo;s notice. But the moose
+evidently regarded the jack-lamp as a supernatural, terrible phenomenon. He
+shrank from it as man might shrink beneath a flaming heaven.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With one more despairing look right and left for that phantom cow which had
+deluded him, he wheeled around, and crashed back into the forest, tearing away
+more rapidly than he came.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s off now, and Heaven knows when he&rsquo;ll stop!&rdquo; said
+Herb, breaking the weird spell of silence. &ldquo;Not till he reaches some lair
+where nary a creature could follow him. Well, boys, you&rsquo;ve seen the
+grandest game on this continent, the king o&rsquo; the woods. What do you think
+of him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All tongues were loosened together. There was a general shifting of cramped
+bodies, accompanied by a gust of exclamations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He was a monster!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He was a behemoth!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh! but you&rsquo;re a conjurer, Herb. How on earth did you give such a
+fetching call?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I could never have believed that those sounds came from a human throat
+and a birch-bark horn, if I hadn&rsquo;t been sitting in the boat with
+you!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When there was a break in the excited chorus, Herb, without answering the
+compliments to his calling powers, asked quietly,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t you think we&rsquo;d lost him, boys, when he stopped short
+in the middle of his rush, and you heard nothing?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We just did,&rdquo; answered Cyrus. &ldquo;That was the longes half-hour
+I ever put in. What made him do it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I guess he was kind o&rsquo; criticising my music,&rdquo; said the
+guide, laughing. &ldquo;Mebbe I got in a grunt or two that wasn&rsquo;t
+natural, and the old boy wasn&rsquo;t satisfied with his sweetheart&rsquo;s
+voice. He was sniffing the air, and waiting to hear more. But
+&rsquo;twasn&rsquo;t more &rsquo;n twenty minutes before I gave the second
+call, though no doubt it seemed longer to you. A man must be in good training
+to get the better of a moose&rsquo;s ears and nose.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to get the better of them before I leave these
+woods!&rdquo; cried Dol, who was still puffing and gasping with intense
+excitement. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll learn to call up a moose, if I crack my windpipe
+in doing it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hurrah for the Boy Moose-Caller!&rdquo; jeered Cyrus, with a teasing
+laugh, which Neal echoed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Herb Heal, who had from the beginning regarded &ldquo;the kid of the
+camp&rdquo; with favor, suddenly became his champion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t let &rsquo;em down you, Dol,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I hate
+to hear a youngster, or a man, &lsquo;talk fire,&rsquo; as the Injuns say,
+which means <i>brag</i>, if he&rsquo;s a coward or a chump; but I guess you
+ain&rsquo;t either. Here we are at camp, boys! I
+
+tell you the home-camp is a pleasant sort of place, after you&rsquo;ve been out
+moose-calling!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thereupon ensued loud cheers for the home-camp, the boys feeling that they were
+letting off steam, and atoning for that long spell of silence, which had been a
+positive hardship. In the midst of an echoing hubbub the boat was hauled up and
+moored, and the party reached their log shelter.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig17.jpg" width="400" height="165" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap17"></a>Chapter XVII.<br/>Herb&rsquo;s Yarns</h2>
+
+<p>
+The following day was spent by our trio in exploring the woods near Millinokett
+Lake, in listening to more moose-talk, and in attempting the trick of calling.
+Herb gave them many persistent lessons, making the sounds which he had made on
+the preceding night, with and without the horn, and patiently explaining the
+varied language of grunts, groans, sighs, and roars in which the cow-moose
+indulges.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Perhaps the woodsman expended extra pains on the teaching of his youngest
+pupil, whom he had championed. And certainly Dol&rsquo;s own talent for mimicry
+came to his aid. No matter to what cause the success was
+
+due, each one allowed that Dol made a brilliant attempt to get hold of
+&ldquo;the moose-hunter&rsquo;s secret,&rdquo; and give a natural call.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy had been a genius at imitating the voices of English birds and animals;
+many a trick had he played on his schoolfellows with his carols and howls. And
+his proficiency in this line was a good foundation on which to work.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll get there, boy,&rdquo; said Herb, surveying him with
+approval, as he stood outside the camp-door with the moose-horn to his lips.
+&ldquo;Make believe that there&rsquo;s a moose on the opposite shore of the
+lake now, and give the whole call, from start to finish.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Whereupon Dol slowly carried his head to left and right, as he had seen the
+guide do on the previous night, raising and lowering the horn until it had
+described an enormous figure of eight in the air, while he groaned, sighed,
+rasped, and bellowed with a plaintive intensity of expression, which caused his
+brother and his friend to shriek with laughter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll get there, Kid,&rdquo; repeated the woodsman, with a great
+triumphant guffaw. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll be able to give a fetching call sooner
+than either of the others. But be careful how you use the trick, or
+you&rsquo;ll be having the breath kicked out of you some day by a moose&rsquo;s
+forefeet.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For days afterwards, the birch-bark horn was rarely out of Dol Farrar&rsquo;s
+hands. The boy was so entranced with the new musical art he was mastering,
+which would be a means of communication between him and the behemoth of the
+woods, that he haunted the edges of the forest about the clearing, keeping
+aloof from his brother and friend, practising unceasingly, sometimes under
+Herb&rsquo;s supervision, sometimes alone. He learned to imitate every sound
+which the guide made, working in touching quavers and inflections that must tug
+at the heart-strings of any listening moose. He learned to give the call,
+squatting Indian fashion, in a very uncomfortable position, behind a screen of
+bushes. He learned to copy, not the cow&rsquo;s summons alone, but the
+bull&rsquo;s short challenge too; and to rasp his horn against a tree, in
+imitation of a moose polishing its antlers for battle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And now, for the first time, Dol Farrar of Manchester regarded his education as
+complete. He was prouder of this forest accomplishment, picked up in the wilds,
+than of all triumphs over problems and &rsquo;ologies at his English school. He
+had not been a laggard in study, either.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the finishing of Dol&rsquo;s education had one bad result. If there
+happened to be another moose travelling through the adjacent forests, he
+evidently thought that all this random calling was too much of a good thing,
+had his suspicions aroused, and took himself oft to wilder solitudes. Though
+the guide tried his powers in persuasive summons every night at various
+calling-places, he could not again succeed in getting an answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last, on a certain evening, after supper, a solemn camp-council was held
+around an inspiring fire, and Herb Heal suggested that if his party were really
+bent on seeing a moose again, before they turned their faces homeward, they had
+better rise early the following morning, shoulder their knapsacks, and set out
+to do a few days&rsquo; hunting amid the dense woods near the base of Katahdin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I killed the biggest bull-moose I ever saw, on Togue Ponds, in that
+region,&rdquo; said the guide meditatively; &ldquo;and I got him in a queer
+way. I b&rsquo;lieve I promised to tell you that yarn.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course you did!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s have it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go ahead, Herb! Don&rsquo;t shorten it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus encouraged by the eager three, the woodsman began:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is five years now, boys, since I spent a fall and winter trapping in
+them woods we were speaking of&mdash;I and another fellow. We had two
+home-camps, which were our headquarters, snug log shelters, one on Togue Ponds,
+the other on the side of Katahdin. As sure as ever the sun went down on a
+Saturday night, we two trappers met at one or other of these home-camps; though
+during the week we were mostly apart. For we had several lines of traps, which
+covered big distances in various directions; and on Monday morning I used to
+start one way, and my chum another, to visit these. Generally it took us five
+or six days to make the rounds of them. While we were on our travels we&rsquo;d
+sleep with a blanket round us, under any shelter we could rig up,&mdash;a few
+spruce-boughs or a bark hut. When the snow came, we were forced to shorten our
+trips, so as to reach one of the home-camps each night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, it was early in the season, one fine fall evening, that I was
+crossing Togue Ponds in a canoe. I had been away on the tramp for a&rsquo;most
+a week; and though I had a rifle and axe with me, I had nary an ounce of
+ammunition left. All of a sudden I caught sight of a moose, feeding on some
+lily-roots in deep water. Jest at first I was a bit doubtful whether it was a
+moose or not; for the creature&rsquo;s head was under, and I could only see his
+shoulders. I stopped paddling. I tried to stop breathing. Next, I felt like
+jumping out of my skin; for, with a big splash, up come a pair of antlers a
+good five feet across, dripping with water, and a&rsquo;most covered with green
+roots and stems, which dangled from &rsquo;em.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good land! &rsquo;twas a queer sight. &lsquo;Herb Heal,&rsquo; thinks I,
+&lsquo;now&rsquo;s your chance! If you can only manage to nab that moose-head,
+you&rsquo;ll get two hundred dollars for it at Greenville, sure!&rsquo; And
+mighty few cents I had jest then.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I could a&rsquo;most have cried over my tough luck in not having one
+dose of lead left. But the bull&rsquo;s back was towards me. The water filled
+his ears and nose, so that he couldn&rsquo;t hear or smell. And he was having a
+splendid tuck-in. It was big sport to hear him crunch those lily-roots.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should think it was!&rdquo; burst out Cyrus enviously. &ldquo;But did
+you have the heart to kill him in cold blood, in the middle of his meal?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did. I guess I wouldn&rsquo;t do it now; anyhow, not unless I was very
+badly off for food. But I had an old mother living at Greenville that
+time,&rdquo;&mdash;here there was the least possible tremble in the
+woodsman&rsquo;s voice,&mdash;&ldquo;and while I paddled alongside the moose,
+without making a sound, I was thinking that the price I&rsquo;d be sure to get
+from some city swell for the head would come in handy to make her comfortable.
+The creature never suspicioned danger till I was close to him, and had my axe
+lifted, ready to strike. Then up came his head. Out went his forefeet. Over
+spun the canoe. There was as big a commotion as if a whale was there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I managed to keep behind the brute so as to dodge his kicks; and
+gripping the axe in one hand, I dug the other into his long hair. He was mad
+scared. He started to swim for the opposite shore, which was about half a mile
+distant, with me in tow, snorting like a locomotive. As his feet touched ground
+near the bank, I jumped upon his back. With one blow of the axe I split his
+spine. Perhaps you&rsquo;ll think that was awful cruel, but it wasn&rsquo;t
+done for the glory of killing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what became of the head? Did you sell it?&rdquo; asked Dol, who was,
+as usual, the first to break a breathless silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was no reply. Herb feigned not to hear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did you get two hundred dollars for the head?&rdquo; questioned the
+impetuous youngster again, in a higher key, his curiosity swelling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t. It was stole.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The answer was a growl, like the growl of a hurt animal whose sore has been
+touched. The tone of it was so different from the woodsman&rsquo;s generally
+strong, happy-go-lucky manner of speech, that Dol blenched as if he had been
+struck.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who stole it?&rdquo; he gasped, after a minute, scarcely knowing that he
+spoke aloud.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Unnoticed in the firelight, Cyrus clapped a strong hand over the boy&rsquo;s
+mouth, to stifle further questions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Keep still!&rdquo; he whispered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Herb, who was, as usual, perched upon the &ldquo;deacon&rsquo;s
+seat,&rdquo; leaned forward, with a laugh which was more than half a snarl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who stole it?&rdquo; he echoed. &ldquo;Why, the other fellow&mdash;my
+chum; the man whom I carried for a mile on my back, through a snow-heaped
+forest, the first time I saw him,
+
+when I had lugged him out of a heavy drift. <i>He</i> stole it, Kid, and
+a&rsquo;most everything I owned with it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus08"></a>
+<img src="images/illus08.jpg" width="600" height="442" alt="Illustration: " />
+<p class="caption"><b>The Camp On Millinokett Lake.</b><br/></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+With a savage kick of his moccasined foot, the woodsman suddenly assaulted a
+blazing log. It sent a shower of sparks aloft, and caused a bright flame to
+shoot, rocket-like, from the heart of the fire, which showed the guide&rsquo;s
+face. His fine eyes reminded Cyrus of Millinokett Lake when a thunder-storm
+broke over it. Their gray was dark and troubled; the black pupils seemed to
+shrink, as if a tempest beat on them; fierce flashes of light played through
+them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Muttering a half-smothered oath, Herb flung himself off his bench, stamped
+across the cabin to the open camp-door, and passed into the darkness outside.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boys, who had been stretched out in comfortable positions, drew themselves
+bolt upright, and sat aghast. They stared towards the camp-door, murmuring
+disjointedly. Into the mind of each flashed a remembrance of some story which
+Doctor Phil had told about a thieving partner who once robbed Herb Heal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve stirred up more than you bargained for, Dol,&rdquo; said
+Cyrus. &ldquo;I wish to goodness you hadn&rsquo;t been so smart with your
+questions.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the words were scarcely spoken when the guide was again in their midst,
+with a smile on his lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s best to let sleeping dogs lie, young one,&rdquo; he said,
+looking down reassuringly on Dol, who was feeling dumfounded. &ldquo;I guess
+you all think I&rsquo;m an awful bearish fellow. But if you had lived the
+lonely life of a trapper, tramping each day through the dark woods till you
+were leg-weary, visiting your steel traps and deadfalls, all to get a few furs
+and make a few dollars; and turned up at camp one evening to find that your
+partner had skipped with every skin you had procured, I reckon &rsquo;twould
+take you a plaguy long time to get over it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m pretty sure it would, old man,&rdquo; said Cyrus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I minded the loss of the furs a sight less than I minded losing that
+moose-head,&rdquo; continued Herb, taking his perch again upon the
+&ldquo;deacon&rsquo;s seat.&rdquo; &ldquo;The hound took &rsquo;em all. Every
+woodsman in Maine was riled about it at the time, and turned out to ketch him;
+but he gave &rsquo;em the slip. Now, boys, I&rsquo;ve got to feeling pretty
+chummy with you. Cyrus is an old friend; and, to speak plain, I like you
+Britishers. I don&rsquo;t want you to think that I bust up your fun to-night
+for nothing. I&rsquo;ll tell you the whole yarn if you want to hear it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The looks of the trio were sufficient assent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right, boys. Here goes! Since I was a kid in Maine woods I&rsquo;ve
+worked at a&rsquo;most everything that a woodsman can do. Six year ago I was a
+&lsquo;barker&rsquo; in a lumber-camp on the Kennebec River. A
+&lsquo;barker&rsquo; is a man who jumps onto a big tree after a chopper has
+felled it, and strips the bark off with his axe, so that the trunk can be
+easily hauled over the snow. Well, it&rsquo;s pretty hard labor, is lumbering.
+But our camp always got Sunday for rest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I was prowling about in the woods by myself one Sunday afternoon,
+when an awful snow-storm come on, a big blizzard which staggered the stripped
+trees like as if &rsquo;twould tumble &rsquo;em all down, and end our work for
+us. I was bolting for camp as fast as I was able, when I tripped over something
+which was a&rsquo;most covered over in a heavy drift. &lsquo;Great
+Scott!&rsquo; says I, &lsquo;it&rsquo;s a man!&rsquo; And &rsquo;twas too. He
+was near dead. I hauled him out, and set him on his legs; but he couldn&rsquo;t
+walk. So I threw him across my shoulders, same way as I carry a deer. He
+didn&rsquo;t weigh near as much as a good buck, for he was little more&rsquo;n
+a kid and awful lean. But &rsquo;twas dreadful travelling, with the snow half
+blinding and burying you. I was plumb blowed when I struck the camp, and
+pitched in head foremost.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;For an hour we worked over that stranger to bring him round, and we
+succeeded. We saw at once that he was a half-breed. When he could use his
+tongue, he told us that his father was a settler, and his mother a Penobscot
+Indian. He was sick for a spell and wild-like, then he talked a lot of Indian
+jargon; but when he got back his senses, he spoke English fust-rate. Chris Kemp
+he said was his name. And from the start the lumbermen nicknamed him
+&lsquo;Cross-eyed Chris; for his eyes, which were black as blackberries, had a
+queer squint in &rsquo;em.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, in spite of the squint, I took to Chris, and he to me. And the
+following year, when I decided to give up lumbering, and take to trapping
+fur-bearing animals in the woods near Katahdin, he joined me. We swore to be
+chums, to stick to each other through thick and thin, to share all we got;
+
+and he made one of his outlandish Indian signs to strengthen the oath. A fine
+way he kept it too!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, if I&rsquo;m too long-winded, boys, say so; and I&rsquo;ll hurry
+up.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no! Tell us everything.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Spin it out as long as you can.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t mind listening half the night. Go ahead!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this gust of protest Herb smiled, though rather soberly, and went ahead as
+he was bidden.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We made camp together&mdash;him and me. We had two home-camps where I
+told you, and met at the end of each week, bringing the skins we had taken,
+which we stored in one of &rsquo;em. We got along together swimmingly for a
+bit. But Chris had a weakness which I had found out long before. I guess he
+took it from his mother&rsquo;s people. Give him one drink of whiskey, and it
+stirred up all the mud that was in him. There&rsquo;s mud in every man, I
+s&rsquo;pose; and there&rsquo;s nothing like liquor for bringing it to the
+surface. A gulp of fire-water changed Chris from an honest, right-hearted
+fellow to a crazy devil. This had set the lumbermen against him. But I hoped
+that in the lonely woods where we trapped he wouldn&rsquo;t get a chance to see
+the stuff. He did, though, and when I wasn&rsquo;t there to make a fight
+against his swallowing it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It happened that one week he got back to our camp on Togue
+Ponds,&mdash;where most of our stuff was stored, and where I kept that
+moose-head, waiting for a chance to take it down to Greenville,&mdash;a day or
+two sooner&rsquo;n me. And the worst luck that ever attended either of us
+brought a stranger to the camp at the same time, to shelter for a night. He was
+an explorer, a city swell; and I guess he didn&rsquo;t know much about Injuns
+or half-breeds, for he gave Chris a little bottle of fiery whiskey as a parting
+present. The man told me about it afterwards, and that he was kind o&rsquo;
+scared when the boy&mdash;for he wasn&rsquo;t much more&mdash;swallowed it with
+two gulps, and then followed him into the woods, howling, capering, and
+offering to sell him my grand moose-head, and all the furs we had, for another
+drink of the burning stuff. I guess that stranger felt pretty sick over the
+mischief he had done. He refused to buy &rsquo;em. But when I got back to camp
+next day, to find the skins gone, antlers gone, Chris gone; when I ran across
+the traveller and ferreted out his story,&mdash;I knew, as well as if I seen
+it, that my partner had skipped with all my belongings, to sell &rsquo;em or
+trade &rsquo;em at some settlement for more liquor. We had a couple of big
+birch canoes,&mdash;one of &rsquo;em was missing too,&mdash;and a river being
+near, the thing could be easy managed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll allow that I raged tremendous. The losses were bad; but to be
+robbed by your own chum, the man you had saved and stuck to, the only being you
+had said a word to for months, was sickening. I swore I&rsquo;d shoot the hound
+if I found him. I spread the news at every camp and farm-settlement through the
+forest country, and we had a rousing hunt after the fellow; but he gave us the
+slip, though I heard of him afterwards at a distant town, where he sold the
+furs.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose he left the State,&rdquo; said Cyrus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I guess he did. But for a big while I used to think he&rsquo;d come back
+to our camp some day, and let me have it out with him; for he wasn&rsquo;t a
+coward, and we had been fast chums.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And he didn&rsquo;t?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not as I know of. The next year I gave up trapping, which was an awful
+cruel as well as a lonely business, and took to moose-hunting
+
+and guiding. I haven&rsquo;t been anear the old camps for ages.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps you will come across him again some day,&rdquo; suggested Dol,
+with unusual timidity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;P&rsquo;raps so, Kid. And, faith, when I think of that, it seems as if
+there were two creatures inside o&rsquo; me fighting tooth and claw. One is all
+for hammering him to a jelly. The other is sort o&rsquo; pitiful, and says,
+&lsquo;Mebbe &rsquo;twasn&rsquo;t out-an&rsquo;-out his fault.&rsquo; Which of
+them two&rsquo;ll get the best of it, if ever I&rsquo;m face to face with
+Cross-eyed Chris, I dunno.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cyrus Garst rose suddenly. He kicked the camp-fire to make a blaze, then looked
+the woodsman fair in the eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know, Herb,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;the spirit of mercy will
+conquer.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Glad you think so!&rdquo; answered Herb. &ldquo;But I ain&rsquo;t so
+sure. Sho! boys, I&rsquo;ve kept you up till near midnight with my yarns. We
+must go to roost quick, or you&rsquo;ll never be fit to light out for Katahdin
+to-morrow.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig18.jpg" width="400" height="165" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap18"></a>Chapter XVIII.<br/>To Lonelier Wilds</h2>
+
+<p>
+Before daybreak next morning Herb Heal was astir. Apparently even a short
+night&rsquo;s sleep had driven from him all disturbing memories. He whistled
+and hummed softly, like the strong, hopeful fellow he was, controlling his
+notes so that they should not awaken his companions, while he hauled out and
+overlooked the canvas for a tent, to see if it was sound. Next he surveyed the
+camp-stores, and put up a supply of flour, pork, and coffee in a canvas bag,
+enough for four persons to subsist upon with economy during an excursion of six
+or seven days. For he knew that his employers would follow his suggestion, and
+be eager to start for the woods near Katahdin soon after they got their eyes
+open.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had been doing his work with a candle held in his brown fingers; but as
+dawn-light began to enter the cabin, he quenched its dingy, yellow flicker,
+opened the camp-door, and surveyed the morning sky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;ll be a good day to start out, I guess,&rdquo; he muttered.
+&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s see, what time is it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The stars had not yet paled, and Herb forthwith fell to studying them; for they
+were his jewelled time-piece, by which he could tell the hour so long as they
+shone. Watch he had none.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While he gazed aloft at the glinting specks, he unconsciously began to croon,
+in a powerful bass voice, with deep gutturals, some words which certainly
+weren&rsquo;t woodsman&rsquo;s English.
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;<i>N&rsquo;loan pes-saus, mok glint ont-aven,<br/>
+Glint ont-aven, nosh morgan</i>.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What on earth is that outlandish thing you&rsquo;re singing,
+Herb?&rdquo; roared Neal Farrar from the bunk, awakened by the sounds.
+&ldquo;Give us that stave again&mdash;do!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The guide started. He had scarcely been aware of what he was humming, and his
+laugh was a trifle disconcerted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So you&rsquo;re waking up, are ye?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Tain&rsquo;t
+time to be stirring yet; I ought to be kicked for making such a row.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But what&rsquo;s that you were singing?&rdquo; reiterated Neal.
+&ldquo;The words weren&rsquo;t English, and they had a fine sort of
+roll.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They&rsquo;re Injun,&rdquo; was the answer. &ldquo;I guess &rsquo;twas
+all the talking I done last night that brung &rsquo;em into my head. I picked
+&rsquo;em up from that fellow I was telling you about. He&rsquo;d start
+crooning &rsquo;em whenever he looked at the stars to find out the hour.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are they about the stars?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I guess so. A city man, who had studied the redskins&rsquo; language a
+lot, told me they meant:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&lsquo;We are the stars which sing,<br/>
+We sing with our light.&rsquo;&rdquo;<a href="#fn-2" name="fnref-2"
+id="fnref-2"><sup>[2]</sup></a>
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+<a name="fn-2" id="fn-2"></a> <a href="#fnref-2">[2]</a>
+Mr. Leland&rsquo;s translation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Herb chanted the two lines again in the original tongue.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There was quite a lot more,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;but I can&rsquo;t
+remember it. I learned some queer jargon from Chris, and how to make most of
+the signs belonging to the Indian sign-talk. The fellow had more of his mother
+than his father in him. I guess I&rsquo;d better give over jabbering, and cook
+our breakfast.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was evident that Herb did not want to dwell upon his reminiscences. And Neal
+had tact enough to swallow his burning curiosity about all things Indian. He
+asked no more questions, but rolled off the fir-boughs, and dressed himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cyrus and Dol sprang up too. All three were soon busy helping forward
+preparations for the start. They packed their knapsacks with a few necessaries;
+and after a hearty breakfast had been eaten,&mdash;their last meal off
+moose-steaks for a while, as Herb informed them he &ldquo;could not carry any
+fresh meat along,&rdquo;&mdash;the guide&rsquo;s voice was heard
+shouting:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ready, are ye, boys? Got all yer traps? Here, Cyrus, jest strap this
+pack-basket on my shoulders. Now we&rsquo;re off!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The pack contained the tent, the camp-kettle, and frying-pan, together with the
+aforementioned provisions, a good axe, etc. It was an uncomfortable load, even
+for a woodsman&rsquo;s shoulders. But Herb strode ahead with it jauntily. And
+many times during that first day&rsquo;s tramp of a dozen miles, his
+comrades&mdash;as they trudged through rugged places after him, spots where it
+was hard to keep one&rsquo;s perpendicular, and feet sometimes showed a sudden
+inclination to start for the sky&mdash;threw envious glances at his tall
+figure, &ldquo;straight as an Indian arrow,&rdquo; his powerful limbs, and
+unerring step. Even the horny, capable hands came in for a share of the
+admiration.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I guess anything that got into your grip, Herb, would find it hard to
+get out again without your will,&rdquo; said Cyrus, studying the knotted fists
+which held the straps of the pack-basket.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mebbe so,&rdquo; answered the guide frankly. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve a sort of
+a trick of holding on to things once I&rsquo;ve got &rsquo;em. P&rsquo;raps
+that was why I didn&rsquo;t let go of Chris in that big blizzard till I landed
+him at camp. But I hope&rdquo;&mdash;here Herb&rsquo;s shoulders shook with
+heaving laughter, and the cooking utensils in his pack jingled an
+accompaniment&mdash;&ldquo;I hope I ain&rsquo;t like a miserly fellow we had in
+our lumber-camp. He was awful pious about some things, and awful mean about
+others. So the boys said, &lsquo;he kept the Sabbath and everything else he
+could lay his hands upon.&rsquo; He used to get riled at it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not that I&rsquo;ve a word to say against keeping Sunday,&rdquo; went on
+Herb, in a different key. &ldquo;Tell you what, out here a fellow thinks a heap
+of his day o&rsquo; rest, when his legs can stop tramping, and his mind get a
+chance to do some tall thinking. Now, boys, we&rsquo;ve covered twelve good
+miles since we left Millinokett Lake, and you needn&rsquo;t go any farther
+to-day unless you&rsquo;ve a mind to. We can make camp right here, near that
+stream. It will be nice, cold drinking-water, for it has meandered down from
+Katahdin.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He pointed to a brook a little way ahead, shimmering in the rays of the
+afternoon sun, of which they caught stray peeps through the gaps in an
+intervening wall of pines and hemlocks. A few minutes brought them to its
+brink. Tired and parched from their journey, each one stooped, and quenched his
+thirst with a delicious, ice-cold draught.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Was there ever a soda-fountain made that could give a drink to equal
+that?&rdquo; said Cyrus, smacking his lips with content. &ldquo;But listen to
+the noise this stream makes, boys. I guess if I were to lie beside it for an
+hour, I&rsquo;d think, as the Greenlanders do, that I could hear the spirits of
+the world talking through it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a mighty queer notion,&rdquo; answered Herb; &ldquo;and I
+never knew as other folks had got hold of it. But, sure&rsquo;s you live!
+I&rsquo;ve
+
+thought the same thing myself lots o&rsquo; times, when I&rsquo;ve slept by a
+forest stream. Who&rsquo;ll lend a helping hand in cutting down boughs for our
+fire and bed? I want to be pretty quick about making camp. Then we&rsquo;ll be
+able to try some moose-calling after supper.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this moment a peculiar gulping noise in Neal&rsquo;s throat drew the eyes of
+his companions upon him. His were bright and strained, peering at the opposite
+bank.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look! What is it?&rdquo; he gasped, his low voice rattling with
+excitement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A cow-moose, by thunder!&rdquo; said Herb. &ldquo;A cow-moose and a calf
+with her! Here&rsquo;s luck for ye, boys!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One moment sooner, simultaneously with Neal&rsquo;s gulp of astonishment, there
+had emerged from the thick woods on the other bank a brown, wild-looking,
+hornless creature, in size and shape resembling a big mule, followed by a
+half-grown reproduction of herself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her shaggy mane flew erect, her nostrils quivered like those of a race-horse,
+her eyes were starting with mingled panic and defiance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A snort, sudden and loud as the report of a shot-gun, made the four jump. Neal,
+who was standing on a slippery stone by the brink, lost his balance and
+staggered forward into the water, kicking up jets of shining spray. The snort
+was followed by a grunt, plaintive, distracted, which sounded oddly familiar,
+seeing that it had been so well imitated on Herb&rsquo;s horn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And with that grunt, the moose wheeled about and fled, making the air swish as
+she cut through it, followed by her young, her mane waving like a pennon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, if that ain&rsquo;t bang-up luck, I&rsquo;d like to know what
+is,&rdquo; said the guide, as he watched the departure. &ldquo;I never
+s&rsquo;posed you&rsquo;d get a chance to see a cow-moose; she&rsquo;s
+shyer&rsquo;n shy. Say! don&rsquo;t you boys think that I&rsquo;ve done her
+grunt pretty well sometimes?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That you have,&rdquo; was the general response. &ldquo;<i>We</i>
+couldn&rsquo;t tell any difference between your noise and the real
+thing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But she wasn&rsquo;t a patch on the bull-moose in appearance,&rdquo;
+lamented Dol.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No more she was, boy. Most female forest creatures ain&rsquo;t so
+good-looking as the males! And that&rsquo;s queer when you think of it, for the
+girls have the pull over us where beauty is concerned. We ain&rsquo;t in it
+with &rsquo;em, so to speak.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a big gale of laughter over Herb Real&rsquo;s gallant admiration for
+the other sex, and the sigh which accompanied his expression of it. He joined
+in the mirth himself, though he walked off to make camp, muttering:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sho! You city fellows think that because I&rsquo;m a woodsman I never
+heard of love-making in my life.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps there is a little girl at some settlement waiting for a home to
+be fixed up out of guide&rsquo;s fees,&rdquo; retorted Cyrus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And the three shouted again for no earthly reason, save that the stimulus of
+forest air and good circulation was driving the blood with fine pressure
+through their veins, and life seemed such a glorious, unfolding
+possession&mdash;full of a wonderful possible&mdash;that they must hold a sort
+of jubilee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Herb, who perhaps in his lonely hours in the woods did cherish some vision such
+as Cyrus suggested, was so infected with their spirit, that, as he swung his
+axe with a giant&rsquo;s stroke against a hemlock branch, he joined in with an
+explosive:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hurrup! Hur-r-r-rup!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This startled the trio like the bursting of a bomb, and trebled their
+excitement; for their guide, when abroad, had usually the cautious,
+well-controlled manner of the still-hunter, who never knows what chances may be
+lurking round him which he would ruin by an outcry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quit laughing, boys,&rdquo; he said, recovering prudence directly he had
+let out his yell. &ldquo;Quit laughing, I say, or we may call moose here till
+crack o&rsquo; doom without getting an answer. I guess they&rsquo;re all off to
+the four winds a&rsquo;ready, scared by our fooling.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig19.jpg" width="400" height="164" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap19"></a>Chapter XIX.<br/>Treed By a Moose</h2>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I told you so, boys,&rdquo; breathed the guide two hours later, with an
+overwhelming sigh of regret, after he had given his most fetching calls in
+vain. &ldquo;I told you so. There ain&rsquo;t anything bigger&rsquo;n a
+buck-rabbit travelling. That tormented row we made scared every moose within
+hearing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Herb was standing on the ground, horn in hand, screened by the great shadows of
+a clump of hemlocks; the three were perched upon branches high above him, a
+safe post of observation if any moose had answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You may as well light down now,&rdquo; he continued, turning his face
+up, though the boys were invisible; &ldquo;I ain&rsquo;t a-going to try any
+more music to-night. I guess we&rsquo;ll stretch ourselves for sleep early, to
+get ready for a good day&rsquo;s work to-morrow. An eight-mile tramp will bring
+us to the first heavy growth about the foot of Katahdin, and I&rsquo;ll promise
+you a sight of a moose there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His companions dropped to earth; and the four sought the shelter of their tent,
+which had been pitched a few hundred yards from the calling-place. Some dull
+embers smouldered before it; for Herb, even while preparing supper, had kept
+the camp-fire very low, lest any wandering clouds of smoke should interfere
+with the success of his calling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now he heaped it high, throwing on without stint withered hemlock boughs and
+massive logs, which were soon wrapped in a sheet of flame, making an isle of
+light amid a surrounding sea of impenetrable darkness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Many times during the night the watchful fellow arose to replenish this fire,
+so that there might be no decrease in the flood of heat which entered the tent,
+and kept his charges comfortable. Once, while he was so engaged, the placid
+sleepers whom he had noiselessly quitted were aroused to terror&mdash;sudden,
+bewildering night-terror&mdash;by a gasping cry from his lips, followed by the
+leaping and rushing of some brute in flight, and by a screech which was one
+defiant note of unutterable savagery.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good heavens! What&rsquo;s that?&rdquo; said Cyrus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is it&mdash;can it&mdash;could it be a panther?&rdquo; stammered Dol.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Get out!&rdquo; answered Neal contemptuously. &ldquo;The panthers have
+got out long ago, so every one says.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A lynx! A Canada lynx, boys, as sure as death and taxes!&rdquo; panted
+Herb Heal, springing into the tent on the instant, with a burning brand in his
+hand. &ldquo;&rsquo;Tain&rsquo;t any use your tumbling out, for you won&rsquo;t
+see him. He&rsquo;s away in the thick of the woods now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cyrus gurgled inarticulate disappointment. At the first two words he had sprung
+to his legs, having never encountered a lynx.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The brute must have been prowling round our tent,&rdquo; went on Herb,
+his voice thick from excitement. &ldquo;He leaped past me just as I was
+stooping to fix the fire, and startled me so that I guess I hollered. He got
+about half a dozen yards off, then turned and crouched as if he was going to
+spring back. Luckily, the axe was lying by me, just where I had tossed it down
+after chopping the last heap of logs. I caught it up, and flung it at him. It
+struck him on the side, and curled him up. I thought he was badly hurt; but he
+jumped the next moment, screeched, and made off. A pleasant scream he has;
+sounds kind o&rsquo; cheerful at night, don&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No one answered this sarcasm; and Herb flung himself again upon his boughs,
+pulling his worn blanket round him, determined not to relinquish his
+night&rsquo;s sleep because a lynx had visited his camp. The city fellows
+sensibly tried to follow his example; but again and again one of them would
+shake himself, and rise stealthily, convinced that he heard the blood-curdling
+screech ringing through the silent night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was nearly morning before fatigue at last overmastered every sensation, and
+the three fell into an unbroken sleep, which lasted until the sun was high in
+the sky. When they awoke, their sense of smell was the first sense to be
+tickled. Fragrant odors of boiling coffee were floating into the tent. One
+after another they scrambled up, threw on their coats, and hurried out to find
+their guide kneeling by the camp-fire on the very spot from which he had hurled
+his axe at the lynx a few hours before. But now his right hand held a green
+stick, on which he was toasting some slices of pork into crisp, appetizing
+curls.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Morning, boys!&rdquo; he said, as the trio appeared. &ldquo;Hope
+your early rising won&rsquo;t opset ye! If you want to dip your faces in the
+stream, do it quick, for these dodgers are cooked.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The &ldquo;dodgers&rdquo; were the familiar flapjacks. Herb set down his stick
+as he spoke to turn a batch of them, which were steaming on the frying-pan,
+tossing them high in air as he did so, with a dexterous turn of his wrist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boys having performed hasty ablutions in the stream, devoted themselves to
+their breakfast with a hearty will. There was little leisure for discussing the
+midnight visit of the lynx, or for anything but the joys of satisfying hunger,
+and taking in nutrition for the day&rsquo;s tramp, as Herb was in a hurry to
+break camp, and start on for Katahdin. The morning was very calm; there seemed
+no chance of a wind springing up, so the evening would probably be a choice one
+for moose-calling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In half an hour the band was again on the march, the business of breaking camp
+being a swift one. The tent was on Herb&rsquo;s shoulders; and naught was left
+to mark the visit of man to the humming stream but a bed of withering boughs on
+which the lynx might sleep to-night, and a few dying embers which the guide had
+thrashed out with his feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No halt was made until four o&rsquo;clock in the afternoon. Then Herb Heal came
+to a standstill on the edge of a wide bog. It lay between him and what he
+called the &ldquo;first heavy growth;&rdquo; that is, the primeval forest,
+unthinned by axe of man, which at certain points clothes the foot of Katahdin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The great mountain, dwelling-place of Pamolah, cradle of the flying Thunder and
+flashing Lightning, which according to one Indian legend are the swooping sons
+of the Mountain Spirit, now towered before the travellers, its base only a mile
+distant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve a good mind to make camp right here,&rdquo; said Herb,
+surveying the bog and then the firm earth on which he stood. &ldquo;We may
+travel a longish ways farther, and not strike such a fair camping-ground,
+unless we go on up the side of the mountain to that old home-camp I was telling
+you about, which we built when we were trapping. I guess it&rsquo;s standing
+yet, and &rsquo;twould be a snug shelter; but we&rsquo;d have a hard pull to
+reach it this evening. What d&rsquo;ye say, boys?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I vote for pitching the tent right here,&rdquo; answered Cyrus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The English boys were of the same mind, and the guide forthwith unstrapped his
+heavy pack-basket. As he hauled forth its contents, and strewed them on the
+ground, the first article which made its appearance was the moose-horn; it had
+been carefully stowed in on top. Dol snatched it up as a dog might snatch a
+bone, and touched it with longing in every finger-tip.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s one bad thing about this place,&rdquo; grumbled Herb
+presently, surveying the landscape wherever his eye could travel, &ldquo;there
+isn&rsquo;t a pint of drinking-water to be seen. There may be pools here and
+there in that bog; but, unless we want to keel over before morning, we&rsquo;d
+better let &rsquo;em alone. Say! could a couple of you fellows take the
+camp-kettle, and cruise about a bit in search of a spring?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I volunteer for the job!&rdquo; cried Dol instantly, with the light of
+some sudden idea shining like a sunburst in his face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t budge a step, old man, unless I go with you,&rdquo; said
+Cyrus. &ldquo;Not much! I don&rsquo;t want to patrol the forests like a lunatic
+for five mortal hours in search of you, and then find you roasting your shins
+by some other fellow&rsquo;s camp-fire. One little hide-and-seek game of that
+kind was enough.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well! the fact that I did bring up by Doc&rsquo;s camp-fire shows that I
+am able to take care of myself. If I get into scrapes, I can wriggle out of
+them again,&rdquo; maintained the kid of the camp, with a brazen look, while
+his eyes showed flinty sparks, caused by the inspiring purpose hidden behind
+them, which had little to do with water-carrying.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why can&rsquo;t you both go without any more palaver?&rdquo; suggested
+Herb, as he started away towards a belt of young firs to cut stakes for the
+tent. &ldquo;Cruise straight across the bog, mark your track by the bushes as
+you go &rsquo;long, don&rsquo;t get into the woods at all, and &rsquo;twill be
+plain sailing. I guess you&rsquo;ll strike a spring before very long.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cyrus caught up the camp-kettle, and stepped out briskly over the springy,
+spongy ground. Dol Farrar followed him. The two were half-way across the bog
+before the elder noticed that the younger was carrying something. It was the
+moose-horn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If we run across any moose-signs, I&rsquo;m going to try a call,&rdquo;
+said Dol, his strike-a-light eyes fairly blazing while he disclosed
+
+his purpose. &ldquo;You may laugh, Cy, and call me a greenhorn; but I bet you
+I&rsquo;ll get an answer, at least if there&rsquo;s a bull-moose within two
+miles.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s pretty cheerful,&rdquo; retorted the Boston man;
+&ldquo;especially as neither of us has brought a rifle. Mr. Moose may be at
+home, and give you an answer; but there&rsquo;s no telling what sort of temper
+he&rsquo;ll be in.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I left my Winchester leaning against a tree on the
+camping-ground,&rdquo; said the would-be caller regretfully. &ldquo;But you
+know you wouldn&rsquo;t fire on him, Cy, unless he came near making mince-meat
+of us. If he should charge, we could make a dash for the nearest trees.
+Let&rsquo;s risk it if we run across any tracks!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And in the meantime, Herb will be wondering where we are, vowing
+vengeance on us, and waiting for the kettle while we&rsquo;re waiting for the
+moose,&rdquo; argued Garst. &ldquo;It won&rsquo;t do, Chick. Give it up until
+later on. We undertook the job of finding water, and we&rsquo;re bound to
+finish that business first.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I wait until later on, I may wait forever,&rdquo; was the boy&rsquo;s
+gloomy protest. &ldquo;Tonight, when Herb is there, Neal and you will just sit
+on me, and be afraid of my making a wrong sound, and spoiling the sport.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I <i>know</i> we&rsquo;ll see moose-tracks before we get back to
+camp!&rdquo; wound up the young pleader passionately. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been
+working up to it all day. I mean I&rsquo;ve felt as if
+something&mdash;something fine&mdash;was going to happen, which would make a
+ripping story for the Manchester fellows when we go home. Do let me have one
+chance, Cy,&mdash;one fair and honest chance!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was such a tremendous force of desire working through the English boy
+that it set his blood boiling, and every bit of him in motion. His eyes were
+afire, his eyelids shut and opened with their quick snap, his lips moved after
+he had finished speaking, his fingers twitched upon the moose-horn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was a picture of heart-eagerness which Cyrus could not resist, though he
+shook with laughter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll take mighty good care that the next time I go to find water
+for the camp-supper, I don&rsquo;t take a crank with me, who has gone mad on
+moose-calling,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;See here! If we do come across
+moose-signs, I&rsquo;ll get under cover, and give you quarter of an hour to
+call and listen for an answer&mdash;not a second longer. Now stop thinking
+about this fad, and keep your eyes open for a spring.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But, unfortunately, this seemed to be a thirsty and tantalizing land for
+travellers. The soft sod under their feet oozed moisture; slimy, stagnant
+bog-pools appeared, but not a drop of pure, gushing water, to which a parched
+man dare touch his lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They crossed the wide extent of bog, Cyrus breaking off stunted bushes here and
+there to mark his pilgrimage; they reached the dense timber-growth at the base
+of the mountain, longing for the sight of a spring as eagerly as ever pilgrims
+yearned to behold a healing well; but their search was unsuccessful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Decidedly nonplussed, Dol all the time keeping one eye on the lookout for water
+and the other for moose-signs, they took counsel together, and determined to
+&ldquo;cruise&rdquo; to the right, skirting the foot of Katahdin, hoping to
+find a gurgling, rumbling mountain-torrent splashing down. Having travelled
+about half a mile in this new direction, with the giant woods which they dared
+not enter rising like an emerald wall on the one hand, and the dreary bog-land
+on the other, they at last, when patience was failing, came to a change in the
+landscape.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The desired water was not in view yet; but the bog gave way to fairer, firmer
+ground, covered with waving grasses, studded with rising knolls, and having no
+timber growth, save stray clumps of birches and hemlocks, several hundred yards
+apart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, this is jolly!&rdquo; exclaimed Dol. &ldquo;This looks a little bit
+like an English lawn, only I&rsquo;m afraid it&rsquo;s not a likely place for
+moose-tracks. But I&rsquo;m glad to be out of that beastly bog.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Confusion to your moose-tracks,&rdquo; ejaculated Cyrus, half
+exasperated. &ldquo;I wish we could find a well. That would be more to the
+purpose. Listen, Dol, do you hear anything?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hear&mdash;I hear&mdash;&rsquo;pon my word! I <i>do</i> hear the
+bubbling and tinkling of water somewhere! Where on earth is it? Oh! I know. It
+comes from that knoll over there&mdash;the one with the bushes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol Farrar, as he finished his jerky sentences, pointed to an eminence which
+was two or three hundred yards from where they stood, and a like distance from
+the wall of forest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well! It&rsquo;s about time we struck something at last,&rdquo; grumbled
+Garst. &ldquo;Catch me ever coming on a water pilgrimage again!
+
+I&rsquo;ll let Herb fill his own kettle in future. Now, I believe that fellow
+could smell a spring.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just as I smelt this one!&rdquo; exclaimed Dol triumphantly. &ldquo;I
+told you &rsquo;twas on the side of the knoll. And here it is!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bravo, Chick! You&rsquo;ve got good ears, if you are crazy upon one
+subject.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And so speaking, Cyrus, with a chuckle of joy, unslung the tin drinking-cup
+which hung at his belt, filled and refilled it, drinking long, inspiriting
+draughts before he prepared to fill the camp-kettle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The best water I ever tasted, Dol!&rdquo; he exclaimed, smacking his
+lips. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s ice-cold. There&rsquo;s not much of it, but it has
+quality, if not quantity.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The long-sought well was, in truth, a tiny one. It came bubbling up, clear and
+pellucid, from the bowels of the earth, and showed its laughing face amid a
+cluster of bushes&mdash;which all bent close to look at it
+lovingly&mdash;half-way up the knoll. A wee stream trickled down from
+it,&mdash;dribble&mdash;dribble&mdash;a rivulet that had once been twice its
+present size, judging from the wide margin of spattered clay at each side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol had been following his companion&rsquo;s example, and drinking joyfully
+before thinking of aught else. When the moment came for him to straighten his
+back, and rise upon his legs, instead of this natural proceeding, he suddenly
+crouched close to the ground, his breath coming in quick puffs, his eyes
+dilating, a froth of excitement on his lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What on earth are you staring at?&rdquo; asked Cyrus. &ldquo;You look
+positively crazy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For answer, the English boy shot up from his lowly posture, seized his
+companion by the arm, making him drop the camp-kettle, which he was just
+filling, and forced him to scan the soft clay by the rivulet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look there&mdash;and there!&rdquo; gurgled Dol, his voice sounding as if
+he was being choked by suppressed hilarity. &ldquo;I told you we&rsquo;d find
+them, and you didn&rsquo;t believe me! Aren&rsquo;t those moose-tracks?
+They&rsquo;re not deer-tracks, anyhow; they&rsquo;re too big. I may be a
+greenhorn, but I know that much.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They <i>are</i> moose-tracks,&rdquo; Cyrus answered slowly, almost
+unbelievingly, though the evidence was before him. &ldquo;They certainly are
+moose-tracks,&rdquo; he repeated, &ldquo;and very recent ones too. A moose has
+been drinking here, perhaps not half an hour ago. He can&rsquo;t be far
+away.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Garst was now warming into excitement himself. His bass tones became guttural
+and almost inarticulate, while he lowered them to prevent their travelling. On
+the reddish clay at his feet were foot-marks very like the prints of a large
+mastiff. He studied them one by one, even tracing the outline with his
+forefinger.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I&rsquo;m going to call,&rdquo; whispered Dol, his words tremulous
+and stifled. &ldquo;Lie low, Cy! You promised you&rsquo;d give me a fair
+chance; you&rsquo;ll have to keep your word.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll do it too,&rdquo; was the answering whisper. &ldquo;But
+let&rsquo;s get higher up on the knoll, behind those big bushes at the top. And
+listen, Dol, if a moose makes a noise anywhere near, we must scoot for the
+trees before he comes out from cover. I&rsquo;ve got to answer to your father
+for you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was an intense moment in Dol Farrar&rsquo;s life; sensation reached its
+highest pitch, as he crouched low behind a prickly screen, put the birch-bark
+horn to his mouth, and slowly breathed through it with the full power of his
+young lungs, marvellously strengthened by the forest life of past weeks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a minute&rsquo;s interval while he removed it again, and drew in all
+the air he could contain. Then a call rose upon the evening air, so touching,
+so plaintive, with such a rising, quavering impatience as it surged out towards
+the woods,&mdash;whither the boy-caller&rsquo;s face was turned,&mdash;that
+Cyrus could scarcely suppress a &ldquo;Bravo!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The summons died away in a piteous grunt. A second time the call rose and fell.
+On the third repetition it broke off, as usual, in an abrupt roar, which seemed
+to strike the tops of the giant trees, and boom among them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A froth was on Dol Farrar&rsquo;s lips, his eyes were reddened, he puffed hard
+through spread nostrils, like a young horse which has been trying its mettle
+for the first time, as he lowered that moose-horn, lifted his head, and cocked
+his ears to listen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two soundless minutes passed. Dol, who, if he had mastered the hunter&rsquo;s
+call, had certainly not mastered his patience, put the bark-trumpet again to
+his lips, determined to try the effect of a surpassingly expressive grunt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But he never executed this false movement, which would have given away the
+trick at once.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A bellow&mdash;a short, snorting, challenging bellow&mdash;burst the silence,
+coming from the very edge of the woods. It brought Cyrus to his feet with a
+jump. It so startled the ambitious moose-caller, that, in rising hurriedly from
+his squatting position, he lost his balance, and rolled over and over to the
+bottom of the knoll, smashing the horn into a hundred pieces.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He picked himself up unhurt, but with a sensation as if all the bells in
+Christendom were doing a jumbled ringing in his head. And loud above this
+inward din he heard the sound, so well remembered, as of an axe striking
+repeatedly against a tree, the terrible chopping noises of a bull-moose, not
+two hundred yards away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No sooner had he scrambled to his legs, than Garst was at his side, gripping
+his arm, and forcing him forward at a headlong run.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve done it this time with a vengeance!&rdquo; bawled the
+Bostonian. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s coming for us straight! And we without our rifles!
+The trees! The trees! It&rsquo;s our only chance!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With the belling still in his head, and so bewildered by his terrible success
+that he felt as if his senses were shooting off hither and thither like
+rockets, leaving him mad, Dol nevertheless ran as he had never run before,
+shoulder to shoulder with his comrade, dashing
+
+wildly for a clump of hemlocks over a hundred yards distant. Yet, for the life
+of him, he could not help glancing back once over his shoulder, to see the
+creature which he had humbugged, luring it from its forest shelter, and which
+now pursued him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The moose was charging after them full tilt, gaining rapidly too, his long thin
+legs, enormous antlers, broad, upreared nose, and the green glare in his
+starting eyes, making him look like some strange animal of a former earth. Dol
+at last trembled with actual fear. He gave a shuddering leap, and forced his
+legs, which seemed threatened with paralysis, to wilder speed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Climb up that hemlock! Get as high as you can!&rdquo; shrieked Cyrus,
+stopping to give him an upward shove as they reached the first friendly trunk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol obeyed. Gasping and wild-eyed, he dug his nails into the bark, clambering
+up somehow until he reached a forked branch about eight feet from the ground.
+Here strength failed. He could only cling dizzily, feeling that he hung between
+life and death.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The moose was now snorting like a war-horse beneath. The brute stood off for a
+minute, then charged the hemlock furiously, and butted it with his antlers till
+it shook to its roots, the sharp prongs of those terrible horns coming within
+half an inch of Dol&rsquo;s feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With a gurgle of horror the boy tried to reach a higher limb, and succeeded;
+for at the same moment a timely shout encouraged him. Cyrus was bawling at the
+top of his voice from a tree ten feet distant:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you all right, Dol? Don&rsquo;t be scared. Hold on like grim death,
+and we can laugh at the old termagant now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m&mdash;I&rsquo;m all right,&rdquo; sang out Dol, though his
+voice shook, as did every twig of his hemlock, which the moose was assaulting
+again. &ldquo;But he&rsquo;s frantic to get at me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never mind. He can&rsquo;t do it, you know. Only don&rsquo;t you go
+turning dizzy or losing your balance. Ha! you old spindle-legged monster, stand
+off from that tree. Take a turn at mine now, for a change. You can&rsquo;t
+shake me down, if you butt till midnight.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Garst&rsquo;s last sentences were hurled at the moose. The Bostonian, having
+reached a safe height, thrust his face out from his screen of branches, waving
+first an arm, and then a leg, at the besieging foe, hoping that the force of
+those battering antlers would be directed against his hemlock, so that his
+friend&rsquo;s nerves might get a chance to recover.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The ruse succeeded. The moose, reminded that there was a second enemy, charged
+the other tree; stood off for a minute to get breath, then charged it again,
+snorting, bellowing, and knocking his jaws together with a crunching, chopping
+noise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ha! that&rsquo;s how he makes the row like a man with an axe&mdash;by
+hammering his jaws on each other. Well, well! but this is a regular picnic,
+Dol,&rdquo; sang out Cyrus jubilantly, caring nothing for the shocks, and
+forgetting camp, water, peril, everything, in his joy at getting a chance to
+leisurely study the creature he had come so far to visit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I owe you something for this, little man!&rdquo; he carolled on in
+triumph, as he watched every wild movement of the moose. &ldquo;This is a show
+we&rsquo;ll only see once in our lives. It&rsquo;s worth a hundred dollars a
+performance. Butt and snort till you&rsquo;re tired, you &lsquo;Awful
+Jabberwock!&rsquo;&rdquo;&mdash;this to the bull-moose. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve come
+hundreds of miles to see you, and the more you carry on the better we&rsquo;ll
+be pleased.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Indeed, the wrathful king of forests seemed in no hurry to cut short his
+pantomime. He ramped and raged, tearing from one tree to another, expending
+paroxysms of force in vain attempts to overturn one or the other of them. The
+ground seemed to shake under his thundering hoofs. His eyes were full of green
+fire; his nostrils twitched; the black tassel or &ldquo;bell&rdquo; hanging
+from his shaggy throat shook with every angry movement; his muffle, the big
+overhanging upper lip, was spotted with foam.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As he gulped, grunted, snorted, and roared, his uncouth, guttural noises made
+him seem more than ever like a curious creature of earth&rsquo;s earliest ages.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We came pretty near to being goners, Dol, I tell you!&rdquo; carolled
+Cyrus again from his high perch in the hemlock, carrying on a by-play with the
+enemy between each sentence. &ldquo;How in the name of wonder did you manage
+such a call? It would have moved the heart-strings of any moose. I was lying
+flat, you know, peeping through a little gap in the bushes, and you had
+scarcely taken the horn from your mouth when I saw the old fellow come stamping
+out of the woods. My! wasn&rsquo;t he a sight? He stood for a minute looking
+about for the fancied cow; then he bellowed, and started towards the knoll. I
+knew we had better run for our lives. As soon as he saw us he gave
+chase.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And &lsquo;the fancied cow&rsquo; should go tumbling down the knoll like
+a rolling jackass, and smash that grand horn to bits!&rdquo; lamented Dol, who
+now sat serenely on his bough, with a firm clasp of the hemlock trunk, and a
+reckless enjoyment of the situation which far surpassed his companion&rsquo;s.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cyrus began to have an occasional twinge of uneasiness about the possible
+length of the siege, after his first exuberance subsided; but the younger boy,
+his short terror overcome, had no misgivings. He coquetted with the moose
+through a thick screen of foliage, shook the branches at him, gibed and taunted
+him, enjoying the extra fury he aroused.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But suddenly the old bull, having kept up his wild movements for nearly an
+hour, resolved on a change of tactics. He stood stock-still and lowered his
+head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Goodness! He has made up his mind to &lsquo;stick us out!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+gasped Cyrus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s that?&rdquo; said Dol.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you see? He&rsquo;s going to lay siege in good
+earnest&mdash;wait till we&rsquo;re forced to come down. Here&rsquo;s a state
+of things! We can&rsquo;t roost in these trees all night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The hemlocks were throwing ever-lengthening shadows on the grass. A slow
+eclipse was stealing over everything. The motionless moose became an uncouth
+black shape. Garst muttered uneasily. His fingers tingled for his rifle&mdash;a
+very unusual thing with him. His eyes peered through the creeping darkness in
+puzzled search for some suggestion, some possibility of escape.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If it were only myself!&rdquo; he whispered, as if talking to his
+hemlock. &ldquo;If it were only myself, I wouldn&rsquo;t care a pin.
+&rsquo;Twould do me no great harm to perch here for hours. But an English
+youngster, on his first camping-trip! Why, the chill of a forest night might
+ruin him. He wouldn&rsquo;t howl or make a fuss, for both those Farrar boys
+have lots of grit, but he&rsquo;d never get over it. Dol!&rdquo; he wound up,
+raising his voice to a sharp pitch. &ldquo;Say, Dol, I&rsquo;m going to try a
+shout for help. Herb must be getting anxious about us by this time. If we could
+once make him hear, he could try some trick to lure this old curmudgeon away,
+or creep up and shoot him. Something must be done.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fetching a deep breath, Cyrus sent a distance-piercing &ldquo;Coo-hoo!&rdquo;
+ringing through the night-air. He followed it with another.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But, so far as he could hear, the hails fetched no answer, save from the
+moose-jailer. The brute was stirred into a fresh tantrum by the noise. He
+charged the hemlocks once more, butted and shook them like a veritable demon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When his paroxysm had subsided, and he stood off to get breath, Garst hailed
+again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Glad sound! An answer this time! First, a shrill, long &ldquo;Coo-hoo!&rdquo;
+Next, Herb&rsquo;s voice was heard pealing from far away in the bog:
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s up, boys? Where in the world are you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here in the trees&mdash;treed by a bull-moose!&rdquo; yelled Cyrus.
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s the maddest old monster you ever saw. Could you coax him off,
+or sneak up and shoot him? He means to keep us prisoners all night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was no wordy answer. But presently the treed heroes heard an odd,
+bird-like whistle. Dol thought it came from a feathered creature; his more
+experienced companion guessed that the guide&rsquo;s lips gave it as a signal
+that he was coming, but that he didn&rsquo;t want to draw the moose&rsquo;s
+attention in his direction just yet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such a quarter of an hour followed! With the fresh spurt of anger the
+bull-moose became more savage than ever. He grunted, tramped, and hooked the
+trees with his horns, so that the pair who were perched like night-birds on the
+branches had to hold on for dear life, lest a surprising shock should dislodge
+them. Whenever the creature stood off, to gather more fury, they could have
+counted their heart-beats while they listened, breathlessly anxious to, know
+what action the approaching woodsman would take.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once Cyrus spoke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dol Farrar,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I guess this caps all the adventures
+that you or I have had up to date. No wonder you felt all day as if you were
+working up to something. I&rsquo;ll believe in presentiments in future.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The words had scarcely passed his lips, when there was the sharp bang! bang! of
+a rifle not twenty yards distant. A bright sputter of fire cut the darkness
+beneath the hemlocks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The moose&rsquo;s blind rage threatened to be his own undoing. While he was
+fighting an imaginary danger, ears and nostrils half-choked by fury, through
+the calm night Herb Heal, Winchester in hand, had crept noiselessly on, till he
+reached the very trees which sheltered his friends.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once, twice, three times the rifle snapped. The first shot missed altogether.
+At the second, the moose rose upon his hind-legs, with a sharp sound of fright
+and pain, quite unlike his former noises. Then he gave a quick jump.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Great Governor&rsquo;s Ghost! he&rsquo;s gone;&rdquo; yelled Cyrus, who
+had swung himself down a few feet, and was hanging by one arm, in his anxiety
+to see the result of the firing. &ldquo;You needn&rsquo;t shoot again, Herb!
+He&rsquo;s off! Let him go!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I guess that second shot cut some hair from him, and drew blood
+too,&rdquo; answered Herb, his deep voice giving the pair a queer sensation as
+they heard it right beneath. &ldquo;It was too dark to see plain, but I think
+he reared; and that&rsquo;s a sign that he was hurt, little or much.
+Don&rsquo;t drop down for a minute, boys, till we see whether he has bolted for
+good.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig20.jpg" width="400" height="164" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap20"></a>Chapter XX.<br/>Triumph</h2>
+
+<p>
+He had bolted for good, vanished into the mysterious deeps of the primeval
+forest, whether hurt unto death, or merely &ldquo;nipped&rdquo; in a fore-leg,
+as Herb inclined to think, nobody knew.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s too dark to see blood-marks, if there are any, so we
+can&rsquo;t trail him to-night. If he&rsquo;s hit bad&mdash;but I guess he
+ain&rsquo;t&mdash;we can track him in the morning,&rdquo; said the guide; as,
+after an interval of listening, the rescued pair dropped down from their
+perches. &ldquo;Did he chase you, boys? Where on earth did you come on
+him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Talking together, their words tumbling out like a torrent let loose, Cyrus
+Garst and Dol Farrar gave an account of the past two hours&mdash;strangest
+hours of their lives&mdash;filling up the picture of them bit by bit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Whew! whew! You did have a narrow squeak, boys, and a scarey time; but I
+guess you had a lot of fun out of the old snorter,&rdquo; said Herb, his rare
+laugh jingling out, starting the forest echoes like a clang of bells.
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve won those antlers, Dol&mdash;won &rsquo;em like a man.
+Blest, but you have! I promised &rsquo;em to the first fellow who called up a
+moose; and nary a woodsman in Maine could have done it better. I&rsquo;m
+powerful glad &rsquo;twasn&rsquo;t your own death-call you gave. I&rsquo;ll
+keep my eye on you now till you leave these woods. Where&rsquo;s the
+horn?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Smashed to bits,&rdquo; answered Dol regretfully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the camp-kettle?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Lying by the spring, over there on the knoll, unless the moose kicked it
+to pieces,&rdquo; said Cyrus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My senses! you&rsquo;re a healthy pair to send for water, ain&rsquo;t
+ye? Let&rsquo;s cruise off and find it. I guess you&rsquo;ll be wanting a drink
+of hot coffee, after roosting in them trees for so long.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Garst led the way to the spring. Its pretty hum sounded like an angel&rsquo;s
+whisper through the night, after the tumult of the past scene. Herb fumbled in
+his leather wallet, brought out a match and a small piece of birch-bark, and
+kindled a light. With some groping, the kettle was found; it was filled, and
+the party started for camp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I heard the distant challenge of a bull-moose a couple of hours
+ago,&rdquo; said the guide, as they went along. &ldquo;I never suspicioned he
+was attacking you; but after the camp was a&rsquo; ready, and you hadn&rsquo;t
+turned up, I got kind o&rsquo; scared. I left Neal to tend the fire and toast
+the pork, and started out to search. I s&rsquo;pose I took the wrong direction;
+for I hollered, and got no answer. Afterwards, when I was travelling about the
+bog, I heard a &lsquo;Coo-hoo!&rsquo; and the noises of an angry moose. Then I
+guessed there was trouble.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Won&rsquo;t Neal look blue when he hears that he was toasting pork while
+we were perched in those trees, with the moose waltzing below!&rdquo; exclaimed
+Dol. &ldquo;Well, Cy, I&rsquo;ve won the antlers, and I&rsquo;ve got my ripping
+story for the Manchester fellows. I don&rsquo;t care how soon we turn home
+now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t, don&rsquo;t ye?&rdquo; said the guide. &ldquo;Well, I
+should s&rsquo;pose you&rsquo;d want to trail up that moose to-morrow, and see
+what has become of him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course I do! I forgot that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Dol Farrar, who had thought his record of adventure and triumph so full
+that it could hold no more, realized that there is always for ambition a
+farther point.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Neal did feel a little blue over the thought of what he had missed. But, being
+a generous-hearted fellow, he tasted his young brother&rsquo;s joy, when the
+latter cuddled close to him upon the evergreen boughs that night, muttering, as
+if the whole earth lay conquered at his feet:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My legs are as stiff as ramrods, but who&rsquo;d think of his legs after
+such a night as we&rsquo;ve had?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say, Neal, this is life; the little humbugging scrapes we used to call
+adventures at home are only play for girls. It&rsquo;s something to talk about
+for a lifetime, when a fellow comes to close quarters with a creature like that
+moose. I said I&rsquo;d get the better of his ears, and I did it. Pinch me, old
+boy, if I begin a moose-call in my sleep.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Several times during the night Neal found it necessary to obey this injunction,
+else had there been no peace in the camp. But, in spite of Dol&rsquo;s ravings
+and riotings in his excited dreams, the party enjoyed a needed ten hours&rsquo;
+slumber, all save Herb, who, as usual, was astir the next morning while his
+comrades were yet snoring.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He got his fire going well, and baked a great flat loaf of bread in his
+frying-pan, setting the pan amid hot ashes and covering it over. Previous to
+this, he had made a pilgrimage to the distant spring, to fill his kettle for
+coffee and bread-making, and had carefully examined the ground about the clump
+of hemlocks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The result of his investigation was given to the boys as they ate their
+breakfast under the shade of a cedar, with a sky above them whose morning
+glories were here and there overshot by leaden tints.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I guess we&rsquo;ve got a pretty fair chance of trailing that
+moose,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I found both hair and blood on the spot where he
+was wounded. I&rsquo;m for following up his tracks, though I guess
+they&rsquo;ll take us a bit up the mountain. If he&rsquo;s hurt bad,
+&rsquo;twould be kind o&rsquo; merciful to end his sufferings. If he
+ain&rsquo;t, we can let him get off.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Right, as you always are, Herb,&rdquo; answered Cyrus. &ldquo;But what
+on earth made the creature bolt so suddenly? If you had seen him five minutes
+before he was shot, you&rsquo;d have said he had as much fight in him as a
+lion.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the way with moose a&rsquo;most always. Their courage
+ain&rsquo;t that o&rsquo; flesh-eating animals. It&rsquo;s only a spurt; though
+it&rsquo;s a pretty big spurt sometimes, as you boys know now. It&rsquo;ll fail
+&rsquo;em in a minute, when you least expect it. And, you see, that one last
+night didn&rsquo;t know where his wound came from. I guess he thought he was
+struck by lightning or a thunder-ball, so he skipped. Talking of thunder-balls,
+boys,&rdquo; wound up Herb, &ldquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t be surprised if the old
+Mountain Spirit, who lives up a-top there, gave us a rattling welcome with his
+thunders to-day. The air is awful heavy for this time of year. Perhaps
+we&rsquo;d better give up the trailing after all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nonsense!&rdquo; exclaimed Dol indignantly. &ldquo;Do you think a shower
+will melt us? Or that we&rsquo;ll squeal like girls at a few flashes of
+lightning? &rsquo;Twould be jolly good fun to see old Pamolah sending off his
+artillery.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, there&rsquo;d be no special danger, I guess, if we were past the
+heavy timber growth before the storm began. There&rsquo;s lots of rocky dens on
+the mountain side where we could shelter under a granite ledge, and be safer
+than we&rsquo;d be here in tent. Or we might come a-near our old log camp. I
+guess, if that&rsquo;s standing yet, you&rsquo;d like to see it. Say!
+we&rsquo;ll leave it to Cyrus. He&rsquo;s boss, ain&rsquo;t he?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cyrus, desperately anxious to know whether it would be life or death for the
+wounded moose, and regarding the signs of bad weather as by no means certain,
+decided in favor of the expedition. The campers hurriedly swallowed the
+remainder of their breakfast, and made ready for an immediate start.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In trailing a moose the first rule is: go as light as you can; that is,
+don&rsquo;t carry an ounce more stuff than is necessary. Even a man&rsquo;s
+rifle is apt to get in his way when he has to scramble over windfalls, or slump
+between big bowlders of rock, which a&rsquo;most tear the clothes off his back.
+And we may have to do some pretty tall climbing. So leave all your traps in the
+tent, boys; I&rsquo;ll fasten it down tight. There won&rsquo;t be any human
+robbers prowling around, you bet! Bears and coons are the only burglars of
+these woods, and they don&rsquo;t do much mischief in daytime.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The guide rapidly gave these directions, his breezy voice setting a current of
+energy astir, like a wind-gust cutting through a quiet grove, while he rolled
+his indispensable axe, some bread that was left from the meal, and a lump of
+pork into a little bundle, which he strapped on his back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;if that trail should give us a long tramp,
+or if you boys should take a notion to go a good ways up Katahdin, or anything
+turns up to hinder our getting back to camp till nightfall, I&rsquo;ve our
+snack right here. I can light a fire in two minutes, to toast our pork; and
+we&rsquo;ll wash it down with mountain water, the best drink for climbers. I
+could rig you up a snug shelter, too, in case of accidents. A woodsman
+ain&rsquo;t in it without his axe.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To what strange work that axe would be put ere night again closed its shutters
+over granite peaks and evergreen forest, Herb Heal little knew; nor could he
+have guessed that the coming hours would make the most heart-stirring day of
+his stirring life. If he could, would he have started out this morning with a
+happy-go-lucky whistle, softly modulated on his lips, and no more sober burden
+on his mind than the trail of that moose?
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig21.jpg" width="400" height="163" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap21"></a>Chapter XXI.<br/>On Katahdin</h2>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;See there, boys, I told you so,&rdquo; said Herb, as the party reached
+the ever-to-be-remembered clump of hemlocks, the beginning of the trail which
+they were ready to follow up like sleuth-hounds. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s plenty of
+hair; I guess I singed him in two places.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He pointed to some shaggy clotted locks on the grass at his feet, and then to a
+small maroon-colored stain beside them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is that blood?&rdquo; asked Neal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Blood, sure enough, though there ain&rsquo;t much of it. But I&rsquo;ll
+tell you what! I&rsquo;d as soon there wasn&rsquo;t any. I wish it had been
+light enough last night for me to act barber, and
+
+only cut some hair from that moose, instead of wounding him. It might have
+answered the purpose as well, and sent him walking.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe it would have done anything of the kind,&rdquo;
+exclaimed Dol. &ldquo;He was far too red-hot an old customer to bolt because a
+bullet shaved him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I don&rsquo;t set up to be soft-hearted like Cyrus here; and
+I&rsquo;m ready enough to bag my meat when I want it,&rdquo; said the woodsman.
+&ldquo;But sure&rsquo;s you live, boys, I never wounded a free game creature
+yet, and seed it get away to pull a hurt limb and a cruel pain with it through
+the woods, that I could feel chipper afterwards. It&rsquo;s only your delicate
+city fellows who come out here for a shot once a year, who can chuckle over the
+pools of blood a wounded moose leaves behind him. Sho! it&rsquo;s not
+manly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A start was now made on the trail, Herb leading, and showing such wonderful
+skill as a trailer that the English boys began to believe his long residence in
+the woods had developed in him supernatural senses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That moose was shot through the right fore-leg,&rdquo; he whispered, as
+the trackers reached the edge of the forest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How do you know?&rdquo; gasped the Farrars.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The woodsman answered by kneeling, bending his face close to the ground, and
+drawing his brown finger successively round three prints on a soft patch of
+earth, which the unpractised eyes could scarcely discern.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no mark of the right fore-hoof,&rdquo; he whispered again
+presently; &ldquo;nothing but <i>that</i>,&rdquo; pointing to another dark red
+blotch, which the boys would have mistaken for maroon-tinted moss.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A breathless, wordless, toiling hour followed. Through the dense woods, which
+sloped steadily upward, clothing Katahdin&rsquo;s highlands, Herb Heal
+travelled on, now and again halting when the trail, because of freshly fallen
+pine-needles or leaves, became quite invisible. Again he would crouch close to
+the ground, make a circle with his finger round the last visible print, and
+work out from that, trying various directions, until he knew that he was again
+on the track which the limping moose had travelled before him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His comrades followed in single file, carrying their rifles in front of their
+bodies instead of on their shoulders, so that there might be no danger of a
+sudden clang or rattle from the barrels striking the trees. Following the
+example of their guide, each one carefully avoided stepping on crackling twigs
+or dry branches, or rustling against bushes or boughs. The latter they would
+take gingerly in their hands as they approached them, bend them out of the way,
+and gently release them as they passed. Heroically they forebore to growl when
+their legs were scraped by jagged bowlders or prickly shrubs, giving thanks
+inwardly to the manufacturers of their stout tweeds that their clothes held
+together, instead of hanging on them like streamers on a rag-bush.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a good, practical lesson in moose-trailing; but, save for the knowledge
+gained by the three who had never stalked a moose before, it was a failure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The air beneath the dense foliage grew depressing&mdash;suffocating. Each one
+longed breathlessly for the minute when he should emerge from this heavy
+timber-growth, even to do more rugged climbing. Distant rumbles were heard.
+Herb&rsquo;s prophecy was being fulfilled. Pamolah was grumbling at the
+trailers, and sending out his Thunder Sons to bid them back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But it was too late for retreat. If they gave up their purpose, turned and fled
+to camp, the storm, which was surely coming, would catch them under the
+interlacing trees, a danger which the guide was especially anxious to avoid. He
+pressed on with quickened steps, stooping no more to make circles round the
+moose&rsquo;s prints. Old Pamolah&rsquo;s threatenings grew increasingly
+sullen. At last the desired break in the woods was reached; the trackers found
+themselves on the open side of Katahdin, surrounded by a tangled growth of
+alders and white birches struggling up between granite rocks; then the mountain
+artillery broke forth with terrifying clatter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A loud, long thunder-roll was echoed from crag, slide, forest, spur, and basin.
+The &ldquo;home of storms&rdquo; was a fort of noise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ha! there&rsquo;ll be a big cannonading this time, I guess. Pamolah is
+going to let fly at us with big shot, little shot, fire and water&mdash;all the
+forces the old scoundrel has,&rdquo; said Herb Heal, at last breaking the
+silence which had been kept on the trail, and looking aloft towards the five
+peaks guarding that mysterious basin, from which heavy, lurid clouds drifted
+down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the same time a blustering, mighty wind-gust half swept the four climbers
+from their feet. A great flash of globe lightning cut the air like a dazzling
+fire-ball.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll have to quit our trailing, and scoot for shelter, I&rsquo;m
+thinking!&rdquo; exclaimed Cyrus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good land, I should say so!&rdquo; agreed the guide. &ldquo;The
+bull-moose likes thunder. He&rsquo;s away in some thick hole in the forest now,
+recovering himself. We couldn&rsquo;t have come up with him anyhow, boys, for
+them blood-spots had stopped. I guess his leg wasn&rsquo;t smashed; and
+he&rsquo;ll soon be as big a bully as ever. Follow me now, quick! Mind yer
+steps, though! Them bushes are awful catchy!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Undazzled by the lightning&rsquo;s frequent flare, unstaggered by the
+down-rushing wind, as if the mountain thunders were only the roll of an organ
+about his ears, Herb Heal sprang onward and upward, tugging his comrades one by
+one up many a precipitous ledge, and pulling them to their feet again when the
+tripping bushes brought their noses to the ground and their heels into the air.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hitch on to me, Dol!&rdquo; he cried, suddenly turning on that
+youngster, who was trying to get his second breath. &ldquo;Tie on to me tight.
+I&rsquo;ll tow you up! I wish we could ha&rsquo; reached that old log camp,
+boys. &rsquo;Twould be a stunning shelter, for it has a wall of rock to the
+back. But it&rsquo;s higher up, and off to the right. There! I see the den
+I&rsquo;m aiming for.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A few energetic bounds brought Herb, with Dol in tow, to a platform of rock,
+which rose above a bed of blueberry bushes. It narrowed into a sort of cave,
+roofed by an overhanging bowlder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll be snug enough under this rock!&rdquo; he exclaimed,
+pointing to the canopy. &ldquo;Creep in, boys. We&rsquo;ll have tubs of rain,
+and a pelting of hail. The rumpus is only beginning.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So it was. The storm had been creeping from its cradle. Now it swept down with
+an awful whirl and commingling of elements.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boys, peering out from their rocky nest, saw a magnificent panorama beneath
+them. The regiments of the air were at war. Lightning chains encircled the
+heavens, lighting up the forests below. Winds charged down the mountain-side,
+sweeping stones and bushes before them. Hail-bullets rattled in volleys.
+Thunder-artillery boomed until the very rocks seemed to shake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s fine!&rdquo; exclaimed Cyrus. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
+super-fine!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then a curtain of thick rain partly hid the warfare, the lightning still
+rioting through it like a beacon of battle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The stones up above will have to be pretty firmly fixed to keep their
+places,&rdquo; said Herb. &ldquo;Boys, I hope there ain&rsquo;t a-going to be
+slides on the mountain after this.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Slides?&rdquo; echoed Dol questioningly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Landslides, kid. Say! if you want to be scared until your bones feel
+limp, you&rsquo;ve got to hear a great big block of granite come ploughing down
+from the top &rsquo;o the mountain, bringing earth and bushes along with it,
+and smashing even the rocks to splinters as it pounds along.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I guess that&rsquo;s a sensation we&rsquo;d rather be spared,&rdquo;
+said Cyrus gravely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And under the quieting spell of the airy warfare there was silence for a while.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you think it&rsquo;s lightening up, Herb?&rdquo; asked Neal, after
+the storm had raged for three-quarters of an hour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I guess it is. The rain is stopping too. But we&rsquo;ll have an awful
+slushy time of it getting back to camp. To plough through them soaked forests
+below would be enough to give you city fellows a shaking ague.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Couldn&rsquo;t we climb on to your old log camp?&rdquo; suggested Garst.
+&ldquo;If we have the luck to find the old shanty holding together, we can
+light a fire there after things dry out a bit, and eat our snack. Then we
+needn&rsquo;t be in a hurry to get down. We&rsquo;ll risk it, anyhow.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I reckon that&rsquo;s about the only thing to be done,&rdquo; assented
+the guide.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And in twenty minutes&rsquo; time the four were again straining up Katahdin,
+clutching slippery rocks, sinking in sodden earth, shivering as they were
+besprinkled by every bush and dwarfed tree, and dreadfully hampered with their
+rifles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never mind, boys; we&rsquo;ll get there! Clinch yer teeth, and
+don&rsquo;t squirm! Once we&rsquo;re past this tangle, the bit of climbing
+that&rsquo;s left will be as easy as rolling off a log!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So shouted Herb cheerfully, as he tore a way with hand and foot through the
+stunted growth of alders and birch, which, beaten down by the winds, was now an
+almost impassable, sopping tangle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Keep in my tracks!&rdquo; he bellowed again. &ldquo;Gracious! but this
+sort o&rsquo; work is as slow as molasses crawling up-hill in winter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But ten minutes later, when the dripping jungle was behind, he dropped his
+jesting tone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He came to a full stop, catching his breath with a big gulp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Boys,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s standing yet! I see
+it&mdash;the old home-camp! There it is above us on that bit of a platform,
+with the big rock behind it. And I&rsquo;ve kep&rsquo; saying to myself for the
+last quarter of an hour that we wouldn&rsquo;t find it&mdash;that we&rsquo;d
+find nary a thing but mildewed logs!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A wealth of memories was in the woodsman&rsquo;s eyes as he gazed up at the
+timber nest, the log camp which his own hands had put up, standing on a narrow
+plateau, and built against a protecting wall of rock that rose in jagged might
+to a height of thirty or forty feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An earth bank or ridge, covered with hardy mosses and mountain creepers, sloped
+gently up to the sheltered platform. To climb this was, indeed, &ldquo;as easy
+as rolling off a log.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We used to have a good beaten path here, but I guess it&rsquo;s all
+growed over,&rdquo; said Herb in a thick voice, as if certain cords in his
+throat were swelling. &ldquo;Many&rsquo;s the time I&rsquo;ve blessed the sight
+of that old home-camp, boys, after a hard week&rsquo;s trapping.
+Hundert&rsquo;s o&rsquo; night&rsquo;s I&rsquo;ve slept snug inside them log
+walls when blasts was a-sweeping and bellowing around, like as if they&rsquo;d
+rip the mountain open, and tear its very rocks out.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While the guide spoke he was leaping up the ridge. A few minutes, and he stood,
+a towering figure, on the platform above, waving his battered hat in salute to
+the old camp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I guess some traveller has been sheltering here lately!&rdquo; he cried
+to Neal Farrar, as the latter overtook him. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a litter
+around,&rdquo; pointing to dry sticks and withered bushes strewn upon the
+camping-ground. &ldquo;And the door&rsquo;s standing open. I wonder who found
+the old shanty?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Neal remembered, hours afterwards, that at the moment he felt an odd awakening
+stir in him, a stir which, shooting from head to foot, seemed to warn him that
+he was nearing a sensation, the biggest sensation of this wilderness trip.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He heard the voices of Cyrus and Dol hallooing behind; but they sounded away
+back and indistinct, for his ears were bent towards the deserted camp,
+listening with breathless expectation for something, he didn&rsquo;t know what.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One minute the vague suspense lasted, while he followed Herb towards the hut.
+Then heaven and earth and his own heart seemed to stand still.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Through the wide-open door of the shanty came random, crooning snatches of
+sound. Was the guttural voice which made them human? The English boy scarcely
+knew. But as the noise swelled, like the moaning of a dry wind among trees, he
+began, as it were, to disentangle it. Words shaped themselves, Indian words
+which he had heard before on the guide&rsquo;s tongue.
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;<i>N&rsquo;loan pes-saus, mok glint ont-aven,<br/>
+Glint ont-aven, nosh morgun</i>.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These lines from the &ldquo;Star Song,&rdquo; the song which Herb had learned
+from his traitor chum, floated out to him upon Katahdin&rsquo;s breeze. They
+struck young Farrar&rsquo;s ears in staggering tones, like a knell, the sadness
+of which he could not at the moment understand. But he had a vague impression
+that the mysterious singer in the deserted camp attached no meaning to what he
+chanted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look out, I say! I don&rsquo;t want to come a cropper here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was Dol&rsquo;s young voice which rang out shrilly among the mountain
+echoes. Side by side with Cyrus, the boy had just gained the top of the ridge
+when the guide suddenly backed upon him, Herb&rsquo;s great shoulder-blade
+knocking him in the face, so that he had to plant his feet firmly to avoid
+spinning back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Herb had heard that guttural crooning. Just now he could hear nothing else.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Twice he made a heaving effort to speak, and the voice cracked in his throat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then, as he sprang for the camp-door, four words stumbled from his lips:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By thunder! it&rsquo;s Chris.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig22.jpg" width="400" height="165" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap22"></a>Chapter XXII.<br/>The Old Home-Camp</h2>
+
+<p>
+The silence which followed that ejaculation was like the hush of earth before a
+thunder-storm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not a syllable passed the lips of the boys as they followed Herb into the log
+hut, but feeling seemed wagging a startled tongue in each finger-tip which
+convulsively pressed the rifles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And not another articulate sentence came from the guide; only his throat
+swelled with a deep, amazed gurgle as he reached the interior of the shanty,
+and dropped his eyes upon the individual who raised that queer chanting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On a bed of withered spruce boughs, strewn higgledy-piggledy upon the
+camp-floor&mdash;mother earth&mdash;lay the form of a man. Thin wisps of
+blue-black hair, long untrimmed, trailed over his face and neck, which looked
+as if they were carved out of yellow bone. His figure was skeleton-like. His
+lips&mdash;the lips which at the entrance of the strangers never ceased their
+wild crooning&mdash;were swollen and fever-scorched. His black eyes, disfigured
+by a hideous squint, rolled with the sick fancies of delirium.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cyrus and the Farrars, while they looked upon him, felt that, even if they had
+never heard Herb&rsquo;s exclamation, they would have had no difficulty in
+identifying the creature, remembering that story which had thrilled them by the
+camp-fire at Millinokett. It was Herb Heal&rsquo;s traitor chum&mdash;the
+half-breed, Cross-eyed Chris.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Herb, backing off from the withered couch as far as the limited space of
+the cabin would allow, stood with his shoulders against the mouldy logs of the
+wall, his eyes like peep-holes to a volcano, gulping and gurgling, while he
+swallowed back a fire of amazed excitement and defeated anger, for which his
+backwoods vocabulary was too cheap.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A flame seemed scorching and hissing about his heart while he remembered that
+during some hour of every day for five years, since last he had seen the
+&ldquo;hound&rdquo; who robbed him, he had sworn that, if ever he caught the
+thief, he would pounce upon him with a woodsman&rsquo;s vengeance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I couldn&rsquo;t touch him now&mdash;the scum! But I&rsquo;ll be
+switched if I&rsquo;ll do a thing to help him!&rdquo; he hissed, the flame
+leaping to his lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet he had a strange sensation, as if that vow was broken like an egg-shell
+even while he made it. He knew that &ldquo;the two creatures which had fought
+inside of him, tooth and claw,&rdquo; about the fate of his enemy, were
+pinching his heart by turns in a last hot conflict.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His eyes shot flinty sparks; he drew his breath in hard puffs; his knotted
+throat twitched and swelled, while they (the man and the brute) strove within
+him; and all the time he stood staring in grisly silence at the half-breed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The latter still continued his Indian croon; though from the crazy roll of his
+malformed eyes it was plain that he knew not whether he chanted about the
+stars, his old friends and guides, or about anything else in heaven or earth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But one thing quickly became clear to Cyrus, and then to the Farrar
+boys,&mdash;less accustomed to tragedy than their comrade,&mdash;that this
+strange personage, in whose veins the blood of white men and red men met,
+carrying in its turbid flow the weaknesses of two races, was singing his
+swan-song, the last chant he would ever raise on earth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At their first entrance, as their bodies interfered with the broad light
+streaming through the cabin-door, Chris had lifted towards them a scared,
+shrinking stare. But, apparently, he took them for the shadows which walked in
+the dreams of his delirium. Not a ray of recognition lightened the blankness of
+that stare as Herb&rsquo;s big figure passed before him. Letting his eyes
+wander aimlessly again from log wall to log wall, from withered bed to mouldy
+rafters, his lips continued their crooning, which sank with his weakening
+breath, then rose again to sink once more, like the last wind-gusts when the
+storm is over.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly his shrunken body shivered in every limb. The humming ceased. His
+yellow teeth tapped upon each other in trouble and fear. He raised himself to a
+squatting posture, with his knee-bones to his chin, the wisps of hair tumbling
+upon his naked chest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s dark&mdash;heap dark!&rdquo; he whimpered, between long
+gasps. &ldquo;Can&rsquo;t strike the trail&mdash;can&rsquo;t find the
+home-camp. Herb&mdash;Herb Heal&mdash;ole pard&mdash;&rsquo;twas I took
+&rsquo;em&mdash;the skins. &rsquo;Twas&mdash;a dog&rsquo;s trick. Take it
+out&mdash;o&rsquo; my hide&mdash;if yer wants to&mdash;yah! Heap sick!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not a ray of sense was yet in the half-breed&rsquo;s eyes. An imaginary,
+vengeance-dealing Herb was before him; but he never turned a glance towards the
+real, and now forgiving, old chum, who leaned against the wall not ten feet
+away. His voice dropped to a guttural rumble, in which Indian sounds mingled
+with English.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the flame at Herb&rsquo;s heart was quenched at the first whimpered word.
+His stiffened muscles and lips relaxed. With a gurgle of sorrow, he crossed the
+camp-floor, and dropped into a crawling position on the faded spruces.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Chris!&rdquo; he cried thickly. &ldquo;Chris,&mdash;poor old
+pard,&mdash;don&rsquo;t ye know me? Look, man! Herb is right here&mdash;Herb
+Heal, yer old chum. You&rsquo;re &lsquo;heap sick&rsquo; for sure; but
+we&rsquo;ll haul you off to a settlement or to our camp, and I&rsquo;ll bring
+Doc along in two days. He&rsquo;ll&rdquo;&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Cross-eyed Chris became past hearing, his flicker of strength had failed;
+he keeled over, and lay, with his limp legs curled up, faint and speechless,
+upon the dead evergreens.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You ain&rsquo;t a-going to die!&rdquo; gasped Herb defiantly.
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll be jiggered if you be, jest as I&rsquo;ve found you! Say,
+boys! Cyrus! Neal! rub him a bit, will ye? We ain&rsquo;t got no brandy,
+I&rsquo;ll build a fire, and warm some coffee.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was strange work for the hands of the Bostonian, and stranger yet for those
+of young Farrar,&mdash;son of an English merchant-prince,&mdash;this
+straightening and rubbing of a dying half-Indian, a &ldquo;scum,&rdquo; as Herb
+called him, drunkard, and thief. Yet there was no flash of hesitation on
+Farrar&rsquo;s part, as they brought their warm friction to bear upon the chill
+yellow skin, piebald from dirt and the stains of travel, as if it were the very
+mission which had brought them to Katahdin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They had grave thoughts meanwhile that the old mountain was decidedly gloomy in
+its omens, first a thunder-storm and then a tragedy; for, rub as they might
+with brotherly hands, they could not pass their own warmth into the body of the
+half-breed, though he still lived.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the mountain had not ended its terrors yet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Its mumbling lips began to speak, with a threatening, low at first like
+muttered curses, but swelling into a nameless noise&mdash;a rumbling, pounding,
+creeping, crashing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Great Governor&rsquo;s Ghost! what&rsquo;s that?&rdquo; gasped Cyrus,
+stopping his rubbing. &ldquo;Pamolah or some other fiend seems to be bombarding
+us from the top now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s more thunder rolling over us,&rdquo; said Neal; but as he
+spoke his tongue turned stiff with fear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sounds as if the whole mountain was tumbling to pieces. Perhaps
+it&rsquo;s the end of the world,&rdquo; suggested Dol, as a succession of
+booming shocks from above seemed to shake the camping-ground under his feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was one second of awful indecision. The boys looked at each other, at the
+dying man, at the roof above them, in the stiffness of uncertain terror.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then a figure leaped into their midst, with an armful of dry sticks, which he
+dashed from him. It was Herb, with the fuel for a fire. And, for the first and
+last time in his history, so far as these friends of his knew it, there was
+that big fear in his face which is most terrible when it looks out of the eyes
+of a naturally brave man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Boys, where&rsquo;s yer senses?&rdquo; he yelled cuttingly. &ldquo;Out,
+for your lives! Run! There&rsquo;s a slide above us on the mountain!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Him?&rdquo; questioned Cyrus&rsquo;s stiff lips, as he pointed to the
+breathing wreck on the spruce boughs. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s not dead yet.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;D&rsquo;ye think I&rsquo;d leave him? Clear out of this camp&mdash;you,
+or we&rsquo;ll be buried in less&rsquo;n two minutes! To the right! Off this
+ridge! Got yer rifles? I&rsquo;m coming!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The woodsman flung out the words while his brawny arms hoisted the body of his
+old chum. His comrades had already disappeared when he turned and sprang for
+the camp-door with his limp burden, but his moccasined foot kicked against
+something.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A great hiccough which was almost a sob rose from Herb&rsquo;s throat. It was
+his one valuable possession, his 45-90 Winchester rifle, his second self, which
+he had rested against the log wall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good-by, Old Blazes!&rdquo; he grunted. &ldquo;You never went back on
+me, but I can&rsquo;t lug him and you! My stars! but that was a narrow
+squeak.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For, as he cleared the camping-ground with a blind dash, with head bent and
+tongue caught between his clenched teeth, with a boom like a Gatling gun, a
+great block of granite from the summit of Katahdin struck the rock which
+sheltered the old camp, breaking a big piece off it, and shot on with mighty
+impetus down the mountain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An avalanche of loose earth, stones, and bushes, brought down by this
+battering-ram of the landslide, piled themselves upon the log hut, smashing to
+kindling-wood its walls, which had stood many a hard storm, burying them out of
+sight, and flinging wide showers of dust and small missiles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A scattered rain of clay caught Herb upon the head, and lodged, some of it, on
+the little pack containing axe and lunch which was strapped upon his shoulders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He shook. His grip loosened. The limp, dragging body in his arms sank until the
+feet touched the earth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But with the supreme effort, moral and physical, of his life, the forest guide
+gathered it tight again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll be blowed if I&rsquo;ll drop him now,&rdquo; he gasped.
+&ldquo;He ain&rsquo;t nothing but a bag o&rsquo; bones, anyhow.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Only a strong man in the hour of his best strength could have done it. With a
+defiant snort Herb charged through the choking dust-clouds, pelted by flying
+pebbles, sods, and fragments of sticks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This way, boys!&rdquo; he roared, after five straining, staggering
+minutes, as he caught a glimpse of his comrades ahead, tearing off to the
+right, as he had bidden them. &ldquo;You may let up now. We&rsquo;re safe
+enough.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They faced back, and saw him make a few reeling, descending steps, then lay
+what now seemed to be an out-and-out lifeless man on a bed of moss beneath a
+dwarfed spruce.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The nerves of the three were in a jumping condition, their brains felt
+befuddled, and their hearts sinking and melting in the midst of their bones,
+from the astounding shock and terror of the land-slide. But, as they beheld the
+guide deposit his burden, with its helplessly trailing head and limbs, a cheer
+in unsteady tones rang above the slackening rattle of earth and stones, and the
+far-away boom of the granite-block as it buried itself in the forest beneath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hurrah! for you, Herb, old boy,&rdquo; yelled Cyrus triumphantly.
+&ldquo;That was the grittiest thing I ever saw done&rsquo; Hurrah! Hurrah!
+Hoo-ray!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The English boys, open-throated, swelled the peal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But their cheering broke off as they came near, and saw the mask-like face over
+which Herb bent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is he gone, poor fellow?&rdquo; asked Garst. &ldquo;What do you suppose
+caused it&mdash;the slide?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, it was a thundering big lump of granite from the top o&rsquo; the
+mountain,&rdquo; answered Herb, replying to the second question. &ldquo;That
+plaguy heavy rain must ha&rsquo; loosened the earth around it the clay and
+bushes that kep&rsquo; it in place. So it got kind o&rsquo; top-heavy, and came
+slumping and pitching down, slow at first, and then a&rsquo;most as quick as a
+cannon-ball, bringing all that pile along with it. I&rsquo;ve seen the like
+before; but, sho! I never came so near being buried by it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He pointed as he spoke to the late camping-ground, with its lodgment of clay,
+sods, pygmy trees, and pieces of rock, big and little.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus09"></a>
+<img src="images/illus09.jpg" width="375" height="600" alt="Illustration: " />
+<p class="caption"><b>&ldquo;Herb Charged Through The Choking Dust-Clouds.&rdquo;</b><br/></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The old camp&rsquo;s clean wiped out, boys,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;and I
+guess one of the men that built it is gone, or a&rsquo;most gone, too. Stick
+your arm under his head, Cyrus, while I hunt for some water.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Garst did as he was bidden, but his help was not needed long. The guide went
+off like a racer, covering the ground at a stretching gallop. He remembered
+well the clear Katahdin spring, which had supplied the home-camp during that
+long-past trapping winter. He returned with his tin mug full.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the ice-cold drops touched Chris&rsquo;s forehead, and lay on his parted
+lips, gem-like drops which he was past swallowing, his malformed eyes slowly
+opened. There was intelligence in them, shining through the gathering
+death-film, like a sinking light in a lantern.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was groping in the dim border-land now, and in it he recognized his old
+partner with shadowy wonder; for delirium was past, with the other storms of a
+storm-beaten life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Herb,&rdquo; he gurgled in snatches, the words being half heard, half
+guessed at, &ldquo;&rsquo;twas I&mdash;took &rsquo;em&mdash;the
+skins&mdash;an&rsquo; the antlers. I wanted&mdash;to get&mdash;to the ole
+camp&mdash;an&rsquo; let you&mdash;take it out o&rsquo; me&mdash;afore
+I&mdash;keeled over.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Herb had taken Cyrus&rsquo;s place, and was upholding him with a tenderness
+which showed that the guide&rsquo;s heart was in this hour melted to a jelly.
+Two tears were dammed up inside his eyelids, which were so unused to tears that
+they held them in. He neither wiped nor winked them away before he
+answered:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you fret about that&mdash;poor kid. We&rsquo;ll chuck that
+old business clean out o&rsquo; mind. You&rsquo;ve jest got to suck this water
+and try to chipper up, and&mdash;we&rsquo;ll make camp together again.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Herb knew as well as he knew anything that the man who had robbed him was
+long past &ldquo;chippering up,&rdquo; and was starting alone to the unseen
+camping-grounds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How long since you got back here?&rdquo; he&rsquo; asked, close to the
+dulling ear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Couldn&rsquo;t&mdash;keep&mdash;track&mdash;o&rsquo; days.
+Got&mdash;turned&mdash;round&mdash;in woods.
+Lost&mdash;trail&mdash;heap&mdash;long&mdash;getting&mdash;to&mdash;th&rsquo;
+old&mdash;camp.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The words seemed freezing on the lips which uttered them. Herb asked no more
+questions. Silence was broken only by the rolling voice of the land-slide,
+which had not yet ceased. Occasional volleys of loose earth and stones,
+dislodged or shaken by the down-plunging granite, still kept falling at
+intervals on the buried camp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At one unusually loud rattle, Chris&rsquo;s lips moved again. In those strange
+gutturals which the boys had heard in the hut, he rumbled an Indian sentence,
+repeating it in English with scared, breaking breaths.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a prayer of her tribe which his mother had taught him to say at morning
+and eve:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;God&mdash;I&mdash;am&mdash;weak&mdash;Pity&mdash;me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Heap&mdash;noise! Heap&mdash;dark!&rdquo; he gasped.
+&ldquo;Can&rsquo;t&mdash;find&mdash;th&rsquo; old&mdash;camp.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re near it now, old chum,&rdquo; said Herb, trying to soothe
+him. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the home-camp.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll&mdash;camp&mdash;to-ge-ther?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We will again, sure.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+The last stone pounded down on the heap above the old camp; and Herb gently
+laid flat the body of the man he had sworn to shoot, closed the malformed eyes,
+and turned away, that the fellows he was guiding might not see his face.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig23.jpg" width="400" height="163" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap23"></a>Chapter XXIII.<br/>Brother&rsquo;s Work</h2>
+
+<p>
+They buried Chris upon Katahdin&rsquo;s breast. It was a good cemetery for
+woodsmen, so Herb said, granite above and forest beneath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But, good or bad, this was the one thing to be done. An attempt to transfer the
+body to a distant settlement would be objectless labor; for, as far as the
+guide knew, the half-breed had not a friend to be interested in his fate,
+father and mother having died before Herb found him in the snow-heaped forest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There were three reliable witnesses, besides the man who was known to have a
+grudge against him, to testify as to the cause and manner of his death when the
+party returned to Greenville; so no suspicious finger could point at Herb Heal,
+with a hint that he had carried out his old threat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How long Chris, in lonely, crazed repentance, had sheltered in the camp on the
+mountain-side could only be a matter of guess. Herb inclined to think that he
+had been there for weeks,&mdash;months, perhaps,&mdash;judging from the
+withered spruce bed and the dry boughs and sticks upon the camping-ground,
+which had evidently been gathered and broken for fuel. His ravings made it
+clear that, on returning to the old haunts after years of absence, he had
+missed the trail he used to know, and wandered wearily in the dense woods about
+the foot of Katahdin before he escaped from the prison of trees, and climbed to
+the hut he sought.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such wanderings, Herb declared, generally ended in &ldquo;a man having wheels
+in his head,&rdquo; being half or wholly insane, though he might keep
+sufficient wits to provide himself with food and warmth, as Chris had done
+while his strength held out. This was not long; for the half-breed&rsquo;s
+words suggested that he felt near to the great change he roughly called
+&ldquo;keeling over,&rdquo; when he started to find his cheated partner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Cyrus, while he watched the guide making preparations for the mountain
+burial, pictured the poor weakling tramping for hundreds of miles through
+rugged forest-land, doubtless with aching knee-joints and feet, that he might
+make upon his own skin justice for the skins which he had stolen, and so, in
+the only way he knew, square things with his wronged chum. And the city man
+thought, with a tear of pity, that even that poor drink-fuddled mind must have
+been lit by some ray of longing for goodness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a strange funeral.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The guide chose a spot where the earth had been much softened by the recent
+rain; and, with the ingenuity of a man accustomed to wilderness shifts, he
+broke up the drenched ground with the axe which he took from his shoulders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That axe, which had so often made camp, had never before made a grave; the
+Farrars doubted that it ever would. But Herb worked away upon his knees,
+moisture dripping from his skin, putting sorrow for years of anger into every
+blow of his arms. Then, stopping a while, he went off down the mountain to the
+nearest belt of trees, and cut a limb from one, out of which, with his
+hunting-knife, he fashioned a rude wooden implement, a cross between a spade
+and shovel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With this he scooped out the broken earth until a grave appeared over three
+feet deep. He lined it with fragrant spruce-boughs from the wind-beaten tangle
+below.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These Cyrus and Dol had busied themselves in cutting. Neal thought of other
+work for his fingers. Getting hold of Herb&rsquo;s axe when the owner was not
+using it, he felled one of the dwarf white birches. Out of its light, delicate
+wood, with the help of his big pocket-knife and a ball of twine that was hidden
+somewhere about him, he made a very presentable cross, to point out to future
+hunters on Katahdin the otherwise unmarked grave.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was a bit of a genius at wood-carving, and surveyed his work with
+satisfaction when he considered it finished, having neatly cut upon it the
+name, &ldquo;Chris Kemp,&rdquo; with the date, &ldquo;October 20th,
+1891.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Couldn&rsquo;t you add a text or motto of some kind?&rdquo; suggested
+Dol, glancing over his shoulder. &ldquo;Twould make it more like the things one
+sees in cemeteries. You&rsquo;re such a dab at that sort of work.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can&rsquo;t think of anything,&rdquo; answered the elder brother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then, with a sudden lighting of his face, he seized the knife again, and worked
+in, in fine lettering, the frightened prayer he had heard on the
+half-breed&rsquo;s lips:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;God, I am weak; pity me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Herb and Cyrus lowered the body into its resting-place, and covered it with the
+green spruces.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The four campers knelt bare-headed by the grave.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Couldn&rsquo;t one of you boys say a bit of a prayer?&rdquo; asked Herb
+in a thick voice. &ldquo;I ain&rsquo;t used to spouting.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All former help had been easily given. This was a harder matter, yet not so
+difficult as it would have been amid a city congregation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Garst tried to recall some suitable prayer from a funeral service; so did Neal.
+Both failed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But here upon Katahdin&rsquo;s side, where, in the large forces of storm and
+slide, in forest and granite, through every wind-swept bush, waving blade, and
+tinted lichen, breathed a whisper from God, it seemed no unnatural thing for a
+man or a boy to speak to his Father.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can&rsquo;t one of you fellers say a prayer?&rdquo; asked Herb again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the river of feeling in Cyrus broke the dam of reserve, and flowed over
+his lips in a prayer such as he had never before uttered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was the prayer of a son who was for the minute absorbed in his Father.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It left the five, those who were camping here and one who had gone to unseen
+camping-grounds, with son-like trust to the Father&rsquo;s dealings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Herb and the Farrars responded to it with heart-eager &ldquo;Amens!&rdquo; the
+fervor of which was new to their lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thank you as if he were my own brother, boys,&rdquo; said the
+woodsman, while he filled in the grave, and planted Neal&rsquo;s cross at its
+head. &ldquo;Sho! when it comes to a time like we&rsquo;ve been through to-day,
+a man, if he has anything but a gizzard in him, must feel as how we&rsquo;re
+all brothers,&mdash;every man-jack of us,&mdash;white men, red men,
+half-and-half men, whatever we are or wherever we sprung.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A fellow is always hearing that sort of thing,&rdquo; said Neal Farrar
+to Cyrus. &ldquo;But I&rsquo;m blessed if I ever felt it stick in me before!
+that we&rsquo;re all of the one stuff, you know&mdash;we and that poor beggar.
+Some of us seem to get such precious long odds over the others.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All the more reason why we should do our level best to pull the backward
+ones up to us,&rdquo; answered the American.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The words struck into the ears of Dol&mdash;that youngster listening with a
+soberness of attention seldom seen in his flash-light eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A few years afterwards, when Neal Farrar was a newly blown lieutenant in his
+Queen&rsquo;s Twelfth Lancers, as full of heroic impulses and enthusiasms as a
+modern young officer may be,&mdash;while his half-fledged ambitions were
+hanging on the chances of active service, and the golden, remote possibility of
+his one day being a V.C.,&mdash;there was a peaceful honor which clung to him
+unsought.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During his first year of army life, he became the paragon of every poor private
+and raw recruit struggling with the miseries of goose-step, with whom he came
+even into momentary contact. For sometimes through a word or act, sometimes
+through a flash of the eye, or a look about the mouth, during the brief
+interchange of a military salute, these &ldquo;backward ones&rdquo; saw that
+the progressive young officer looked on them, not as men-machines, but as
+brothers, as important in the great schemes of the nation and the world as he
+was himself; that he was proud to serve with them, and would be prouder still
+to help them if he could.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was an understanding which inspired many a tempted or newly joined fellow to
+drill himself morally as his sergeant drilled him physically, with a
+determination to become as fine a soldier and forward a man as his paragon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But only one American friend of Lieutenant Farrar&rsquo;s, who has let out the
+secret to the writer, knows that the binding truth of human brotherhood was
+first born into him when, on Katahdin&rsquo;s side, he helped to bury a
+thieving half-Indian.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig24.jpg" width="400" height="163" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap24"></a>Chapter XXIV.<br/>&ldquo;Keeping Things Even&rdquo;</h2>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, you musn&rsquo;t be moping, boys, because of this day&rsquo;s work
+that you took a hand in, and that wasn&rsquo;t in your play-bill when you come
+to these woods. We&rsquo;ll have to try and even things up to-morrow with some
+big sport. You look kind o&rsquo; wilted.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So said Herb when the tired party were half-way back to camp, doing the descent
+of the mountain in a silence clouded by the scene which they had been through.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The woodsman seemed troubled with a rasping in his throat. He cleared it twice
+and spat before he could open a passage for a decently cheerful voice in which
+to suggest a rise of spirits. But Herb was too faithful a guide to bear the
+thought that his employers&rsquo; trip should end in any gloom because the one
+painful chapter in his own life had closed forever. Moreover, although more
+than once, as he fought his way through a jungle or jumped a windfall,
+something nipped his heart, pinching him up inside, and making his eyes leak,
+he felt that the thing had ended well for him&mdash;and for Chris.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Herb, in his simple faith, scarcely doubted that the old chum, whom he had
+forgiven, had reached a Home-Camp where his broken will and stunted life might
+be repaired, and grow as they had poor chance to grow here.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say, boys!&rdquo; he burst forth, a few minutes after his protest
+against &ldquo;moping,&rdquo; and when the band were within sight of the spring
+whence they had started, an age back, as it seemed, on the trail of the moose.
+&ldquo;Say, boys! I&rsquo;ve been all these years raging at Chris. Seems to me
+now as if he was a poor sort of overgrowed baby, and not so bad a thief as the
+chump who gave him that whiskey, and stole his senses. It&rsquo;s a thundering
+big pity that man hadn&rsquo;t the burying of him to-day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He was always the under dog,&mdash;was Chris,&rdquo; he went on slowly,
+as if he was seeking from his own heart an excuse for those unforeseen impulses
+which had worked it and his body during the past five hours. &ldquo;Whites and
+Injuns jumped on him. They said he was criss-cross all through, same as his
+eyes. But he warn&rsquo;t. Never seed a half-breed that had less gall and more
+grit, except when the hanker for whiskey would creep up in him, and boss him.
+He could no more stand agen it, and the things it made him do, than a
+jack-rabbit.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Another reason why we Americans ought to feel our responsibility towards
+every man in whose veins runs Indian blood, a thousand times more hotly than we
+do!&rdquo; burst out Cyrus. &ldquo;It maddens a fellow to think that we made
+them the under dogs, and as much by giving them a &lsquo;boss,&rsquo; as you
+say, in fire-water, as by anything else.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I kind o&rsquo; think that way myself sometimes,&rdquo; said Herb.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And there was silence until the guide cried:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here&rsquo;s our camp, boys. I&rsquo;ll bet you&rsquo;re glad to see it.
+I must get the kettle, and cruise off for water. &rsquo;Tain&rsquo;t likely
+I&rsquo;ll trust one of you fellers after last night. But you can hustle round
+and build the camp-fire while I&rsquo;m gone.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Herb had a shrewd motive in this. He knew that there is nothing which will cure
+the blues in a camper, if he is touched by that affliction, rare in forest
+life, like the building of his fire, watching the little flames creep from the
+dull, dead wood, to roar and soar aloft in gold-red pennons of good cheer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The result proved his wisdom. When he returned in a very short time from that
+ever-to-be-famous spring, with his brimming kettle, he found a glorious fire,
+and three tired but cheerful fellows watching it, its reflection playing like a
+jack-o&rsquo;-lantern in each pair of eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now I&rsquo;ll have supper ready in a jiffy,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I
+guess you boys feel like eating one another. Jerusha! we never touched our
+snack&mdash;nary a crumb of it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the strange happenings and chaotic feelings of the day, hunger, together
+with the bread and pork for satisfying it which Herb had carried up the
+mountain, were forgotten until now.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never mind! We&rsquo;ll make up for it. Only hurry up!&rdquo; pleaded
+Dol. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re like bears, we&rsquo;re so hungry.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Like bears! You&rsquo;re a sight more like calves with their mouths
+open, waiting for something to swallow,&rdquo; answered Herb, his eyes flashing
+impudence, while, with an energy apparently no less brisk than when he started
+out in the morning, he rushed his preparations for supper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say I&rsquo;m like a Sukey, and I&rsquo;ll go for you!&rdquo; roared
+Dol, a gurgling laugh breaking from him, the first which had been heard since
+the four struggled through that tangle on Katahdin to a sight of the old camp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once or twice during supper the mirth, which had been frozen in each
+camper&rsquo;s breast by a sight of the drifted wreck of a human life, warmed
+again spasmodically. Herb did his manly best to fan its flame, though his heart
+was still pinched by a feeling of double loss.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Later in the evening, when the party were huddling close to the camp-fire, he
+lifted his right hand and looked at it blankly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My!&rdquo; he gasped, &ldquo;but it will feel awful queer and empty
+without Old Blazes. That rifle was a reg&rsquo;lar corker, boys. I was saving
+up for three years to buy it. An&rsquo; it never went back on me. Times when
+I&rsquo;ve gone far off hunting, and had nary a chance to speak
+
+to a human for weeks, I&rsquo;d get to talking to it like as if &rsquo;twas a
+living thing. When I wasn&rsquo;t afeard of scaring game, I&rsquo;d fire a
+round to make it answer back and drive away lonesomeness. Folks might ha&rsquo;
+thought I was loony, only there was none to see. Well, it&rsquo;s smashed to
+chips now, &rsquo;long with the old camp.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What awfully selfish jackasses we were, to skip off with our own rifles,
+and never think of yours, or that you couldn&rsquo;t save it, carrying that
+poor fellow! I feel like kicking myself,&rdquo; said Cyrus, sharp vexation in
+his voice. &ldquo;But that slide business sprang on us so quickly. The sudden
+rumbling, rattling, and pounding jumbled a fellow&rsquo;s wits. I scarcely
+understood what was up, even when we were scooting for our lives.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I felt a bit white-livered myself, I tell ye; and I&rsquo;m more
+hardened to slides than you are,&rdquo; was the woodsman&rsquo;s answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The confession, taken in the light of his conduct, made him doubly a hero to
+his city friends.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They thought of him staggering along the mountain, blinded, bewildered, pelted
+by clay, with that dragging burden in his arms, a heart tossed by
+danger&rsquo;s keenest realization in his breast. And they were silent before
+the high courage which can recognize fear, yet refuse to it the mastery.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Neal, whose secret musings were generally crossed by a military thread, seeing
+that he had chosen the career of a cavalry-soldier, and hoped soon to enter
+Sandhurst College, stared into the heart of the camp-fire, glowering at fate,
+because she had not ordained that Herb should serve the queen with him, and
+wear upon his resolute heart&mdash;as it might reasonably be expected he
+would&mdash;the Victoria Cross.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Young Farrar&rsquo;s feeling was so strong that it swept his lips at last.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Blow it all! Herb,&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a tearing pity
+that you can&rsquo;t come into the English Lancers with me. I don&rsquo;t
+suppose I&rsquo;ll ever be a V.C., but you would sooner or later as sure as
+gun&rsquo;s iron.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A &lsquo;V.C.!&rsquo; What&rsquo;s that?&rdquo; asked Herb.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A Vigorous Christian, to be sure!&rdquo; put in Cyrus, who was
+progressive and peaceful, teasingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the English boy, full of the dignity of the subject to him, summoned his
+best eloquence to describe to the American backwoodsman that little cross of
+iron, Victoria&rsquo;s guerdon, which entitles its possessor to write those two
+notable letters after his name, and which only hero-hearts may wear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But a vision of himself, stripped of &ldquo;sweater&rdquo; and moccasins, in
+cavalry rig, becrossed and beribboned, serving under another flag than the
+Stars and Stripes, was too much for Herb&rsquo;s gravity and for the grim
+regrets which wrung him to-night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, sugar!&rdquo; he gasped; and his laughter was like a rocket shooting
+up from his mighty throat, and exploding in a hundred sparkles of merriment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He laughed long. He laughed insistently. His comrades were won to join in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the fun had subsided, Garst said:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Herb Heal, old man, there&rsquo;s something in you to-night which
+reminds me of a line I&rsquo;m rather stuck on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s have it!&rdquo; cried Herb.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Cyrus quoted:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;As for this here earth,<br/>
+It takes lots of laffin&rsquo; to keep things even!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now you&rsquo;ve hit it! The man that wrote that had a pile o&rsquo;
+sense. Come, boys, it&rsquo;s been an awful full day. Let&rsquo;s turn
+in!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As he spoke, Herb began to replenish the fire, and make things snug in the camp
+for the night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But shortly after, when he threw himself on the spuce-boughs near them, the
+boys heard him murmur, deep in his throat, as if he took strength from the
+words:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;It takes lots of laffin&rsquo; to keep things even!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig25.jpg" width="400" height="168" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap25"></a>Chapter XXV.<br/>A Little Caribou Quarrel</h2>
+
+<p>
+But things on this old planet seemed even enough the next day, when, after a
+dozen hours of much needed sleep, the campers&rsquo; eyes opened upon a scene
+which might have stirred any sluggish blood&mdash;and they were not sluggards.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A fresh breath of frost was in the air to quicken circulation and hunger. Under
+a smiling sun an October breeze frolicked through leaves with tints of fire and
+gold, humming, while it swiftly skimmed over their beauties, as if it was
+reading a wind&rsquo;s poem of autumn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Katahdin looked as though it had suddenly taken on the white crown of age, with
+age&rsquo;s stately calm. The weather had grown colder during the night.
+Summer&mdash;the balmy Indian summer, with its late spells of
+sultriness&mdash;had taken a weeping departure yesterday. To-day there was no
+threatening of rain-storm or slide. The mountain&rsquo;s principal peaks had
+fleecy wraps of snow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ha! Old Katahdin has put on its nightcap,&rdquo; exclaimed Cyrus, when
+the trio issued from their tent in the morning. &ldquo;Listen, you fellows!
+This is the 21st of October. I propose that we start back to our home-camp
+to-morrow. It will take us two days to reach Millinokett Lake. Then we&rsquo;ll
+set our faces towards civilization the first week in November, or
+thereabouts.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, bother it! So soon!&rdquo; protested Dol.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, Young Rattlebrain,&rdquo;&mdash;Garst took the calm tone of
+leadership,&mdash;&ldquo;please consider that this is the first time
+you&rsquo;ve camped out in Maine woods. You might find it fun to be snowed up
+in camp during a first fall, and to tramp homewards through a thawing slush.
+But your father wouldn&rsquo;t relish its effects on your British constitution.
+And out here&mdash;once we&rsquo;re well into November&mdash;there&rsquo;s no
+knowing when the temperature
+
+may drop to zero with mighty short notice. I&rsquo;ve often turned in at night,
+feeling as if I were on &lsquo;India&rsquo;s coral strands&rsquo; and woke up
+next morning thinking I had popped off in my sleep to &lsquo;Greenland&rsquo;s
+icy mountains.&rsquo; Herb Heal! you know what tricks a thermometer, if we had
+one, might play in our camp from this out; talk sense to these fellows.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Herb, who had risen an hour before his charges, had already fetched fresh
+water, coaxed up the fire, and was busily mixing flapjacks for breakfast. His
+ears, however, had caught the drift of the talk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Guess Cyrus is right,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Seeing as it&rsquo;s the
+first time you Britishers have slept off your spring mattresses, I&rsquo;d say,
+light out for the city and steam-heat afore the snow comes. Oh! you
+needn&rsquo;t get your mad up. I ain&rsquo;t thinking you&rsquo;d growl at
+being snowed in. I know better.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By the great horn spoon! I b&rsquo;lieve I&rsquo;ll go right along to
+Greenville with you,&rdquo; exclaimed the guide a minute later. &ldquo;I might
+get a chance to pick up a bargain of a second-hand rifle there. And I guess
+you&rsquo;d be mighty sick o&rsquo; your luck, Dol, if you had to lug them
+moose-antlers part o&rsquo; the way yerself.
+
+I ain&rsquo;t stuck on carrying &rsquo;em either, if we can get a
+jumper.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But there was a third reason, still more powerful than these two, why he should
+make a trip to the distant town, which stirred Herb&rsquo;s mind while he
+stirred his cakes. His sturdy sense told him that it would be well he should
+put in an appearance when Cyrus made a statement before the Greenville coroner
+as to the cause and manner of Chris&rsquo;s death.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, you boys, we don&rsquo;t want no fooling this blessed day,&rdquo;
+he said, when breakfast was in order, and the campers were emptying for the
+second time their tin mugs of coffee. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s sport before
+us&mdash;tearing good sport. Whatever do you s&rsquo;pose I come on this
+morning when I was cruising over the bog for water? Caribou-tracks!
+Caribou-tracks, as sure as there&rsquo;s a caribou in Maine!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who&rsquo;s for following &rsquo;em? We hain&rsquo;t got much provisions
+left; and I guess a chunk of broiled caribou-steak about as big as a
+horse&rsquo;s upper lip would cheer each of us up, and make us feel first-rate.
+What say, boys?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By all that&rsquo;s glorious!&rdquo; ejaculated Cyrus, his eyes striking
+light. &ldquo;Caribou-signs! Of course we&rsquo;ll follow them. A bit of fresh
+meat
+
+would be pretty acceptable, and a good view of a herd of caribou would be still
+more so&mdash;to me, at any rate. That would just about top off our exploring
+to a T.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got to be mighty spry, then,&rdquo; said the woodsman,
+lurching to his feet, muscles swelling, and nostrils spreading like a
+sleuth-hound&rsquo;s. &ldquo;If you want caribou, you&rsquo;ve got to take
+&rsquo;em while they&rsquo;re around. Old hunters have a saying:
+&lsquo;They&rsquo;re here to-day, to-morrow nowhere.&rsquo; And that&rsquo;s
+about the size of it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s start off this minute!&rdquo; Dol jerked out the words while
+he bolted the last salt shreds of his pork. &ldquo;Hurry up, you fellows!
+You&rsquo;re as slow as snails. I&rsquo;d eat the jolliest meal that was ever
+cooked in three minutes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No wonder you squirm and shout all night, then, until sane people with
+good digestions feel ready to blow your head off,&rdquo; laughed Cyrus, who was
+one of the laggards; but he disposed of the last mouthfuls of his own meal with
+little regard for his digestive canal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In rather less than twenty minutes the four were scanning with wide eyes
+certain fresh foot-marks, plainly printed on a patch of soft oozing clay,
+midway on the boggy tract.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Whew! Bless me! Those caribou-tracks?&rdquo; Cyrus caught his breath
+with amazement while he crouched to examine them. &ldquo;Why, they&rsquo;re
+bigger than any moose-tracks we&rsquo;ve seen!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t that great?&rdquo; gasped Dol.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, come to think of it, it is,&rdquo; answered the guide, in the
+stealthy tones of an expectant hunter; &ldquo;for a full-grown bull-caribou
+don&rsquo;t stand so high as a full-sized moose by two or three feet, and he
+don&rsquo;t weigh more&rsquo;n half as much. Still, for all that, caribou deer
+beat every other animal of the deer tribe, so far&rsquo;s I know, in the size
+of their hoofs, as you&rsquo;ll see bime-by if luck&rsquo;s with us! And my
+stars! how they scud along on them big hoofs. I&rsquo;d back &rsquo;em in a
+race against the smartest of your city chaps that ever spun through Maine on
+his new-fangled &lsquo;wheel,&rsquo; that he&rsquo;s so sot on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Garst, who was an enthusiastic cyclist, with a gurgle of unbelieving mirth,
+prepared to dispute this. There might have ensued a wordy sparring about
+caribou versus bicycle, had not the guide been impressed with the necessity for
+prompt action at the expense of speech.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We must quit our talk and get a move on,&rdquo; he whispered, and led
+the forward march across the bog, his eyes every now and again narrowing into
+two gleaming slits, as if he were debating within himself, while he studied the
+ground or some bush which showed signs of being nibbled or trampled. Then he
+would sweep the horizon with long-range vision.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But not a tuft of hair or glancing horn hove in sight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The marsh was left behind. The hoof-marks were lost in a wide meadowy sweep of
+open ground, bounded at a distance by an irregular line of hills, sparsely
+covered with spruce-trees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Towards these Herb headed, leaving Katahdin away back in the rear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Shaw! I&rsquo;m afeard they&rsquo;re &lsquo;nowhere&rsquo; by
+this time,&rdquo; he whispered, when the hunters reached the rising ground,
+glancing at Dol, who stepped lightly beside him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The boy&rsquo;s lips parted to breathe out compressed disappointment; but his
+answer was lost in a sharp whirr! whirr! and a sudden flutter of wings above
+his head. His eyes went aloft towards a bough about eight feet from the ground.
+So did Herb&rsquo;s, and lit with a new, whimsical hope.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A spruce partridge!&rdquo; hissed the guide, his voice thrilling even in
+its stealthy whisper. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s luck&mdash;dead sure! The Injuns say,
+&lsquo;The red eye never tells a lie;&rsquo;&rdquo; and the woodsman pointed
+out the strip of bare red skin above the beady eyes of the bird, which cuddled
+itself on its branch, and looked down at them unfrighted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol Farrar, who in this region of moose-birds and moose-calls could believe in
+anything, felt both his spirits and credulity rise together. He managed to keep
+abreast of the trained hunter, as the latter, with swift, stretching, silent
+steps climbed the hill. And he heard the hunter&rsquo;s sudden cluck of triumph
+as he reached the top, and looked down upon the valley at the other side, the
+inarticulate sound being followed by one softly rung word,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Caribou!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Caribou? They look awfully like quiet Alderney cows, except for the big
+antlers!&rdquo; The amazed exclamation stirred the English boy&rsquo;s tongue,
+but he did not make it audible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Following Herb&rsquo;s example, he stretched himself flat upon his stomach
+under a spruce, and stared over the brow of the hill at a forest pantomime
+which was being acted in the valley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cautiously slipping from tree to tree, Cyrus and Neal, who had lagged a few
+steps behind, joined the leaders, and lay low, eagerly gazing too.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On its farther side the hill was yet more sparsely covered, the scattered
+spruces showing gaps between them where the lumberman&rsquo;s axe had made
+havoc. Through these openings, which were as shafts of light amid the
+evergreen&rsquo;s waving play, the hunters saw the sun silver a brown pool in
+the valley. A few maples and birches waved their shrivelling splendors of
+scarlet and buff at irregular distances from the water. And in and out among
+these trees moved in graceful woodland frolic four or five large
+animals,&mdash;perhaps more,&mdash;their doings being plainly seen by the
+watchers on the hill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Their coats, like those of the smaller deer, were of a brown which seemed to
+have caught its dye from the autumnal tints surrounding them. In shape they
+justified Dol&rsquo;s criticism; for they certainly were not unlike cows of the
+Alderney breed, save for the widely branching horns.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of the strength of these antlers the hidden spectators got sudden, startling
+proof, as the two largest caribou drew off from the rest, and charged each
+other in a real or sham fight, the battle-clang of their meeting horns sounding
+far away to the hill-top.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Them two bulls are having a big time of it. Look at &rsquo;em now, with
+the small one. That&rsquo;s a stranger in the herd,&rdquo; hummed Herb into the
+ear of the boy next to him, his voice so light and even that it might have been
+but the murmur of a falling leaf. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s an all-fired pity that
+we&rsquo;re jest too far off for a shot.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The &ldquo;stranger,&rdquo; which the woodsman&rsquo;s long-range eye had
+singled out, was of a smaller size and paler color than the other caribou; and
+Herb&mdash;who could interpret the forest pantomime far better than he would
+have explained the acting of human beings on a stage&mdash;told his companions
+in whispers and signs that it was in distressed dread of its company.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The attentions which the rest paid to it seemed at first only friendly and
+facetious. The two big bulls, after trying their mettle against each other for
+a minute, separated, and moved towards it, prodded it lightly with their horns,
+and playfully bit its sides, a sport in which the other members of the herd
+joined.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They&rsquo;re playing it, like a cat with a mouse; but I guess
+they&rsquo;ll murder it in the long run if it&rsquo;s sickly or weak. Caribou
+are the biggest bullies in these woods&mdash;to each other,&rdquo; whispered
+Herb.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By the great horn spoon! they&rsquo;re doing for it now,&rdquo; he
+gasped, a minute later. &ldquo;Sho!... if I only had my old Winchester here,
+I&rsquo;d soon stop their lynching. Try it, you, Cyrus! You&rsquo;re a sure
+shot, an&rsquo; you can creep within a hundred yards of &rsquo;em without being
+scented. Try it, man!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The guide&rsquo;s flashing eyes and quick signs conveyed half his meaning; his
+excited sentences were so low that Garst only caught fag-ends of them. But they
+were emphasized unexpectedly by a faint bleating sound rising from the
+valley,&mdash;the helpless bleat of a buffeted creature.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We want meat, and I&rsquo;m going to spring a surprise on those
+bullies,&rdquo; muttered Cyrus, setting his teeth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Still lying flat, he shot his eyes down the hill-slope, forming a plan of
+descent; then he lifted the rifle beside him, and jammed some fresh cartridges
+into the magazine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ere a dozen long breaths had been drawn, he was stealthily moving towards the
+valley, slipping from spruce to spruce&mdash;an arrowlike, unnoticeable figure
+in his dark gray tweeds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was close to the foot of the hill when the three breathless fellows above
+saw him raise his rifle, just as the unfortunate little caribou, after many
+efforts to escape, had been beaten to its knees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;ll drop one, sure! He&rsquo;s a crack shot&mdash;is Cyrus!
+There! he&rsquo;s drawing bead. Bravo!... he&rsquo;s floored the
+biggest!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Herb&rsquo;s gusty breath blew the sentences through his nostrils, while the
+sudden, explosive bang of the Winchester cut through all other sounds, and set
+the air a-quiver.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Twice Cyrus fired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The largest bull-caribou leaped three feet upward, wheeled about, staggered to
+his knees. A third shot stopped his bullying forever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hurrah! I guess you&rsquo;ve got the leader&mdash;the best of the herd.
+That other bull was a buster too! You might ha&rsquo; dropped him, if
+you&rsquo;d been in the humor!&rdquo; bellowed the guide, springing to his
+legs, and letting out his pent-up wind in a full-blast roar of triumph.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He well knew that Cyrus, &ldquo;being a queer specimen sportsman,&rdquo; and
+the right sort after all, would be satisfied with the one inevitable deed of
+death.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As their leader fell, the caribou raised their heads, stared in stiffened
+wonder for a few seconds, offering a steady mark for the smoking rifle if it
+had been in the grasp of a butcher. Then, as though propelled by one shock,
+they cut for the wood at dazzling speed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A minute&mdash;and they were in the distance as tufts of hair blown before a
+storm-wind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The half-killed weakling sought shelter more slowly in another direction.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well done, Cy!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Congratulations, old man!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve got a trophy now. You&rsquo;ll never leave this splendid
+head behind. My eye, what antlers!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such were the exclamations blown to Garst&rsquo;s ears by the hot breath of his
+English friends, as they reached his side, and stooped with him to examine the
+fallen forest beauty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No; I guess we can manage to haul the head back to camp, with as much
+meat as we need. You&rsquo;ll have your &lsquo;chunk of caribou-steak as big as
+a horse&rsquo;s upper lip,&rsquo; to-night, Herb, and bigger if you want it.
+I&rsquo;m tickled at getting the antlers, especially as I didn&rsquo;t shoot
+this beauty for the sake of them. I&rsquo;ll hook them on my shoulders when we
+start back to Millinokett to-morrow.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So answered the successful hunter, tingling with some pride in the skill which,
+because of his reverence for all life, he generally kept out of sight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And he stuck to his purpose about the antlers.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+Cheered and invigorated by a sumptuous supper and breakfast of broiled
+caribou-steaks, supplemented by Herb&rsquo;s lightest cakes, and carrying some
+of the meat with them as provision for the way, the campers accomplished their
+backward tramp to the log camp on Millinokett Lake in fulness of strength and
+spirits.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Once or twice during the journey, when the guide was stalking ahead, and
+thought himself unnoticed, the city fellows saw him lift his right hand and
+look at it for a full minute. Then it swung heavily back to his side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s missing his rifle, the partner that never went back on
+him,&rdquo; said Cyrus. &ldquo;Say, boys! I&rsquo;ve got an idea!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Out with it if it&rsquo;s worth anything,&rdquo; grunted Dol. &ldquo;I
+never have ideas these days. Too much doing. I don&rsquo;t feel as if there was
+a steady peg in me to hang one on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh! quit your nonsense, Chick, and listen. Herb will wait for us in a
+few minutes,&rdquo; was the Boston man&rsquo;s impatient rejoinder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then followed a low-toned consultation, in the course of which such talk as
+this was heard:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Our Pater will want to shell out when he hears about Chris.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So will mine. He&rsquo;ll be for sending Herb a cool five hundred or
+thousand dollars, right away. And, as likely as not, Herb would feel flaring
+mad, and ready to chuck it in his face. He&rsquo;s not the sort of fellow to
+stand being paid by an outsider for a plucky act, done in the best hour of his
+life.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I say! wouldn&rsquo;t it be decenter to manage the thing ourselves,
+without letting anybody who doesn&rsquo;t know him meddle in it?&rdquo; This
+suggestion was in Dol&rsquo;s voice. &ldquo;Neal and I could draw our
+allowances for three months in advance; the Pater will be willing enough.
+We&rsquo;ll be precious hard up without them, but we&rsquo;ll rub through
+somehow. Then you can chip in an even third, Cy, and we&rsquo;ll order an A I
+rifle,&mdash;the best ever invented, from the best company in
+America,&mdash;silver plate, with his name,&mdash;and all the rest of it.
+I&rsquo;d swamp my allowance for a year to see Herb&rsquo;s face when he gets
+it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the plan! You do have occasional moments of wisdom, Dol;
+I&rsquo;ll say that much for you,&rdquo; commented the leader. &ldquo;Well,
+Herb has taken a special sort of liking to you. You may tip him a hint to wait
+in Greenville for a few days, and not to go looking for second-hand rifles till
+he hears from us. Better not say anything until we&rsquo;re just parting. Ten
+to one, though, you&rsquo;ll blurt the whole thing out in some harebrained
+minute, or give it away in your sleep.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Blow me if I do!&rdquo; answered Dol solemnly.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig26.jpg" width="400" height="166" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap26"></a>Chapter XXVI.<br/>Doc Again</h2>
+
+<p>
+Herb, turning back at that minute to wait for his party, experienced a shock of
+curiosity which was new to him, at seeing the three in close counsel,
+shouldering each other upon a trail a couple of feet wide.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the sensation passed. Dol for once was not guilty of an indiscretion,
+waking or sleeping. The woodsman got no hint of what matter had been discussed
+until more than two weeks later, when he stood in the main street of
+Greenville, beside a tanned, muscular, newly shaven trio, waiting for their
+departure for Boston.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A few pleasant days, marked by no particular excitements, had been spent at the
+log camp on Millinokett after that wonderful trip into the forests of Katahdin.
+Then the weather turned suddenly blustering and cold; and Cyrus, as captain,
+ordered an immediate forced march to Greenville.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Under Herb&rsquo;s guidance that march was made with singularly few hardships.
+He managed to hire a &ldquo;jumper&rdquo; from a new settler who had a farm a
+couple of miles from their camp. This contrivance was a rough sort of sled,
+formed of two stout ash saplings, and hitched to a courageous horse. The
+&ldquo;jumper&rsquo;s&rdquo; one merit was that it could travel along many a
+rough trail where wheels would be splintered at the outset. But since, as Herb
+said, it went at &ldquo;a succession of dead jumps,&rdquo; no camper was
+willing to trust his bones to its tender mercies. However, it answered
+admirably for carrying the tent, knapsacks, and trophies of the party, tightly
+strapped in place, including Neal&rsquo;s bear-skin, which was duly called for,
+and the moose-antlers, more precious in Dol&rsquo;s sight than if they had been
+made of beaten gold.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus the campers journeyed homeward with their backs as light as their spirits,
+caring little for the chills of a couple of nights spent under canvas and
+rubber coverings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two gala evenings they had,&mdash;one with Uncle Eb in his bark hut near Squaw
+Pond, where they were regaled with a sumptuous supper, for &ldquo;coons war in
+eatin&rsquo; order now;&rdquo; and the second with Doctor Phil Buck at his
+little frame house near Moosehead Lake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dear old Doc was as ever a power,&mdash;a power to welcome, uplift, entertain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The campers sought him immediately on their arrival at Greenville; and he stood
+by them while Cyrus made a full statement before the local coroner about the
+death and burial of the half-breed, Chris Kemp, the Farrars and Herb confirming
+what was said with due dignity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But dignity was blown to the four winds by the very unprofessional and very
+woodsman-like cheer that Doc raised, and that was echoed thunderously by Joe
+Flint and a few other guides and loungers who had collected to hear the story,
+when Cyrus described the splendid rush which Herb made, with the dying man in
+his arms, and the clay of the landslide half smothering him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry I wasn&rsquo;t near to try and do something for the poor
+fellow,&rdquo; said the doctor, later on, when his friends were gathered round
+a blazing wood-fire in his own snug house. &ldquo;But I doubt if I could have
+helped him. I guess he was born with the hankering for whiskey, and when that
+is in the mongrel blood of a half-breed it is pretty sure to wreck him some
+time. We must leave him to God, boys, and to changes larger than we
+know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve a letter for you, Neal,&rdquo; added the host presently in a
+lighter tone. &ldquo;It was directed to my care. It is from Philadelphia, from
+Royal Sinclair, I think.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Neal slit the envelope which was handed to him, and read the few lines it
+contained aloud, with a longing burst of laughter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Royal was as short with his pen as he was dash-away with his tongue. The letter
+was a brief but pressing invitation to Cyrus and the Farrars to visit their
+camping acquaintances of the Maine wilds at the Sinclairs&rsquo; home in
+Philadelphia before the English boys recrossed the Atlantic.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come you must!&rdquo; wrote Roy. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve promised to give a
+big spread, and invite all the crowd we train with to meet you. We&rsquo;ll
+have a great old time, and bring out our best yarns. Don&rsquo;t let me catch
+you refusing!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus10"></a>
+<img src="images/illus10.jpg" width="600" height="445" alt="Illustration: " />
+<p class="caption"><b>Greenville,&mdash;&ldquo;Farewell To The Woods.&rdquo;</b><br/></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We won&rsquo;t if we can help it,&rdquo; commented Neal; &ldquo;if only
+we can coax the Pater to give us another week in jolly America.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The campers slept upon mattresses that night for the first time in many weeks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The following morning saw them grouped in the main street of Greenville, with
+Doc and Herb on hand for a final farewell, waiting for the departure of the
+coach which was to bear them a little part of the way towards Boston
+civilization.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol was turning over in his jostled thoughts the delicate wording of the hint
+which he was to convey to Herb about the rifle, when he became aware that
+Doctor Phil was pinching his shoulder, and saying, while he drew Neal&rsquo;s
+attention in the same way:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, you fellows! I&rsquo;m glad to have known you. If you ever come to
+Maine again, remember that there&rsquo;s one old forest fogy who&rsquo;ll have
+a delightful welcome for you in his house or camp, not to speak of the thing he
+calls his heart. And I hope you&rsquo;ll keep a pleasant corner in your
+memories for our Pine Tree State, and for American States generally, so far as
+you&rsquo;ve seen them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol tried to answer; but recalling the evening when, wrecked at heart, with
+stinging feet, he had stumbled at last into the trail to Doc&rsquo;s camp, he
+could only mutter, &ldquo;Dash it all!&rdquo; and rub his leaking eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course I&rsquo;ll think in an hour from now of all the things I want
+to say,&rdquo; began Neal helplessly, and stopped. &ldquo;But I&rsquo;ll tell
+you how I feel, Doc,&rdquo; he added, with a sudden rush of breath: &ldquo;I
+think I can never see your Stars and Stripes again without taking off my hat to
+them, and feeling that they&rsquo;re about equal to my own flag.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Neatly put, Neal! I couldn&rsquo;t have done it better,&rdquo; laughed
+Cyrus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shake!&rdquo; and Doc offered his hand in a heart-grip, while the hairs
+on it bristled. &ldquo;Boy! long life to that feeling. You men who are now
+being hatched will show us one day what Young England and Young America, as a
+grand brotherhood under comrade flags, can do to give this old earth a lift
+which she has never had yet towards peace and prosperity. We&rsquo;re looking
+to you for it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hur-r-r-rup!&rdquo; cheered Herb, subduing his shout to the requirements
+of a settlement, but sending his battered hat some ten feet into the air, and
+recovering it with a dexterous shoot of his long arm, by way of giving his
+friends an inspiring send-off.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tell you what it is!&rdquo; he said suddenly, turning upon the Farrars,
+&ldquo;I never guided
+
+Britishers till now; but, wherever you sprung from, you&rsquo;re clean grit. If
+a man is that, it don&rsquo;t matter a whistle to me what country riz
+him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A few minutes afterwards, with a jingle, jangle, lurch, and rattle, the
+stage-coach was swaying its way out of Greenville. Dol, stooping from his seat
+upon it, gripped the guide&rsquo;s hand in a wringing good-by.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Herb,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;we three fellows want you to stay here for
+a few days, and not to do anything about a second-hand rifle until you hear
+from us. Mind!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<p>
+And so it happened that, ten days or so later, while the three were enjoying
+the hospitalities of the Sinclairs and &ldquo;their crowd&rdquo; in the Quaker
+City, Herb, who was still in Greenville, waiting for a fresh engagement as
+guide, was accosted by the driver of the coach from Bangor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Herb Heal, here&rsquo;s a bully parcel for you,&rdquo; said the Jehu,
+with a knowing grin. &ldquo;Came from Boston, I guess. I war booked to take
+pertik&rsquo;lar care of it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Herb, feeling his strong fingers tingle, undid many wrappers, and hauled
+out, before the eyes of Greenville loungers, a rifle such
+
+as it is the desire of every Maine woodsman&rsquo;s heart to possess.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A best grade, 45-90, half-magazine Winchester it was, fitted with shot-gun
+stock and Lyman sights, and bearing a gleaming silver plate, on which was
+prettily lettered:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+HERB HEAL
+
+</p> <p>
+In Memory Of October, 1891.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Underneath was engraved a miniature pine, its trunk bearing three sets of
+initials.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Herb stalked straight off a distance of one mile to Doctor Buck&rsquo;s house,
+pushed the door open as if it had been the door of a wilderness camp, and shot
+himself into Doc&rsquo;s little study.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look what those three gamy fellows have sent me,&rdquo; he said; and his
+eyes were now like Millinokett Lake under a full sun-burst. &ldquo;I thought
+the old one was a corker, but this&rdquo;&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here the woodsman&rsquo;s dictionary gave out.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/fig27.jpg" width="400" height="167" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap27"></a>Chapter XXVII.<br/>Christmas on the Other Side</h2>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Christmas, 1893.&rsquo; Those last two figures are a bit crooked;
+aren&rsquo;t they, Dol?&rdquo; said a tall, soldierly fellow, who was no longer
+a boy, yet could scarcely in his own country call himself a man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He read the date critically, having fixed it as the centre-piece in a festive
+arch of holly and bunting, which spanned the hall of a mansion in Victoria
+Park, Manchester.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I believe that&rsquo;s better,&rdquo; he added, straightening a tipsy
+&ldquo;93,&rdquo; and bounding from a chair-back on which he was perched, to
+step quickly backward, with a something in gait and bearing that suggested a
+cavalry swing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Christmas, 1893,&rsquo;&rdquo; he read musingly again.
+&ldquo;Goodness! to think it&rsquo;s two years since we laid eyes on old Cyrus,
+and that he has landed on English soil before this, may be here any
+minute&mdash;and Sinclair too. I guess&rdquo;&mdash;these two words were
+brought out with a smile, as if the speaker was putting himself in touch with
+the happiness of a by-gone time&mdash;&ldquo;I guess that &lsquo;Star-Spangled
+Banner&rsquo; will look home-like to them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Neal Farrar, just back for a short vacation from Sandhurst Military
+College, twice gravely saluted the gay bunting with which his Christmas arch
+was draped, where the Union Jack of old England kissed the American Stars and
+Stripes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say!&rdquo; he exclaimed, turning to a tall youth, who had been
+inspecting his operations, &ldquo;that Liverpool train must be beastly late,
+Dol. Those fellows ought to be here before this. The Mater will be in a stew.
+She ordered dinner at five, as the youngsters dine with us, of course, to-day,
+and it&rsquo;s past that now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hush! will you? I&rsquo;ll vow that cab is stopping! Yes! By all
+that&rsquo;s splendid, there they are!&rdquo; and Dol Farrar&rsquo;s joy-whoop
+rang through the English oaken hall with scarcely less vehemence than it had
+rung in former days through the dim aisles of the Maine forests.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A sound of spinning cab-wheels abruptly stopping, a noise of men&rsquo;s feet
+on the steps outside, and the hall-door was flung wide by two pairs of
+welcoming hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Cyrus! Royal! Got here at last? Oh! but this is jolly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Neal, dear old boy, how goes it? Dol, you&rsquo;re a giant. I
+wouldn&rsquo;t have known you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such were the most coherent of the greetings which followed, as two visitors,
+in travelling rig, their faces reddened by eight days at sea in midwinter,
+crossed the threshold.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There could be no difficulty in recognizing Cyrus Garst&rsquo;s well-knit
+figure and speculative eyes, though a sprouting beard changed somewhat the
+lower part of his face. And if Royal Sinclair&rsquo;s tall shoulders and
+brand-new mustache were at all unfamiliar, anybody who had once heard the click
+and hum of his hasty tongue would scarcely question his identity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Americans had steamed over the Atlantic amid bluster of elements, purposing
+a tour through southern France and Italy. And they were to take part, before
+proceeding to the Continent, in the festivities of an English Christmas at the
+Farrars&rsquo; home in Manchester.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, but this is jolly!&rdquo; cried Neal again, his voice so thickened
+by the joy of welcome that&mdash;embryo cavalry man though he was&mdash;he
+could bring out nothing more forceful than the one boyish exclamation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dol&rsquo;s throat was freer. Sinclair and he raised a regular tornado in the
+handsome hall. Questions and answers, only half distinguishable, blew between
+them, with explosions of laughter, and a thunder of claps on each other&rsquo;s
+shoulders. When their gale was at its noisiest, Royal&rsquo;s part of it
+abruptly sank to a dead calm, stopped by &ldquo;an angel unawares.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A girl of sixteen, with hair like the brown and gold of a pheasant&rsquo;s
+breast, opened a drawing-room door, stepped to Neal&rsquo;s side, and
+whispered,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Introduce me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My sister,&rdquo; said Neal, recovering self-possession. &ldquo;Myrtle,
+I believe I&rsquo;ll let you guess for yourself which is Garst and which is
+Sinclair.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;ve heard so much about you for the past two years that I
+know you already,
+
+all but your looks. So I&rsquo;m sure to guess right,&rdquo; said Myrtle
+Farrar, scrutinizing the Americans with a pretty welcoming glance, then giving
+to each a glad hand-shake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Royal&rsquo;s tongue grew for once less active than his eyes, which were so
+caught by the golden shades on the pheasant-like head that for a minute he
+could see nothing else. Even Cyrus, who was accustomed to look upon himself as
+the cool-blooded senior among his band of intimates, tingled a little.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re just in time for dinner&mdash;I&rsquo;m so glad,&rdquo;
+laughed Miss Myrtle. &ldquo;A Christmas dinner with a whole tribe of Farrars,
+big and little.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But our baggage hasn&rsquo;t come on yet,&rdquo; answered Garst
+ruefully. &ldquo;Will Mrs. Farrar excuse our appearing in travelling
+rig?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed she will!&rdquo; answered for herself a fair, motherly-looking
+English woman, as pretty as Myrtle save for the gold-brown hair, while she came
+a few steps into the hall to welcome her sons&rsquo; friends.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Five minutes afterwards the Americans found themselves seated at a table
+garlanded with red-berried holly, trailing ivy, and pearl-eyed mistletoe, and
+surrounded by a round dozen of Farrars, including several youngsters whose
+general place was in schoolroom or nursery, but who, even to a tot of three,
+were promoted to dine in splendor on Christmas Day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, this is festive!&rdquo; remarked Cyrus to Myrtle, who sat next to
+him, when, after much preparatory feasting, an English plum-pudding, wreathed,
+decorated, and steaming, came upon the scene. Fluttering amid the almonds which
+studded its top were two wee pink-stemmed flags. And here again, in compliment
+to the newly arrived guests, the &ldquo;Star-Spangled Banner&rdquo; kissed the
+English Union Jack.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Say, Neal!&rdquo; exclaimed Cyrus, his eyes keenly bright as he looked
+at the toy standards, &ldquo;wouldn&rsquo;t this sort of thing delight our
+friend Doc? By the way, that reminds me, I have a package for you from him, and
+a message from Herb Heal too. Herb wants to know &lsquo;when those gamy
+Britishers are coming out to hunt moose again?&rsquo; And Doc has sent you a
+little bundle of beaver-clippings. They are from an ash-tree two feet in
+circumference, felled by that beaver colony which we came across near the
+<i>brûlée</i> where you shot your bear and covered yourself with glory. Doc
+asked you to put the wood in sight on Christmas Night, and to think of the
+Maine woods.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Think of them!&rdquo; Neal ejaculated. &ldquo;Bless the dear old brick!
+does he think we could ever forget them and the stunning times we had in camp
+and on trail?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Camp and Trail, by Isabel Hornibrook
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+</pre>
+
+</body>
+
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Camp and Trail, by Isabel Hornibrook
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Camp and Trail
+       A Story of the Maine Woods
+
+Author: Isabel Hornibrook
+
+Release Date: November 4, 2004 [EBook #13946]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAMP AND TRAIL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Curtis Weyant, Josephine Paolucci, Joshua Hutchinson and
+the PG Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE MOOSE WAS NOW SNORTING LIKE A WAR-HORSE BENEATH.
+
+(_See page 274_)]
+
+
+
+
+CAMP AND TRAIL
+
+A Story of the Maine Woods
+
+BY
+
+ISABEL HORNIBROOK
+
+AUTHOR OF "TUKE," "IN THE SERVICE," "LOST IN MAINE WOODS," ETC.
+
+BOSTON
+
+LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY
+
+1897
+
+TYPOGRAPHY BY C.J. PETERS & SON, BOSTON.
+
+PRESSWORK BY BERWICK & SMITH.
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+J.L.H.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+In adding another to the list of stories bearing on that subject of
+perennial interest to boys, adventures in camp and on trail among the
+woods and lakes of Northern Maine, one thought has been the inspiration
+that led me on.
+
+It is this: To prove to high-mettled lads, American, and English as
+well, that forest quarters, to be the most jovial quarters on earth,
+need not be made a shambles. Sensation may reach its finest pitch,
+excitement be an unfailing fillip, and fun the leaven which leavens the
+camping-trip from start to finish, even though the triumph of killing
+for triumph's sake be left out of the play-bill.
+
+"There is a higher sport in preservation than in destruction," says a
+veteran hunter, whose forest experiences and descriptions have in part
+enriched this story. I commend the opinion to boy-readers, trusting that
+they may become "queer specimen sportsmen," after the pattern of Cyrus
+Garst; and find a more entrancing excitement in studying the live wild
+things of the forest than in gloating over a dying tremor, or examining
+a senseless mass of horn, hide, and hoofs, after the life-spring which
+worked the mechanism has been stilled forever.
+
+One other desire has trodden on the heels of the first: That Young
+England and Young America may be inspired with a wish to understand each
+other better, to take each other frankly and simply for the manhood in
+each; and that thus misconception and prejudice may disappear like mists
+of an old-day dream.
+
+ISABEL HORNIBROOK.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+I. JACKING FOR DEER
+
+II. A SPILL-OUT
+
+III. LIFE IN A BARK HUT
+
+IV. WHITHER BOUND?
+
+V. A COON HUNT
+
+VI. AFTER BLACK DUCKS
+
+VII. A FOREST GUIDE-POST
+
+VIII. ANOTHER CAMP
+
+IX. A SUNDAY AMONG THE PINES
+
+X. FORWARD ALL!
+
+XI. BEAVER WORKS
+
+XII. "GO IT, OLD BRUIN!"
+
+XIII. "THE SKIN IS YOURS"
+
+XIV. A LUCKY HUNTER
+
+XV. A FALLEN KING
+
+XVI. MOOSE-CALLING
+
+XVII. HERB'S YARNS
+
+XVIII. To LONELIER WILDS
+
+XIX. TREED BY A MOOSE
+
+XX. DOL'S TRIUMPH
+
+XXI. ON KATAHDIN
+
+XXII. THE OLD HOME-CAMP
+
+XXIII. BROTHERS' WORK
+
+XXIV. "KEFPING THINGS EVEN"
+
+XXV. A LITTLE CARIBOU QUARREL
+
+XXVI. DOC AGAIN
+
+XXVII. CHRISTMAS ON THE OTHER SIDE
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+THE MOOSE WAS NOW SNORTING LIKE A WAR-HORSE BENEATH.
+
+"THERE IS MOOSEHEAD LAKE."
+
+DOL SIGHTS A FRIENDLY CAMP.
+
+IN THE SHADOW OF KATAHDIN.
+
+"GO IT, OLD BRUIN! GO IT WHILE YOU CAN!"
+
+"HERB HEAL."
+
+A FALLEN KING.
+
+THE CAMP ON MILLINOKETT LAKE.
+
+"HERB CHARGED THROUGH THE CHOKING DUST-CLOUDS."
+
+GREENVILLE,--"FAREWELL TO THE WOODS."
+
+
+
+
+CAMP AND TRAIL.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+JACKING FOR DEER.
+
+
+"Now, Neal Farrar, you've got to be as still as the night itself,
+remember. If you bounce, or turn, or draw a long breath, you won't have
+a rag of reputation as a deer-hunter to take back to England. Sneeze
+once, and we're done for. That means more diet of flapjacks and pork,
+instead of venison steaks. And I guess your city appetite won't rally to
+pork much longer, even in the wilds."
+
+Neal Farrar sighed as if there was something in that.
+
+"But, you know, it's just when an unlucky fellow would give his life
+not to sneeze that he's sure to bring out a thumping big one," he said
+plaintively.
+
+"Well, keep it back like a hero if your head bursts in the attempt," was
+the reply with a muffled laugh. "When you know that the canoe is gliding
+along somehow, but you can't hear a sound or feel a motion, and you
+begin to wonder whether you're in the air or on water, flying or
+floating, imagine that you're the ghost of some old Indian hunter who
+used to jack for deer on Squaw Pond, and be stonily silent."
+
+"Oh! I say, stop chaffing," whispered Neal impetuously. "You're enough
+to make a fellow feel creepy before ever he starts. I could bear the
+worst racket on earth better than a dead quiet."
+
+This dialogue was exchanged in low but excited voices between a young
+man of about one and twenty, and a lad who was apparently five years his
+junior, while they waded knee-deep in water among the long, rank grasses
+and circular pads of water-lilies which border the banks of Squaw Pond,
+a small lake in the forest region of northern Maine.
+
+The hour was somewhere about eleven o'clock. The night was intensely
+still, without a zephyr stirring among the trees, and of that wavering
+darkness caused by a half-clouded moon. On the black and green water
+close to the bank rocked a light birch-bark canoe, a ticklish craft,
+which a puff might overturn. The young man who had urged the necessity
+for silence was groping round it, fumbling with the sharp bow, in which
+he fixed a short pole or "jack-staff," with some object--at present no
+one could discern what--on top.
+
+"There, I've got the jack rigged up!" he whispered presently. "Step in
+now, Neal, and I'll open it. Have you got your rifle at half-cock?
+That's right. Be careful. A fellow would need to have his hair parted in
+the middle in a birch box like this. Remember, mum's the word!"
+
+The lad obeyed, seating himself as noiselessly as he could in the bow of
+the canoe, and threw his rifle on his shoulder in a convenient position
+for shooting, with a freedom which showed he was accustomed to firearms.
+
+At the same time his companion stepped into the canoe, having first
+touched the dark object on the pole just over Neal's head. Instantly it
+changed into a brilliant, scintillating, silvery eye, which flashed
+forward a stream of white light on a line with the pointed gun, cutting
+the black face of the pond in twain as with a silver blade, and making
+the leaves on shore glisten like oxidized coins.
+
+The effect of this sudden illumination was so sudden and beautiful that
+the boy for a minute or two held his rifle in unsteady hands while the
+canoe glided out from the bank. An exclamation began in his throat which
+ended in an indistinct gurgle. Remembering that he was pledged to
+silence, he settled himself to be as wordless and motionless as if his
+living body had become a statue.
+
+From his position no revealing radiance fell on him. He sat in shadow
+beside that glinting eye, which was really a good-sized lantern, fitted
+at the back with a powerful silvered reflector, and in front with a
+glass lens, the light being thrown directly ahead. It was provided also
+with a sliding door that could be noiselessly slipped over the glass
+with a touch, causing the blackness of a total eclipse.
+
+This was the deer-hunters' "jack-lamp," familiarly called by Neal's
+companion the "jack."
+
+And now it may be readily guessed in what thrilling night-work these
+canoe-men are engaged as they skim over Squaw Pond, with no swish of
+paddle, nor jar of motion, nor even a noisy breath, disturbing the
+brooding silence through which they glide. They are "jacking" or
+"floating" for deer, showing the radiant eye of their silvery jack to
+attract any antlered buck or graceful doe which may come forth from the
+screen of the forest to drink at this quiet hour amid the tangled
+grasses and lily-pads at the pond's brink.
+
+Now, a deer, be it buck, doe, or fawn in the spotted coat, will stand as
+if moonstruck, if it hears no sound; to gaze at the lantern, studying
+the meteor which has crossed its world as an astronomer might
+investigate a rare, radiant comet. So it offers a steady mark for the
+sportsman's bullet, if he can glide near enough to discern its outline
+and take aim. There is one exception to this rule. If the wary animal
+has ever been startled by a shot fired from under the jack, trust him
+never to watch a light again, though it shine like the Kohinoor.
+
+As for Neal Farrar, this was his first attempt at playing the part of
+midnight hunter; and I am bound to say that--being English born and
+city bred--he found the situation much too mystifying for his peace of
+mind.
+
+He knew that the canoe was moving, moving rapidly; for giant pines along
+the shore, looking solid and black as mourning pillars, shot by him as
+if theirs were the motion, with an effect indescribably weird. Now and
+again a gray pine stump, appearing, if the light struck it, twice its
+real size, passed like a shimmering ghost. But he felt not the slightest
+tremor of advance, heard no swish or ripple of paddle.
+
+A moisture oozed from his skin, and gathered in heavy drips under the
+brim of his hat, as he began to wonder whether the light bark skiff was
+working through the water at all, or skimming in some unnatural way
+above it. For the life of him he could not settle this doubt. And,
+fearful of balking the expedition by a stir, he dared not turn his head
+to investigate the doings of his comrade, Cyrus Garst.
+
+Cyrus, though also city bred, was an American, and evidently an old hand
+at the present business. The Maine wilds had long been his playground.
+He had studied the knack of noiseless paddling under the teaching of a
+skilled forest guide until he fairly brought it to perfection. And, in
+perfection, it is about the most wizard-like art practised in the
+nineteenth century.
+
+The silent propulsion was managed thus: the grand master of the paddle
+gripped its cross handle in both hands, working it so that its broad
+blade cut the water first backward then forward so dexterously that not
+even his own practised hearing could detect a sound; nor could he any
+more than Neal feel a sensation of motion.
+
+The birch-bark skiff skimmed onward as if borne on unseen pinions.
+
+To Neal Farrar, who had been brought up amid the tumult of rival noises
+and the practical surroundings of Manchester, England, who was a
+stranger to the solitudes of primitive forests, and almost a stranger to
+weird experiences, the silent advance was a mystery. And it began to be
+a hateful one; for he had not even the poor explanation of it which has
+been given in this record.
+
+It was only his third night in Maine wilds; and I fear that his friend
+Cyrus, when inviting him to join in the jacking excursion, had refrained
+from explaining the canoe mystery, mischievously promising himself
+considerable fun from the English lad's bewilderment.
+
+Neal's hearing was strained to catch any sound of big game beating
+about amid the bushes on shore or splashing in the water, but none
+reached him. The night seemed to grow stiller, stiller, ever stiller, as
+they glided towards the head of the pond, until the dead quiet started
+strange, imaginary noises.
+
+There was a pounding as of dull hammers in his ears, a belling in his
+head, and a drumming at his heart.
+
+He was tortured by a wild desire to yell his loudest, and defy the
+brooding silence.
+
+Another--a midnight watchman--broke it instead.
+
+"Whoo-ho-ho-whah-whoo!"
+
+It was the thrilling scream of a big-eyed owl as he chased a squirrel to
+its death, and proceeded to banquet in unwinking solemnity.
+
+"Whoo-ho-ho-whah-whoo!"
+
+Neal started,--who wouldn't?--and joggled the canoe, thereby nearly
+ending the night hunt at once by the untimely discharge of his rifle.
+
+He had barely regained some measure of steadiness, though he felt as if
+needles were sticking into him all over, when at last there was a
+crashing amid the bushes on the right bank, not a hundred yards distant.
+
+Noiselessly as ever the canoe shot around, turning the jack's eye in
+that direction. A minute later a magnificent buck, swinging his antlers
+proudly, dashed into the pond, and stooped his small red tongue to
+drink, licking in the water greedily with a soft, lapping sound.
+
+Neal silently cocked his rifle, almost choking with excitement; then
+paused for a few seconds to brace up and control the nervous terrors
+which had possessed him, before his eye singled out the spot in the
+deer's neck which his bullet must pierce. But he found his operations
+further delayed; for the animal suddenly lifted its head, scattered
+feathery spray from its horns and hoofs, and retired a few steps up the
+bank.
+
+In its former position every part of its body was visibly outlined under
+the silver light of the jack. Now a successful shot would be difficult,
+though it might be managed. The boy leaned slightly forward, trying to
+hold his gun dead straight and take cool aim, when the most curious of
+all the curious sensations he had felt this night ran through him,
+seeming to scorch like electricity from his scalp to his feet.
+
+From the stand which the deer had taken, its body was in shadow. All
+that the sportsman could discern were two living, glowing eyes,
+staring--so it appeared to him--straight into his, like starry
+search-lights, as if they read the death-purpose in the boy's heart, and
+begged him to desist.
+
+It was all over with Neal Farrar's shot. He lowered his rifle, while the
+speech, which could no longer be repressed, rattled in his throat before
+it broke forth.
+
+"I'll go crazy if I don't speak!" he cried.
+
+At the first word the buck went scudding like the wind through the
+forest, doubtless vowing by the shades of his ancestors that he never
+would stand to gaze at a light again.
+
+"And--and--I can't shoot the thing while it's looking at me like that!"
+the boy blurted out.
+
+"You dunderhead! What do you mean?" gasped Cyrus, breaking silence in a
+gusty whisper of mingled anger and amusement. "You won't get a chance to
+shoot it or anything else now. You've lost us our meat for to-night."
+
+"Well, I couldn't help it," Neal whispered back. "For pity's sake, what
+has been moving this canoe? The quiet was enough to set a fellow mad!
+And then that buck stared straight at me like a human thing. I could
+see nothing but two burning eyes with white rings round them."
+
+"Stuff!" was the American's answer. "He was gazing at the jack, not at
+you. He couldn't see an inch of you with that light just over your head.
+But it would have been a hard shot anyhow, for his nose was towards you,
+and ten to one you'd have made a clean miss."
+
+"Well," he added, after five minutes of acute listening, "I guess we may
+give over jacking for to-night. That first cry of yours was enough to
+set a regiment of deer scampering. I'm only half mad after all at your
+losing a chance at such a splendid buck. It was something to see him as
+he stooped to drink in the glare of the jack, a midnight forest picture
+such as one wants to remember. Long may he flourish! We wouldn't have
+started out to rid him of his glorious life if we weren't half-starved
+on flapjacks and ends of pork. Let's get back to camp! I guess you felt
+a few new sensations to-night, eh, Neal Farrar?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+A SPILL-OUT.
+
+
+Indeed, shocks and sensations seemed to ride rampant that night in
+endless succession; a fact which Neal presently realized, as does every
+daring young fellow who visits the Maine wilderness for the first time,
+whatever be his object.
+
+Ere turning the canoe towards home, Cyrus drove it a few feet nearer to
+shore, again warily listening for any further sound of game. Just then
+another wild, whooping scream cleft the night air; and, on looking
+towards the bank, Neal beheld his owlship, who had finished the
+squirrel, seated on an aged windfall,[1] one end of which dipped into
+the water.
+
+[Footnote 1: A forest tree which has been blown down.]
+
+The gray bird on the gray old trunk formed a second thrilling midnight
+picture, but at this moment young Farrar was in no mood for studying
+effects. He felt rather unstrung by his recent emotions; and, though he
+was by no means an imaginative youth, he actually took it into his head
+half seriously that the whooping, hooting thing was taunting him with
+making a failure of the jacking business. Without pausing to consider
+whether the owl would furnish meat for the camp or not, he let fly at
+him suddenly with his rifle.
+
+The fate of that ghostly, big-eyed creature will be forever one of those
+mysteries which Neal Farrar would like to solve. Whether the heavy
+bullet intended for deer laid him open--which is improbable--or whether
+it didn't, nobody had a chance to discover. Being unused to birch-bark
+canoes, the sportsman gave a slight lurch aside after he had discharged
+his leaden messenger of death, startled doubtless by the loud,
+unexpected echoes which reverberated through the forest after his shot.
+
+"Hold on!" cried Cyrus, trying to avert a ducking by a counter-motion.
+"You'll tip us over!"
+
+Too late! The birch skiff spun round, rocked crazily for a second or
+two, and keeled over, spilling both its occupants into the black and
+silver water of the pond.
+
+Of course they ducked under, and of course they rose, gurgling and
+spluttering.
+
+"You didn't lose the rifle, Neal, did you?" gasped the American directly
+he could speak.
+
+"Not I! I held on to it like grim death."
+
+"Good for you! To lose a hundred-and-fifty-dollar gun when we're
+starting into the wilds would be maddening."
+
+Then, just because they were extremely healthy, happy, vigorous fellows,
+whose lungs had been drinking in pure, exhilarating ozone and fragrant
+odors of pine-balsam and were thereby expanded, they took a cheerful
+view of this duck under, and made the midnight forest echo, echo, and
+re-echo, with peals and gusts and shouts of laughter, while they
+struggled to right their canoe.
+
+The merry jingles rang on in challenge and answer, repeating from both
+sides of the pond, until they reached at last the wooded slopes and
+mighty bowlders of Old Squaw Mountain, a peak whose "star-crowned head"
+could be imagined rather than discerned against the horizon, near the
+distant shore from which the hunters had started. Here echo ran riot.
+It seemed to their excited fancies as if the ghost of Old Squaw herself,
+the disappointed Indian mother who had, according to tradition, lived so
+long in loneliness upon this mountain, were joining in their mirth with
+haggish peals.
+
+The canoe had turned bottom uppermost. On righting it they found that
+the jack-staff had been dislodged. The jack was floating gayly away over
+the ripples; its light, being in an air-tight case, was unquenched.
+
+"Swim ashore with the rifle, Neal," said Cyrus. "I'll pick up the jack.
+Did you ever see anything so absurdly comical as it looks, dodging off
+on its own hook like a big, wandering eye?"
+
+With his comrade's help young Farrar succeeded in getting the gun across
+his back, slinging it round him by its leather shoulder-strap; then he
+struck out for the bank, having scarcely twenty yards to swim before he
+reached shallow water.
+
+Now, for the first time to-night, the moon shone fully out from her veil
+of cloud, casting a flood of silver radiance, and showing him a scene in
+white and black, still and clear as a steel engraving, of a beauty so
+unimagined and grand that it seemed a little awful. It gave him a
+sudden respect for the unreclaimed, seldom-trodden region to which his
+craving for adventure had brought him.
+
+The outline of Old Squaw Mountain could be plainly discerned, a dark,
+towering shape against the horizon. A few stars glinted like a diamond
+diadem above its brow. Down its sides and from the base stretched a
+sable mantle of forest, enwrapping Squaw Pond, of which the moon made a
+mirror.
+
+"My! I think this would make the fellows in Manchester open their eyes a
+bit," muttered Neal aloud. "Only one feels as if he ought to see some
+old Indian brave such as Cyrus tells about,--a Touch-the-Cloud, or
+Whistling Elk, or Spotted Tail, come gliding towards him out of the
+woods in his paint and feather toggery. Glad I didn't visit Maine a
+hundred years ago, though, when there'd have been a chance of such a
+meeting."
+
+Still muttering, young Farrar kicked off his high rubber boots, and
+dragged off his coat. He proceeded to shake and wring the water from his
+upper garments, listening intently, and glancing half expectantly into
+the pitch-black shadows at the edges of the forest, as if he might hear
+the stealthy steps and see the savage form of the superseded red man
+emerge therefrom.
+
+"Ugh! I mind the ducking now more than I did a while ago," he murmured.
+"The water wasn't cold. Why, we bathed at the other end of the pond late
+last evening! But these wet clothes are precious uncomfortable. I wish
+we were nearer to camp. Good Gracious! What's that?"
+
+He stood stock-still and erect, his flesh shrinking a little, while his
+drenched flannel shirt clung yet more closely and clammily to his skin.
+
+A distant noise was wafted to his ears through the forest behind. It
+began like the gentle, mellow lowing of a cow at evening, swelled into a
+quavering, appealing crescendo cadence, and gradually died away. Almost
+as the last note ceased another commenced at the same low pitch, with
+only the rest of a heart-beat between the two, and surged forth into a
+plaintive yet tempestuous call, which sank as before. It was followed by
+a third, terminating in an impatient roar. The weird solo ran through
+several scales in its performance, rising, wailing, booming, sinking,
+ever varying in expression. It marked a new era in Neal's experience of
+sounds, and left him choking with bewilderment about what sort of
+forest creature it could be which uttered such a call.
+
+He began to get out some bungling description when Cyrus joined him
+shortly afterwards, but the American had had a lively time of it while
+recovering his jack-light and righting the canoe on mid-pond. He was in
+no mood for explanations.
+
+"Keep the yarn, whatever it is, till to-morrow, Neal," he said. "I
+didn't hear anything special. Perhaps I was too far away. I'm so wet and
+jaded that I feel as limp as a washed-out rag. Let's get back to camp as
+fast as we can."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+LIFE IN A BARK HUT.
+
+
+It was two o'clock in the morning when the tired, draggled pair stumbled
+ashore at the place where they embarked, hauled up their birch skiff,
+leaving it to repose, bottom uppermost, under a screen of bushes, and
+then stood for some minutes in deliberation.
+
+"I'm sure I hope we can find the trail all right," said Cyrus. "Yes, I
+see the blazes on the trees. Here's luck!"
+
+He had been turning the jack-lamp on either side of him, trying to
+discover the "blazes," or notches cut in some of the trunks, which
+marked the "blazed trail"--in other words, the spotted line through the
+otherwise trackless forest, which would lead him whither he wanted to
+go.
+
+It required considerable experience and unending watchfulness to follow
+these "blazes"; but young Garst seemed to have the instinct of a true
+woodsman, and went ahead unfalteringly, if vigilantly, while Neal
+followed closely in his tracks.
+
+After rather a lengthy trudge, they reached a point where the ground
+sloped gently upward into a low bluff. Still keeping to the trail, they
+ascended this eminence, finding the forest not so dense, and the walking
+easier than it had been hitherto. Gaining the top, they emerged upon an
+open patch, which had been cleared of its erect, massive pines, and the
+long-hidden earth laid bare to the sky by the lumberman's axe.
+
+Here the eagerly desired sight--that sight of all others to the tired
+camper; namely, the camp itself, with its cheery, blazing
+camp-fire--burst upon their view, sheltered by a group of sapling pines,
+which had grown up since their giant brothers went to make timber.
+
+Now, a Maine camp, as every one knows, may consist of any temporary
+shelter you choose to name, according to the tastes and opportunities
+of its occupants, from a fair white canvas home to a log cabin or a
+hastily erected canopy of spruce boughs. In the present instance it was
+a "wangen," or hut of strong bark, such as is sometimes used by
+lumbermen to rest and sleep in when they are driving their floats of
+timber down one of the rivers of this region to a distant town, which is
+a centre of the lumber trade.
+
+Cyrus and Neal were making across the clearing in the direction of the
+camp-fire with revived spirits, when the American suddenly grabbed his
+friend by the arm, and drew him behind a clump of low bushes.
+
+"Hold on a minute!" he whispered. "By all that's glorious, there's Uncle
+Eb singing his favorite song! It's worth hearing. You never listened to
+such music in England."
+
+"I don't suppose I ever did," answered Neal, suppressed laughter making
+him shake.
+
+Upon a gray pine stump, beside the blaze, which he was feeding with a
+hemlock bough, sat a battered-looking yet lively personage. Had he been
+standing upright upon the remnant of trunk, he would certainly, in the
+bright but changeful firelight, have deceived an onlooker into believing
+him to be a continuation of it; for the baggy tweed trousers which he
+wore on his immense legs, and which partially hid his loose-fitting
+brogans, or woodsman's boots, his thick, knitted jersey, his mop of
+woolly hair, with the cap of coon's fur that adorned it, were a striking
+mixture of grays, all bordering upon the color of the stump. His skin,
+however, was a fine contrast, shining as he bent towards the flame like
+the outside of a copper kettle. In daylight it would be three shades
+darker, because the thick coral lips, gleaming teeth, and prominent,
+friendly eyes of the individual, betrayed him to be in his own words, "a
+colored gen'leman;" that is, a full-blooded negro, and a free American
+citizen.
+
+Beside him, squatting upon his haunches and wagging his shaggy tail, was
+a good-sized dog, not of pure breed, but undoubtedly possessed of fire
+and fidelity, as was shown by the eye he raised to his master. His red
+coat and general formation showed that his father had been an Irish
+setter, though he seemed to have other and fiercer blood in his veins,
+mingling with that of this gentle parent.
+
+To him the negro was chanting a war-song,--some lines by a popular
+writer which he had found in an old newspaper, and had set to a curious
+tune of his own composition, rendering the performance more inspiriting
+by sundry wild whoops, and an occasional whacking of his teeth together.
+
+Here are two verses, under the influence of which the dog worked himself
+up to such excitement that he seemed to feel the ghosts of rabbits
+slain--for he could smell no live ones--hovering near him:--
+
+  "I raise my gun whar de rabbit run--
+    Ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!
+  En de rabbit say:
+    'Gimme time ter pray,
+  Fer I ain't got long fer to stay, to stay!'
+    Oh, ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!
+
+  "Ketch him, oh, ketch him!
+  Run ter de place en fetch him!
+  De bell done chime
+  Fer de breakfast time--
+    Oh, ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!"
+
+"If there are any more verses, Uncle Eb, keep them until we've had
+supper, or breakfast, or whatever you like to call a meal at this
+unearthly hour. I'm so hungry that I could chew nails!" cried Cyrus,
+springing from behind the bushes, and reaching the, camp-fire with a few
+strides, Neal following him.
+
+"Sakes alive! yonkers; is dat you?" cried the darkey, uprearing his
+gray figure. "I'se mighty glad to see you back. Whar's yer meat? Left it
+in de canoe mebbe? De buck too big to drag 'long to camp--eh?"
+
+There was a wicked rolling of Uncle Eb's eyes while he spoke. Evidently
+from the looks of the sportsmen he guessed immediately what had been the
+result of their excursion.
+
+"No luck and no buck to-night!" answered Garst. "But don't roast us,
+Uncle Eb. Get us something to eat quicker than lightning or we'll go for
+you--at least we would if we weren't entirely played out. It isn't
+everybody who can manage a hard shot as cleverly as you do, when he can
+only see the eyes of an animal. And that was the one chance we got."
+
+No man living ever heard a further word from Cyrus as to how his English
+friend bore the scares of a first night's jacking.
+
+"Ya-as, dat's a ticklish shot. Most folks is skeered o' trying it,"
+drawled out Ebenezer Grout, a professional guide as well as "colored
+gen'leman," familiarly called by visitors to this region who hired the
+use of his hut and his services, "Uncle Eb."
+
+"There's some comfort for you," whispered Cyrus slyly into Neal's ear.
+Aloud he said, addressing the guide, "We had a spill-out, too, as a
+crown-all. I'm mighty glad that this is the second of October, not
+November, and that the weather is as warm as summer; otherwise we'd be
+in a pretty bad way from chill. I feel shivery. Hurry up, and get us
+some steaming hot coffee and flapjacks, Uncle Eb, while we fling off
+these wet clothes. The trouble is we haven't got any dry ones."
+
+"Hain't got no oder suits?" queried the woodsman. "Den go 'long, boys,
+and rig yerselves up in yer blankets. Ye can pertend to be Injuns fer
+to-night. Like enough dis ain't de worst shift ye'll have to make 'fore
+ye get out o' dese parts."
+
+As the draggled pair were making towards the hut, which stood about six
+feet from the fire, to follow his advice, its bark door was suddenly
+pushed wide open. Forth stepped, or rather staggered, another boy,
+younger and shorter than Neal. His tumbled fair hair was here and there
+adorned with a green pine-needle, which was not remarkable, considering
+that he had just arisen from a bed of pine boughs. Sundry others were
+clinging to the surface of the warm, fleecy blankets in which he was
+wrapped, and his feet were thrust into a pair of moccasins. He had the
+appearance and voice of a person awaking from sound sleep.
+
+"I say, you fellows, it's about time you got back!" he said, rubbing his
+heavy eyes, and addressing the hunters. "I hope you've had some luck. I
+dreamt that I was smacking my lips over a venison steak."
+
+"Smack 'em w'en you git it, honey!" remarked Uncle Eb, while he mixed a
+plain batter of flour, baking-powder, and cold water, which he dropped
+in big spoonfuls on a frying-pan, previously greased, proceeding to fry
+the mixture over his camp-fire.
+
+The thin, round cakes which presently appeared were the "flapjacks"
+despised by Cyrus as insufficient diet.
+
+Without waiting to answer the new boy's greeting, the hunters had
+disappeared into the bark shanty. When next they issued forth they were
+rigged up Indian fashion in moccasins and blankets, the latter being
+doubled and draped over their underclothing,--of which luckily they had
+a dry supply,--and gathered round their waists with leather straps.
+Knitted caps, usually worn when sleeping, adorned their heads.
+
+"You see, we followed Dol's example and your advice, Uncle Eb," said
+Cyrus, as they seated themselves by the camp-fire. "And I tell you these
+make tip-top dressing-gowns when you're feeling a little bit chilly
+after a drenching. We didn't bring along a second suit of tweeds for the
+simple reason that we mean to do some pretty rough tramping with our
+packs on our backs, and then a fellow is likely to grumble at any
+unnecessary pound of weight he carries."
+
+"Shuah--shuah!" assented Uncle Eb.
+
+"And that is why we left our fishing-rods behind," continued Garst. "You
+see, our main object this trip is neither hunting nor fishing. But a
+creel of gamey trout from Squaw Pond would come in handy now to
+replenish our larder."
+
+"Wal, I b'lieve I'll fix up a rod to-mo-oh an' hook a few, fer de pork's
+givin' out. Hain't got mich use fer trout meself. Dey's kind o'
+tasteless eatin' if a man can git a bit o' fat coon or a fatty [hare],
+let 'lone ven'zon. Pork's a sight better'n 'em to my mind."
+
+While Uncle Eb was giving his views on food, he was hurriedly "bilin'"
+coffee, frying unlimited flapjacks, and breaking up some crystal cakes
+of maple sugar, which he melted into a sirup, and poured over them.
+
+  "De bell done chime
+  Fer de breakfast time!"
+
+he shouted gleefully when all was accomplished. "Heah, yonkers! I guess
+we may call dis meal breakfast jest as well as not, fer it's neah to
+dawn now."
+
+And the trio fell to voraciously, as he handed them each a steaming tin
+mug and an equally steaming plate. The newly awakened youngster, who had
+been cuddling his head sleepily against Neal's shoulder (a glance showed
+that they were brothers), had clamored for his share of the banquet.
+
+"You haven't been lonely, Dol, I hope, have you?" said Cyrus, as a whole
+flapjack, doubled over and drenched in sirup, disappeared down his
+capacious throat.
+
+"Not I," answered Dol (Adolphus Farrar, ladies and gentlemen), shutting
+and opening a pair of steel-gray eyes with a sort of quick snap. "Uncle
+Eb and I sat by the fire until twelve o'clock. He sang songs, and told
+tip-top stories about coon hunts. I tell you it was fun! I'd rather see
+a coon hunt than go out at night jacking, especially if I got a ducking
+instead of a deer, like some bungling fellows I know."
+
+"Don't be saucy, Young England, or I'll go for you when I've finished
+eating," laughed Cyrus good-humoredly. "Who told you what we got?"
+
+Dol winked at Uncle Eb, who had, indeed, entertained him with giggling
+jokes about the unsuccessful hunters while they were stripping off their
+wet garments.
+
+Adolphus, being the youngest of the camping-party, was favored with the
+softest pine-bough bed and the best of the limited luxuries which the
+camp possessed, with unlimited nicknames,--from "Young England" to
+"Shaver" or "Chick," according to the whims of his comrades.
+
+"Say, Uncle Eb, we're having a fine old time to-night--all sorts of
+experiences! I guess you may as well finish that song we interrupted
+while we're finishing our meal."
+
+"All rightee, gen'lemen!" answered the jolly guide and cook.
+
+The dog Tiger had retreated to the back of the camp-fire, where he lay
+blissfully snoozing; but at a booming "Whoop-ee!" from his master, which
+formed a prelude to the following verses, he shot up like a rocket, and
+manifested all his former signs of excitement.
+
+  "Dey's a big fat goose whar de turkey roos'--
+    Ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!
+  En de goose--he say,
+    'Hit'll soon be day,
+  En I got no feders fer ter give away!'
+    Oh, ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!
+
+  "Ketch him, oh, ketch him,
+  Run ter de roos' en fetch him!
+  He ain't gwine tell
+  On de dinner bell--
+    Ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!"
+
+"Scoot 'long to bed now, you yonkers, or ye'll look like spooks
+to-mo-oh! Hit's day a'ready," cried the singer directly he had whooped
+out his last note.
+
+And the "yonkers," nothing loath, for they had finished their repast,
+sprang up to obey him.
+
+"Isn't it a comfort that we haven't any trouble of undressing and
+getting into our bedclothes, fellows?" Cyrus said, as they reached the
+wangen, and prepared to throw themselves upon the fragrant camp-bed of
+fresh green pine-boughs, which made the bark hut smell more healthily
+than a palace.
+
+The natural mattress was wide enough to accommodate three. The boughs
+were laid down in rows with the under side up, and overlapped each
+other. To be sure, an occasional twig might poke a sleeper's ribs, but
+what mattered that? To the English boys especially--having the charm of
+entire novelty--it was a matchless bed, wholesome, restful, and rich
+with balsamic odors hitherto unknown.
+
+The trio were stupidly tired; but on the American continent no happier
+or healthier youths could have been found.
+
+It had, indeed, been a night big with experiences; and there was one
+still to come, which, to Neal Farrar at any rate, was as novel as the
+rest. He had thrown himself upon his bough couch, too weary to offer
+anything but the gladness of his heart for worship, when Cyrus touched
+his arm.
+
+"Look there!" he said. "If a fellow could see that without feeling some
+sensations go through him which he never felt before, he wouldn't be
+worth much!"
+
+He pointed through the open door of the hut at the sky above the
+clearing, over which was stealing a pearly hue of dawn, shot with a
+tinge of rosy light, like the fire in the heart of an opal.
+
+This made a royal canopy over the towering head of Old Squaw
+Mountain,--near by now and plainly visible,--which had not yet lost its
+starry diadem, though the gems were paling one by one. The shoulders of
+the peak wore a mantle of purple, and the forest which clothed its bulk
+was changing from the blackness of a mourning robe to the emerald green
+of a sea-nymph's drapery.
+
+The shutters of Night were rolling back, and young Day was stepping out
+to cast her first smile on a waiting earth.
+
+As the watchers in the hut caught that smile, every thought which rose
+in them was a daybreak song to the God who is light, and the secret of
+every dawning.
+
+With the day-smile kissing their faces they fell asleep, feeling that
+they were wrapped in the embrace of the invisible King.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+WHITHER BOUND?
+
+
+"Where from? Whither bound?" It is not often that a man or boy burns to
+put these questions--which ships signal to each other when they pass
+upon the ocean--to some individual who hurries by him on a crowded
+thoroughfare, whose name perhaps he knows, but whose hand he has never
+clasped, of whose thoughts, feelings, and capabilities he is ignorant.
+
+But just let him meet that same fellow during a holiday trip to some
+wild sea-beach or lonely mountain, let an acquaintance spring up, let
+him observe the habits of the other traveller, discovering a few of his
+weak points and some of his good ones, and then he wishes to ask,
+"Where do you hail from? Whither are you bound?"
+
+Therefore, having encountered three fairly good-looking, jovial,
+well-disposed young fellows amid the solitudes of a Maine forest, having
+spent some eventful hours in their company, learning how they behaved in
+certain emergencies, it is but natural that the reader should wish to
+know their ordinary occupations, with their reasons for venturing into
+these wilds, and the goal they wish to reach, before he journeys with
+them farther.
+
+Just at present, being fast asleep, dreaming, and--if I must say
+it--snoring like troopers, upon their mattresses of pine boughs, they
+are unable to give any information about themselves. But the friend who
+has been authorized to record their travels will be happy to satisfy all
+reasonable curiosity.
+
+To begin, then, with the "boss" of the party, Cyrus Garst, the writer
+would say that he is a student of Harvard University, and a brainy,
+energetic, robust son of America. Among his college classmates he is
+regarded as a bit of a hero; for, in spite of his comparative youth, he
+is an enterprising traveller and a veteran camper, whose camp-fire has
+blazed in some of the wildest solitudes of his native land. For his
+hobby is natural history, and his playground the "forest primeval,"
+where he studies American animals amid the lonely passes which they
+choose for their lairs and beats.
+
+Every year when Harvard's learned halls are closed for the long summer
+vacation,--sometimes at other seasons too,--he starts off on a trip to a
+wilderness region, with his knapsack on his back, his rifle on his
+shoulder, and often carrying his camera as well.
+
+Once in a while he has been accompanied by a bosom friend or two. More
+frequently he has gone alone, hiring the services of a professional
+guide accustomed to the locality he visits. Now, such a guide is the
+indispensable figure in every woodland trip. He is expected to supply
+the main part of his employer's camp "kit"; namely, a tent or some
+shelter to sleep under, cooking utensils, axes, etc., as well as a boat
+or canoe if such be required. And this son of the forest, whose foot can
+make a bee-line to its destination through the densest wooded maze, is
+not only leader, but cook and general-utility man in camp as well. The
+guide must be equally grand-master of paddle, rifle, and frying-pan.
+
+For these tireless woodland heroes Cyrus Garst has a general
+admiration. He has always agreed with them famously--save on one point;
+and he has never had to shorten his wanderings for fear of lengthening
+their fees. For Cyrus has a millionnaire father in the Back Bay of
+Boston, who is disposed to indulge his whims.
+
+The one point of variance is this: while all guides admire young Garst
+as a crack shot with a rifle, he frequently dumfounds them by letting
+slip stunning chances at game, big and little. They call him "a queer
+specimen sportsman,"--understanding little his love for the wild
+offspring of the woods,--because he never uses his gun save when the
+bareness of his larder or the peril of his own life or his chum's
+demands it.
+
+Nevertheless, feeling the need of fresh meat, the naturalist was for the
+moment hotly exasperated because his English comrade, Neal Farrar,
+missed even a poor chance at a buck during the midnight excursion on
+Squaw Pond.
+
+His friends are proud of stating that up to the present Cyrus had
+proceeded well in his friendly acquaintance with wild creatures, his
+desire being to study their habits when alive rather than to pore over
+their anatomy when dead. And he has always reaped a plentiful harvest
+of fun during his trips, declaring that he has "the pull over fellows
+who go into the woods for killing," seeing that he can thoroughly enjoy
+the escape of a game animal if he can only catch a sight of it, and
+perceive how its pluck or cunning enables it to baffle pursuing man.
+There are those who call Cyrus a sportsman of the best type. Perhaps
+they are right.
+
+Yet in the year of our story, when he had just attained his majority,
+this student of forest life is still unsatisfied, because he has not
+been able to obtain a good view of the behemoth of American woods, the
+_ignis fatuus_ of hunters,--the mighty moose.
+
+Once only, when paddling on a still pond with his experienced guide for
+company, the latter suddenly closed the slide of the jack-lamp, hiding
+its light. At the same moment a dark, splendid monster, tall as a horse
+and swinging a pair of antlers five feet broad, suddenly appeared upon
+the bank, near to which the canoe lay in black shadow. The hunters dared
+not breathe. It was at a season of year when the Maine law exacts a
+heavy fine for the killing of a moose; and even the guide had no desire
+to send his bullets through the law, though he might have riddled the
+game without compunction.
+
+For a minute or two the creature halted at the pond's brink, magnified
+in the mirror of moonlit water into a gigantic, wavering shape. Then
+with slow, solemn tread he walked along the bank ahead, gave a loud
+snort something like the snort of a war-horse, made a crunching,
+chopping noise with his jaws, resembling the sound of a dull axe
+striking against wood, plunged into the lake, and swam across to the
+opposite shore.
+
+"If we had fired, he might have come for us full tilt," whispered the
+guide so softly that his words were like a gliding breath. "And then I
+tell you we'd have had a narrow squeak. He'd have kicked the canoe into
+splinters and us out o' time in short order."
+
+"But a moose won't charge unless he's attacked, will he?" asked Cyrus,
+later in the night, when a couple of quacking black ducks which had
+received a dose of lead were lying silent at his feet, and the hunters
+were returning to camp with food.
+
+"Not often," was the reply. "Only at this time o' year, if they've got a
+mate to defend, you can't say for sure what they'll do. They won't
+always fight either, even if they're wounded, when they can get a
+chance to bolt. But a moose, if he has to die, will be sure to die game,
+with his face to his enemy; and so will every wild animal that I know.
+I've even seen a shot partridge flutter up its feathers like a game-cock
+at the fellow who dropped it."
+
+Well, this memorable glimpse of his mooseship was obtained in the year
+before our story. And now, in the beginning of October, young Garst was
+off into Maine wilds again, having arranged to "do" the forest
+thoroughly after his usual fashion, seeing all he could of its countless
+phases of life, and finally to meet this same guide--a dare-devil fellow
+who was reported to have had adventures in moose-hunting such as other
+woodsmen did not dream of--at a log camp far in the wilderness. Thence
+they could proceed to solitudes where the voice of man seldom echoed,
+where the foot of man rarely trod, and where moose signs were pretty
+sure to be found.
+
+But there was one very unusual feature in his present expedition. The
+student of nature, who generally started forth alone, was this year,
+owing to a freak of fate and to his natural good-nature, accompanied by
+two English lads.
+
+Early in the summer of this same year, Francis Farrar, a wealthy
+cotton-merchant of Manchester, England, visited America on a
+business-trip, and became the guest of Cyrus's father. He brought with
+him his two sons, Neal, aged sixteen and a half, and Adolphus,
+familiarly called Dol, who was more than a year younger.
+
+Both boys had been at a large public school, and physically, as well as
+mentally, were well developed. They were accustomed to spending long
+vacations with their father at wild spots on the seashore, or amid
+mountains in England and Scotland. They could tirelessly do a sixty-mile
+spin on their "wheels," were good football players, excellent rowers,
+formed part of the crew of their father's yacht, could skilfully handle
+gun and fishing-rod, but they had never camped out.
+
+They knew none of the delights of sleeping in woodland quarters, with
+only a canvas or bark roof, or perhaps a few spruce boughs, between them
+and the sky--
+
+  "While a music wild and solemn
+    From the pine-tree's height
+  Rolls its vast and sea-like volume
+    On the wind of night."
+
+Small wonder, then, that when they heard Cyrus Garst tell of his
+camping excursions, of his jolly times, long tramps, and hairbreadth
+escapes, their hearts swelled with a tremendous longing to accompany him
+on the trip into northern Maine which he was then projecting for the
+following October.
+
+Now, Cyrus at the first start-off conceived a liking for these English
+fellows, to whom, for his father's sake, he played the part of genial
+host. With a lordly recognition of his superior years he pronounced them
+"first-rate youngsters, with lots of snap in them." And as the
+acquaintance progressed, Neal Farrar, with his erect figure, broad
+chest, musical voice, and wide-apart gray eyes,--so clear and honest
+that their glance was a beam,--proved a personage so likable that the
+student adopted him as "chum," forgetting those five years which had
+been a gulf between them.
+
+Dol, whose eyes were of a more steely hue than his brother's, striking
+fire readily and showing all manner of flinty lights, who had a
+downright talent for mimicry, and a small share of juvenile
+self-importance, came in for regard of a more indulgent and less equal
+nature.
+
+Directly he got an inkling of the desire for a forest trip which
+stirred in the boys' breasts, making them yearn all day and toss all
+night, Cyrus gave them both a cordial invitation to accompany him into
+Maine. Mr. Farrar did not purpose returning to Europe till midwinter.
+His consent was easily obtained. He presented each of his sons with a
+new Winchester repeating rifle, with which they practised diligently at
+a target ere the eventful day of the start dawned, though their leader
+emphatically insisted that the prime pleasures of the trip were not to
+be looked for in the slaughter done by their hands.
+
+Wearing the camper's favorite dress of stout gray tweed, the trio left
+Boston on a lovely September evening towards the close of the month,
+taking a fast night train for Maine, brimful of enthusiasm about the
+wild woods and free camp-life. The hue of their clothes was chosen with
+a view to making their figures resemble the forest trunks, so that they
+would be less likely to attract the notice of animals, and might get a
+chance to creep upon them undetected.
+
+About their waists were their ammunition belts, with pouches well
+stocked. Their large knapsacks contained blankets, moccasins, and
+various other necessaries of a camper's outfit, including heavy knitted
+jerseys for chill days and nights, and rubber boots reaching high on the
+legs for wear in wading and traversing swampy tracts.
+
+About twenty-four hours later they dropped off the rattling, jingling
+stage-coach which bore them over the latter part of their journey, at
+the flourishing village of Greenville, on the borders of the Maine
+wilds.
+
+Here they were greeted by a view, the loveliness of which made the
+English boys, who had never looked on it before, experience strange
+heart-leaps.
+
+A magnificent sheet of water nearly forty miles long and fourteen broad
+lay before them, studded with islands, girt with evergreen forests and
+wooded peaks. Under the rays of the setting sun its bosom was shot with
+arrows of pale, quivering gold. Banners of gold and flame-color floated
+over the crests of the hills, flinging streamers of light down their
+emerald sides.
+
+"Fellows, there is Moosehead Lake; and I guess you'll find few lakes in
+America or elsewhere that can beat it for beauty," said Cyrus, with a
+patriotic thrill in his voice, for he had a feeling that he was doing
+the honors of his country.
+
+His English comrades were warm with admiration, and here, in view of the
+forest-land which was their El Dorado, tingled with anticipation of the
+unknown.
+
+The three rested that night at Greenville, and began their tramping on
+the following morning. They trudged a distance of seven miles or so to
+the camp of Ebenezer Grout, which, as Garst knew, was situated between
+Squaw Pond and Old Squaw Mountain, the latter being one of the finest
+peaks near Moosehead Lake.
+
+"Uncle Eb" was an old acquaintance of Cyrus's, a dusky, lively woodsman,
+who spent a great part of the year in his lone bark hut, with his dog
+Tiger for company. He subsisted chiefly on what he brought down with his
+rifle, and sometimes earned three dollars a day for guiding tourists up
+Old Squaw or through the adjacent forests.
+
+[Illustration: "THERE IS MOOSEHEAD LAKE."]
+
+He was not an ambitious hunter, and rarely pushed far into the solitudes
+of the wilderness in search of moose or other big game. A coon hunt was
+to him the climax of all fun. It was chiefly with a hope that his
+comrades might enjoy some novel entertainment of this kind that Cyrus
+made his first stoppage at Uncle Eb's camp, purposing to sojourn there
+for a few days.
+
+He was not disappointed.
+
+The stupidly tired trio had slept for about two hours, while the reader
+has been receiving information second-hand about their past and future,
+when a scratching, scraping, boring noise on the outside of their bark
+roof temporarily disturbed their slumbers. Dol called out noisily, and,
+as was the way of that youngster on sundry occasions, talked some
+gibberish in his sleep. The scraping instantly ceased.
+
+A renewed and blissful season of snoring. Another awakening. More music
+on the roof, evidently caused by the claws of some wild animal, while
+each of the campers was startled by a loud "Cluck!"
+
+"Lie still, fellows! Don't budge. Let's see what the thing is," breathed
+Cyrus in a peculiarly still whisper which he had learned from his
+moose-hunting guide of whom mention has been made.
+
+Dead silence in the hut. Redoubled scraping and rattling above, with a
+scattering of bark chips.
+
+Then light appeared through a jagged hole just over a string which was
+stretched across one corner of the cabin, and from which dangled sundry
+articles of camp bric-a-brac, mostly of a tinny nature, with Uncle Eb's
+last morsel of "pork.
+
+"By all that's glorious! it's a coon," breathed Cyrus, but so softly
+that his companions did not hear.
+
+As for the two Farrars, they were working up to such a heat of
+excitement that they felt as if life were now only beginning. They had
+heard of the thievish raids made by the black bear on unprotected camps,
+and of his special fondness for pork. Not knowing that there was no
+chance of an encounter with Bruin so near to civilization as this, they
+peered at that hole in the roof, expecting every moment to see a huge,
+black, snarling snout thrust through it.
+
+It was a pointed gray muzzle which warily appeared instead--appeared and
+disappeared on the instant. For at this crisis Tiger's shrill bugle-call
+resounded without, giving warning of an attack on the camp. The thing,
+whatever it was, scrambled from the roof, and with a strange, shrill cry
+of one note made towards the woods. The dog followed it, barking for all
+he was worth.
+
+Now, too, Uncle Eb's booming "Whoop-ee!" was heard.
+
+The hardy old woodsman, after his visitors had gone to roost, instead of
+stretching himself as usual upon his pine mattress, had started off,
+accompanied by Tiger, to visit some traps which he had set in the
+forest, hoping to catch a marten or two. He took the precaution of
+closing the door of the hut when he saw that its inmates were soundly
+sleeping, thinking meanwhile, that, as day was dawning, there was little
+chance of any wild "critter" coming round the camp during his absence.
+
+But a greedy raccoon, which had been prowling near in the woods during
+the night, and had been tantalized to desperation by the smell of the
+late meal, especially by the odor of flapjacks frying in pork fat, had
+stolen from cover after the departure of his natural enemy, the dog.
+
+Finding the coast clear and the camp unguarded, he made himself quietly
+at home, rooted among some potato parings which the guide had thrown
+aside a day or two before, devoured a cold flapjack, and cleaned the
+camp frying-pan as it had never been cleaned before, with his tongue.
+But his appetite was whetted, not glutted. Scent or instinct told him
+that pork, molasses, and other eatables were hidden in the bark hut.
+Here was a golden opportunity for Mr. Coon. No one molested him.
+Meditating a feast, he climbed to the roof, and began cautiously to
+scrape off portions of the bark. The rising sun ought to have warned him
+back to forest depths; but he persisted in his scratching, repeating now
+and again a satisfied cluck.
+
+His hole was made. His keen nose told him that pork was almost within
+reach, when the bugle-call of his enemy--Tiger's challenging bark--smote
+upon his ear. Guide and dog were opportunely returning to camp.
+
+Of course, as soon as the marauder scrambled off the roof, Cyrus and the
+boys sprang from their couch. Barefooted, and in night costume, they
+were already at the door of the hut before Uncle Eb was heard booming,--
+
+"Boys! Boys! Tumble out--tumble out! Dere's a reg'lar razzle-dazzle
+fight goin' on heah. Tiger's nabbed de coon."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+A COON HUNT.
+
+
+A razzle-dazzle fight it surely was! On one side of the camp, between
+the camping-ground, which Uncle Eb had cleared with many a backache, and
+the woods, was a narrow strip covered with a stunted, prickly growth of
+wild raspberry bushes and tiny cherry-trees. These had sprung up after
+the pines had been cut down, as soon as the sun peeped at the
+long-hidden earth.
+
+Into it the bare-legged trio dared not venture, knowing that they would
+get a worse scratching and tearing than if the coon itself mauled them.
+
+But they could see and hear a whirling, howling, clawing, spitting,
+rough-and-tumble conflict going on in the midst of this miniature
+jungle.
+
+"Whew! Whew!" gasped Cyrus. "Here's your first sight of a wild coon,
+boys. I wish to goodness it had been a different sight, but I suppose he
+must pay for his thieving."
+
+"Tiger'll make him do dat. Bet yer life he will! He's death on coons, if
+ever a dog was," yelled Uncle Eb, gambolling with excitement, his eyes
+bulging and widening until they looked like oysters on the shell.
+
+The soft, battered, gray felt hat which replaced his fur cap in the
+daytime surged off his gray wool, and frisked gently away towards the
+camp-fire. There, coming in contact with a red ember, it scorched and
+shrivelled into smoking, smelling ashes, all unnoticed in the tumult of
+the fight.
+
+Whirling round and round, now under, now over, dog and coon rolled
+presently forth from the bushes, nearer to the feet of the spectators.
+Then Neal and Dol could get a clearer view of the strange animal. A
+breeze of exclamations came from them, mingling with the yelping,
+snarling, and clucking of the combatants.
+
+"Good gracious! Look at the stout body and funny little legs of the
+fellow!"
+
+"Doesn't he fight like a spitfire?"
+
+"I'm glad he's not clawing me!"
+
+"He's not much like any picture of a raccoon I ever saw in a Natural
+History!"
+
+"I guess he wouldn't resemble them greatly, especially in that attitude,
+Dol," said Cyrus, as soon as there was a lull in the boys' comments.
+
+The raccoon had now rolled on his back, and was fighting so fiercely
+with teeth and claws that a despairing cry broke from Uncle Eb,--
+
+"Yah! He's makin' Tiger's wool fly!"
+
+It was then that the old guide began to deliberate about rushing forward
+and despatching his coonship with the butt end of his rifle. Cyrus would
+gladly have stopped the tussle long before, for there was too much
+savagery about it to suit him; but he could only have done so by
+stunning or killing one of the combatants.
+
+A heart-rending howl from Tiger. The coon had caught him by his lower
+jaw. Uncle Eb, clutching his empty rifle like a club, was starting to
+the rescue, when the dog with a sudden, desperate jerk freed himself.
+Mad with rage and pain, he tried to seize the raccoon's throat. But his
+enemy managed to elude the strangling grip, and getting on his feet,
+again caught Tiger, this time by the cheek, causing another agonizing
+yelp.
+
+Now, however, the undaunted dog whirled round and round with such
+rapidity as to make Mr. Coon relax his hold, and, gathering all his
+strength, flung the wild animal off to a distance of several feet.
+
+Probably the raccoon felt that he had enough of the conflict, and was
+doubtful about its final issue. He seized the chance for escape. While
+the spectators gasped with excitement, they beheld him, with his head
+doubled under his stomach, roll over and over like a huge gray
+India-rubber ball, until he reached the nearest tree, which happened to
+be one of the young pines that shaded the camp. Quick as lightning he
+climbed up its trunk, uttering a second shrill, far-reaching cry of one
+note.
+
+"Listen! Listen, fellows!" cried Cyrus. "That raccoon is a
+ventriloquist. The cry seemed to come from somewhere far above him. I
+had a tame coon long ago, and I often heard him call like that. I tell
+you he's a ventriloquist, and a mighty clever one too.
+
+"The one piercing note was to warn his mate," went on the naturalist,
+after a moment's pause; "or in all probability, though we have been
+speaking of the animal as 'he,' it is really a female, for I have heard
+that peculiar call given more frequently by a mother to warn her cubs."
+
+All that could now be seen of the animal--on whose gender new light had
+been cast--was a gray ball curled up on a tasselled bough near the top
+of the pine-tree, and a glimpse of a black nose over the edge of the
+limb.
+
+"Wal! 'tain't no matter wedder de critter is a male or a fimmale; I'm
+a-goin' to bring it down from dar mighty quick," said Uncle Eb, fumbling
+with the cartridge-box which was attached to his broad leather belt, and
+preparing to load his rifle, while he cast murderous looks aloft.
+
+"No, you don't, then!" said Cyrus hotly. "The creature has fought
+pluckily, and it deserves to get a fair chance for its life. I'll see
+that it does too. You oughtn't to be hard on it for liking pork, Uncle
+Eb."
+
+"Coons will be gittin' into eatin' order soon," murmured the guide,
+smacking his lips, and handling his gun undecidedly. "Roast coon's a
+heap better'n roast lamb."
+
+"Well, they're not in eating order yet, and won't be till next month,"
+answered Garst. "Come, you've got to let this one go, Uncle Eb, to
+please me."
+
+"Tell ye wot: I'll call Tiger off" (Tiger was alternately licking his
+wounds and baying furiously for vengeance about the tree which sheltered
+his enemy), "den, wen de coon finds de place clear, bime-by he'll light
+down from dat limb, I'll start off de dog, and let 'em finish de game
+atween 'em."
+
+Cyrus considered for a minute, then decided that on the coon's behalf he
+might safely accept the compromise.
+
+"Let's get into our clothes, fellows!" he cried to Neal and Dol. "Now
+we're going to have some fair fun! I guess there won't be any more
+fighting; and I want you to see how cunningly the raccoon will cheat the
+dog and escape, if he gets an even chance."
+
+In five minutes the trio were out of their blankets and in their
+ordinary day apparel. The old guide had hung the wet tweeds to dry by
+the blazing camp-fire before he started out to visit his traps,
+carefully stretching them to prevent their "swunking" (shrinking). Thus
+they were again fit for wear.
+
+A half-hour of waiting ensued, during which every one was on the tiptoe
+of expectation. They had all withdrawn to some distance from the tree.
+Uncle Eb had been obliged to drag Tiger away, and was bathing his cuts
+out of the camp water-bucket in a shady corner. The dog, recognizing
+that he was a patient, submitted without a growl or budge, until his
+master, who had been keeping a keen eye on that pine-tree, suddenly
+loosed him, and started him off afresh with a loud "Whoop-ee!" and a--
+
+  "Ketch him, Tiger! ketch him!"
+
+The coon had "lighted down."
+
+Away went the wild creature into the woods. Away after him, went dog,
+guide, student, and boys, plunging, tumbling, rushing along
+helter-skelter, with a yell on every lip.
+
+"There he is! See him? That gray ball rolling over and over!" shouted
+Cyrus. "I'll tell you what, now; he's going to resort to his clever
+dodge of 'barking a tree.' There never was a general yet who could beat
+a coon for strategy in making a retreat."
+
+The forest surrounding the eminence on which Uncle Eb's camp was
+situated consisted mostly of pines, with here and there the brilliant
+autumn foliage of a maple or birch showing amid the evergreens. The
+trees down the sides of the hill were not densely crowded, but grew in
+irregular clumps instead of an unbroken mass. This, of course, afforded
+a better opportunity for the pursuers to catch glimpses of the fugitive
+animal.
+
+On finding that it was again chased, the raccoon at first took shelter
+in a dense thicket of scrub oak, which formed in places a tangled
+undergrowth. Tiger quickly followed up its trail, and it was driven
+thence.
+
+Then Cyrus and the boys caught sight of it spinning over and over like a
+ball, towards a maple-tree with widely projecting limbs and thick
+foliage; for it knew well that in speed it was no match for the dog, and
+therefore resorted to a neat little stratagem. The next minute, being
+hotly pressed, it scrambled up the friendly trunk.
+
+"He's treed again, yonkers! Come on!" shouted the guide, indifferent to
+the creature's probable gender.
+
+Tiger sat on his haunches at the foot of the maple, setting up a slow,
+steady bark.
+
+"Keep where you are, fellows! Watch the other side of the tree!"
+whispered Cyrus, his face twitching with excitement.
+
+In his character of naturalist he had managed to find out more about
+the coon's various dodges than even the old guide had done.
+
+In breathless wonder the Farrars presently beheld that ingenious raccoon
+steal along to the end of the most projecting limb on a different side
+of the tree from the one it had climbed, so that a screen of boughs and
+the trunk were between it and its adversary.
+
+Then it noiselessly dropped from the tip of the branch to the ground,
+alighting, like a skilled acrobat, on its shoulders, doubled its pointed
+black nose under its stomach, and again rolled over and over for a
+considerable distance, when it got on its short legs and scurried away,
+while Tiger still bayed at the foot of the maple-tree, thinking the
+vanished prey was above.
+
+"That's what I called the coon's dodge of 'barking a tree,'" said Cyrus.
+"Don't you see, when hard pressed, he runs up the trunk, leaving his
+scent on the bark; then he creeps to the other side under cover of the
+foliage, and drops quietly to the ground. So he breaks the scent and
+cheats the dog."
+
+"Good gracious!" exclaimed Neal with an expressive whistle.
+
+"Perhaps it's because of his long gray hairs that he has so much
+wisdom," Dol suggested.
+
+"A bright idea, Chick!" chuckled the student, tapping the boy's
+shoulder.
+
+"We keep on speaking of him as 'he' when you said the thing was probably
+a female," put in Neal.
+
+"That doesn't matter. I'm not certain. Look at old Tiger! He's having
+fits now that he has discovered how he's been tricked."
+
+The dog was circling out from the tree, with wild, uncertain movements,
+nosing everywhere. Presently he struck the scent again, and darted off
+like a streak.
+
+But the raccoon had by this time reached a dark stream of water which
+coursed through the over-arching forest at the foot of the hill, as if
+it was flowing through a tunnel. Here this astute animal crossed and
+recrossed under the gloom of interlocking trees, mid dense undergrowth,
+until its trail was altogether lost.
+
+Tiger, having further "fits," nosing about, darting hither and thither,
+venting short, baffled barks, finally gave up in despair.
+
+The pursuing party turned back to camp.
+
+"Did ye ever see ennyting to ekal de cunnin' o' de critter," said Uncle
+Eb gloomily; "runnin' up dat tree on'y to jump off, so as he'd break de
+scent an' fool de dog? Ye'll learn a heap o' queer tings in dese woods,
+chillun, 'fore ye get t'rough," he added, addressing the English lads.
+
+"We've learned queerer things than we ever imagined or dreamed of,
+already, Uncle Eb," Neal answered.
+
+Meanwhile, Cyrus and Dol had begun to discuss the size of the escaped
+coon.
+
+"I should think it measured about two feet from the tip of its nose to
+the beginning of the tail, and that would add ten or eleven inches.
+Probably it weighed over thirty pounds," said the experienced Garst.
+
+"A fine tail it had too!" answered Dol; "all ringed with black and
+buff--not black and white as the books say. There was hardly an inch of
+white about the animal anywhere. Its thick gray hair was marked here and
+there with black; wasn't it, Cy?"
+
+"Rather with a darker shade of gray, bordering on black. I think old
+Tiger can testify that the creature had capable teeth; and it possesses
+a goodly number of them--forty in all; that's only two less than a bear,
+an animal that might make six of it in size."
+
+"Whew! No wonder it's a good fighter!" ejaculated Dol.
+
+"But the funniest of the coon's or--to give the animal its proper
+name--the raccoon's funny habits is, that while it eats anything and
+everything, it souses all meat in water before beginning a feed. That's
+what it would have done with our bit of pork,--dragged it to a stream,
+and washed it well before swallowing a morsel.
+
+"I caught glimpses of a raccoon chasing a jack-rabbit in this very
+section of the woods, last year," went on the student, seeing that Dol
+was breathlessly listening. "The big animal killed the little one under
+a dead limb; and I traced its tracks through some mud, where it tugged
+the rabbit to the brink of the nearest brook to be dipped and devoured.
+
+"After the meal, Mr. Coon halted on an old bit of stump as gray as
+himself, close to where I lay under cover, trying to get a peep at his
+operations, but, unluckily, in my excitement I touched a bush, and broke
+a twig not as big as my little finger. I tell you he just jumped off
+that stump as if it scorched him, and disappeared."
+
+"What about that tame coon you owned, Cy?" Dol asked. "You haven't got
+him now."
+
+"Bless your heart, I should think not!" Here the student indulged in a
+chuckle of mirth. "That coon was the fun and bane of my life. No fear
+of my being dull while I had him! I had him as a present, when he was
+only a cub, from a man out here who is my special chum among woodsmen,
+Herb Heal, the guide in whose company we're going to explore for moose,
+and the soundest fellow in wind, limb, and temper that ever I had the
+luck to meet. I guess you English boys will say the same when you know
+him.
+
+"Well! when my friend Herb bestowed upon me that baby raccoon, I called
+the little innocent 'Zip,' and kept him in-doors, letting him roam at
+will. But after he grew to manhood, I was obliged to banish him to our
+yard and chain him up; and there his piteous, sky-piercing calls, which
+seemed to come from the roof of a house near him, first showed me what a
+ventriloquist the animal can be."
+
+"Why on earth did you banish him?" asked Neal.
+
+"Because his plan of campaign, when loose, was to follow me about like a
+devoted cat, climbing over me whenever he got the chance, with slobbery
+fondness. But as soon as I was out of the way he'd steal every mortal
+thing I possessed, from my most precious instruments to my latest tie
+and handkerchiefs. I never saw anything to equal his ingenuity in
+ferreting out such articles, and his incorrigible mischief in destroying
+them. I chained him in the yard after he had torn my father's silk hat
+into shreds, and made off with his favorite spectacles. Whether he wore
+them or not I don't know; he chewed up the case; the glasses no man
+thereafter saw. I couldn't endure his piteous cries for reconciliation
+while he was in banishment, so I gave him away to a friend who was
+suffering from an imaginary ailment, and needed rousing.
+
+"Talking of fathers, boys, reminds me that I feel responsible to Francis
+Farrar, Esq., for the welfare of his lusty sons. Neal had a pretty
+tiring time last night, and only about two hours' sleep since. I don't
+suppose any of us are outrageously hungry, seeing that we had some kind
+of breakfast at an unearthly hour. Here we are at camp! I propose that
+we turn in, and try to sleep until noon. What do you say?"
+
+Their leader having wound up his talk, thus, neither of his comrades
+ventured to oppose his suggestion, though they felt little inclined for
+slumber.
+
+"Pleasant day-dreams to you, fellows!" said Cyrus three minutes
+afterwards, flinging off his coat, and throwing himself on his mattress
+of boughs, while he wiped the steady drip of perspiration from his
+forehead and cheeks. "This day is going to be too warm for any more
+rushing. Our variable climate occasionally gives us these hot spells up
+to the middle of October; but they don't last. So much the better for
+us! We don't want sizzling days and oppressive nights, with mosquitoes
+and black flies to make us miserable. October in this country is the
+camper's ideal--month"--
+
+The last sentence was broken by a great yawn, followed presently by a
+snort and an attempt at a shout, which quavered away into a queer little
+whine. Garst had passed into dreamland, where men revel in fragmentary
+memories and pell-mell visions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+AFTER BLACK DUCKS.
+
+
+If Cyrus's dreams were ruffled after the morning's excitement, those of
+his comrades were a perfect chaos.
+
+A slight wind hummed wordless songs through the tasselled tops of the
+pine-trees about the camp. The music was tender and drowsy as a mother's
+lullaby. Contrary to their expectations, Neal and Dol were lulled to
+sleep by it like babies, with a feeling as if some guardian spirit were
+gliding among the tree-tops.
+
+But when slumber held them, when the murmur increased to a surge of
+sound, sank to a ripple and again rolled forth, in their dreams they
+imagined it the scurrying of a deer's hoofs along some lonely forest
+deer-path, the rustling of a buck through bushes, the splashing of a
+mighty moose among lily-pads and grasses at the margin of a dark pond,
+the startled cluck of a coon. In fact, that rolling music of the pines
+was translated into every forest sound which they had heard, or expected
+to hear.
+
+The excitement of wild scenes, new sensations, strange knowledge, still
+thrilled them even in sleep. Their visions were accordingly wild,
+rushing, jumbled, yet all set in a light so bright as to be
+bewildering--a sign that health and happiness as great as human boys can
+enjoy were the possession of the dreamers.
+
+By and by their pulses grew steadier. Out of this confused rush of
+imaginings grew in the mind of each one steady, absorbing dream. Neal
+fancied that he was on the top of Old Squaw Mountain, and that beneath,
+above, around him, sounded the strangely prolonged weird call, which he
+had heard at a distance on the previous night while Cyrus was recovering
+the jack-light. Owing to the ever-changing excitements of camp-life, he
+had not questioned his comrade again about it.
+
+Dol's visions resolved themselves into a mighty coon hunt. He tossed on
+his pine boughs, kicked and jabbered in his sleep, with sundry odd
+little cries and untranslatable mutterings,--
+
+"Go it, Tiger! Go it, old dog! There he is--up the tree! Ah"
+(disgustedly), "you're no good!"
+
+A lull. Then the dreamer rolled out a string of what may be called
+gibberish, seeing that it consisted of fragments of words and was
+unintelligible, followed by,--
+
+"The coon's eating the pork--no, he's b-b-b-barking it! Hu-loo-oo!"
+
+"Oh, say, Chick, give us a chance! We can't sleep with you chirping into
+our ears."
+
+It was Cyrus who spoke, shaking with drowsy laughter, and Cyrus's big
+hand gently shook the dreamer's arm.
+
+"What? what? wh-wh-at?" gasped Dol, awaking. "I wasn't talking out loud,
+was I?"
+
+"Not talking aloud! Well, I should smile!" answered the camp captain.
+"You were making as much noise as a loon, and that's the noisiest thing
+I know. Go to sleep again, young one, and don't have any more crazy
+spells before dinner-time."
+
+Cyrus removed his hand, shut his eyes, and in a minute or two was
+breathing heavily. Neal, who had been aroused too, followed his
+example, laughing and mumbling something about "it's being an old trick
+of Dol's to hunt in his sleep."
+
+But the junior member of the party remained awake. After his dreams had
+been dissipated he cared no more for slumber. When he could venture it
+without disturbing his companions, he rose to a sitting posture, and,
+after squatting for a while in meditation, got on his feet, picked up
+his coat and moccasins, and, stealthily as an Indian, crept out of the
+hut.
+
+The rolling music among the pine-tops had died down; only at long
+intervals a soft, random rustle swept through them. It was nearly
+midday. The camp-fire was almost dead, quenched by the dazzling sunlight
+which fell in patches on the camping-ground, and flooded the clearing
+beyond the shadow of the pines.
+
+Moreover, the camping-ground was deserted. Neither Uncle Eb nor Tiger
+could be seen, though Dol's eyes sought for them wistfully. But
+something caught his attention. It was a ray of light filtering through
+the pine boughs and glinting on the trigger of an old-fashioned
+muzzle-loading shot-gun, which leaned against a corner of the hut. An
+ancient, glistening powder-horn and a coon-skin ammunition pouch hung
+above it.
+
+Dol lifted the antiquated weapon, withdrew to a short distance, and
+examined it closely. He knew it belonged to the guide, but was rarely
+used by him since he had purchased the 44-calibre Winchester rifle, with
+which he could do uncommon feats in shooting.
+
+The shot-gun interested the boy mightily. There was a facsimile of it,
+swathed in green baize, stowed away somewhere in his father's house in
+Manchester. The first time he had ever used fire-arms was on a memorable
+day when his fingers pulled its trigger in his father's garden under
+Neal's direction, and a lean starling fell before his shot. After that
+he had often taken out a fowling-piece of a newer style, and had done
+pretty well with it too.
+
+As he handled the shot-gun, which the guide had bought away back in the
+year '55, musing about it under the pines, the thought suddenly tumbled
+out of a corner of his brain that at present there was a brilliant
+opportunity for him to use the gun and all the shooting skill he
+possessed for the benefit of his comrades and himself.
+
+There was no meat in the camp for dinner or supper save the pork on
+which they had feasted since they arrived there, and that was fast
+giving out. Cyrus, in addition to his knapsack, had hauled over from
+Greenville, where articles of camp fare could be procured in abundance,
+a goodly supply of tea, coffee, condensed milk, flour, salt, sugar,
+etc., in a stout canvas bag, Neal at intervals helping him with the
+burden. For the rest he had trusted to Nature's larder, and such food as
+he might purchase from his guides, desiring to go into the woods as
+"light" as possible.
+
+Uncle Eb had baked bread for his guests after a fashion of his own on
+the camp frying-pan, setting the pan on some glowing coals a foot or so
+from the fire; he had fried unlimited flapjacks, and had cheerfully
+placed what stores he had at their disposal. His three luxuries were
+novelties to the English lads, being pork, maple sugar,--drawn from the
+beautiful maple-trees near his camp,--and a small wooden keg of sticky,
+dark molasses. The sugar was the only one which Dol found palatable; and
+he knew that the Bostonian, Cyrus, shared his feeling. To tell the
+truth, the juvenile Adolphus was not fastidious, but he was suddenly
+seized with an ambitious desire to vary the diet of the camp.
+
+"Uncle Eb said that I could use this 'ole fuzzee,' as he called it,
+whenever I liked," he muttered, looking wistfully at the shot-gun; "and
+I've a big mind to give those lazy fellows in there a surprise. They
+spent the night out jacking, and didn't get any meat because Cyrus let
+Neal do the shooting, and he bungled it. It's my turn next to go after
+deer, but I'm not going to wait for that."
+
+Here his steel-gray eyes fell on the moccasins which he had not yet put
+on, and struck fire instantly. His ambition was doubled. For if there is
+one thing more than another which in the forest will stir the pluck of a
+novice, and make him feel like an old woodsman, it is the sight of his
+Indian footwear. Dol put his on, admired their light, comfortable
+feeling, their soft buckskin, and rashly decided that he could dispense
+with the loose inner soles which Cyrus had fitted into them to protect
+his feet.
+
+Then, being very much of a stranger to American woods, he communed with
+himself after this fashion,--
+
+"Cyrus says that different tribes of Indians wear differently made
+moccasins, and one redskin, if he sees the tracks of another in soft
+mud or snow, can tell what tribe he belongs to by his footmarks. That's
+funny! I suppose if any old brave was knocking about and saw my tracks
+in a boggy spot, he'd think it was a Kickapoo who had passed that
+way--not Dol Farrar of Manchester, England. These are of the shape worn
+by the Kickapoo tribe--so Cy says.
+
+"I'm the kid of the camp, I know," he went on, with another flash in his
+eyes, as if there was a bit of flint somewhere in his make-up which had
+struck their steel. "But I'll be bound I can do as well or better than
+the others can. I'm off now to Squaw Pond. I think I can follow the
+trail easily enough. Uncle Eb showed me yesterday where he had spotted
+some of the trees all the way along to the water. And if I don't shoot a
+couple of black ducks for dinner or supper, I'm a duffer, and not fit
+for camping."
+
+He took down the powder-horn and slung it round him, saw that there was
+plenty of meat in the ragged coon-skin ammunition pouch which hung
+beside it, fastened that to his belt, slipped on his coat, and started
+off, with the "ole fuzzee" on his shoulder.
+
+Never a sound did he make as he crossed the clearing, passing the clump
+of bushes behind which Cyrus and Neal had lingered on the previous night
+to hear Uncle Eb's song. Owing to his Indian footwear, silently as the
+gliding redskin himself he entered the woods at a point where he saw a
+tree with a fresh notch carved in it. He knew this marked the beginning
+of the "blazed trail," and that he must be very wide-awake and show
+considerable "gumption" if he wanted to follow that line to the pond.
+
+Not every tree was spotted. Only at intervals of fifteen or twenty yards
+he came upon a trunk with two small pieces chopped out of it on opposite
+sides. These were Uncle Eb's way-marks. One set of notches would catch
+his eye as he went towards the water, the other would lead him back to
+camp. Once or twice Dol got away from the trail, but he quickly found it
+again; and in due time emerged from the forest twilight into the broad
+glare of the sun, to see Squaw Pond lying before him like a miniature
+mother-of-pearl sea, so protected by its evergreen woods that scarcely a
+ripple stirred it.
+
+He heard the shrill, wild call of a loon, the noisy bird to which Cyrus
+had likened him, and saw its white breast rising above the water, as it
+swam about among the reeds near the opposite bank. The cry was oft
+repeated, making an unearthly din, now joyous, now dreary, among the
+echoes around the lake.
+
+Dol paused for a minute to listen; but he was bent on business, and did
+not want to be very long away from camp lest his absence should cause
+alarm. He took a careful survey of the scene. Not beholding any fleet of
+black ducks as yet, he loaded his gun, and warily proceeded along the
+bank towards the head of the pond.
+
+Keeping a sharp lookout, he by and by detected something moving among
+the water grasses a little way ahead, and heard a hoarse, squalling
+"Quack! quack!"
+
+Immediately afterwards a flock of half a dozen ducks sailed forth from
+their shelter, nodding and quacking inquisitively.
+
+A wild drumming was at Dol's heart, and a reckless singing in his ears,
+as he raised his gun to his shoulder, and fired among them.
+Nevertheless, his aim was sure and deadly. Two quackers were killed with
+one shot! The others rose from the water, and with much fluttering and
+hoarse noise winged their way to safety.
+
+"How'll they be for meat, I wonder? Won't I have a crow over those
+fellows?" shouted Adolphus aloud, with a yell entirely worthy of a
+Kickapoo Indian, when he had recovered from surprise at the success of
+his own shot.
+
+He laid down the gun, pulled off his moccasins and socks, rolled up his
+trousers, and waded in for the prize. Truly luck was with him--so
+far--in his first venture in this region of the unknown. The water was
+so shallow that, having grabbed the ducks, he splashed out of it,
+kicking shiny drops from his toes, without wetting an inch of his
+garments.
+
+"I'm the kid of the camp, I know; but I'll be the first fellow to bring
+any decent meat into it. Hooray!" he whooped again. "Shouldn't wonder if
+these moccasins brought me wonderful luck; one can steal about so
+quietly in them."
+
+He had hit upon the supreme advantage which the Indian footwear
+possesses over every other for the woodsman. A little later he was to
+learn its disadvantage, having, with foreign inexperience, disdained the
+extra soles because they were not "Indian" enough for his taste; for the
+soft buckskin could not protect from roots and stones a wearer whose
+flesh was not hardened to every kind of forest travelling.
+
+But at present Dol bepraised his moccasins; for they had enabled him to
+sneak upon his birds, the wildest of the duck tribe, who generally, at a
+single hoarse "Quack!" from their leader, will cease their antics in
+lake or stream, and disappear like a skimming breeze before a sportsman
+can get a fair shot at them.
+
+For a quarter of an hour Dol Farrar sat by this forest pond engaged in
+the cheerful occupation of "booming himself," as his friend Cyrus would
+have said. He told himself that he had made a pretty smart beginning,
+not alone in shooting a brace of black ducks, but in successfully
+following a difficult trail on his fourth day in the woods. Henceforth,
+he thought, there would be little reason for him to dread the unknown in
+this great wilderness.
+
+He reclothed his legs, gathered the stiffening claws of the defunct
+quackers in his left hand, picked up his empty "ole fuzzee," which had
+done such good service despite its age, and set forth on his return to
+camp.
+
+Retracing his steps along the bank, after some searching he found the
+beginning of the trail, and started along it with a know-it-all,
+cheerful confidence in the little bit of wood-lore which he had
+acquired. Hence he now found it considerably more difficult to follow
+the spotted trees. His brain was excited and preoccupied; and when once
+in fancied security he suffered his eyes and thoughts to stray for a
+minute from the trail, every unfamiliar woodland sight and sound tempted
+them to wander farther.
+
+First it was an old fox, which poked its sharp, inquisitive nose out of
+a patch of undergrowth near at hand. Dol uttered a mad "Whoop-ee!" and
+heedlessly dashed off a few steps in pursuit. Reynard whisked his brush
+as much as to say, "You can't get the better of me, stranger!" and
+defiantly trotted away.
+
+Recovering his senses, the boy managed to recover the trail too, and was
+keeping to it carefully when a second temptation beset him. A chattering
+squirrel, seated on the low bough of a maple-tree, with his fore paws
+against his white breast, his eyes like twinkling beads, and his
+restless little head playing bo-peep with the intruding boy, began to
+scold the latter for venturing into his forest playground.
+
+Dol's first thought was full of delighted interest. His second was a
+sanguinary one; namely, that a pair of ducks would only be one meal for
+four campers who were "camp-hungry," and that Uncle Eb had spoken of
+squirrels as "fust-rate eatin'." He handled his gun uncertainly,
+deliberating whether or not he would load it, and try a shot at the
+bright-eyed chatterbox.
+
+Before he had decided one way or the other, the squirrel, still scolding
+and playing bo-peep, scampered off his bough, and up the trunk of the
+maple. Thence he quickly made good his escape from one tree to another,
+affording a whisking, momentary view now and again of his white breast
+or bushy tail. Dol absolutely forgot the blazed trail, forgot the
+stories which he had heard about forest perils, forgot every earthly
+thing but his admiration for the pretty, tantalizing fellow; though to
+do the lad justice, he soon came to the conclusion that the camp must be
+in a worse strait for want of provisions before he could have the heart
+to shoot him. He gave chase nevertheless, plunging along in a ziz-zag
+way over a carpet of moss and dry pine-needles, and through some dense
+tangles of undergrowth, uttering a welcoming screech whenever he saw
+the bright eyes of the little trickster peering down at him from a
+bough.
+
+He had travelled farther than he knew before his interest in the game
+waned. He began to feel that it was rather beneath the dignity of a
+fellow who wore moccasins, carried coon-skin pouch and powder-horn, and
+who was bound for remote solitudes in search of the lordly moose, to be
+interested in such an insignificant phase of forest life as the doings
+of a red squirrel.
+
+Then he started back to find the trail. He walked a considerable
+distance. He searched hither and thither, straining his eyes anxiously
+through the bewildering gloom of the forest, but never a notched tree
+could he see. Whereupon Dol Farrar called himself some pretty hard
+names. He remarked that he had been a "hair-brained fool" and a
+"greenhorn" ever to leave the spotted track, but that he wasn't going to
+be "downed;" he would search until he found it.
+
+And he certainly was enough of a greenhorn not to know that every step
+he now took was carrying him away from the trail, and plunging him into
+a hopeless, pathless labyrinth of woods. For Dol had lost all knowledge
+of directions, and was completely "turned round;" which means that he
+was miserably lost.
+
+The disaster came about in this way. The forest here was very dense, the
+giant trees interlocked above his head letting so little light filter
+through their foliage that he could scarcely see twenty yards ahead of
+him, and that in a puzzling, shadowy gloom resembling an English
+twilight.
+
+When he ceased chasing the squirrel, he imagined that he retraced his
+steps directly towards the point where he had quitted the trail. In
+reality, seeing nothing to aim for in this bewildering maze of endless
+trees, turned out of his way continually as he dodged in and out around
+massive trunks, he gradually worked farther and farther off the course
+by which he had come, drifting in random directions like a rudderless
+ship on mid-ocean. This helpless state is called, in the phraseology of
+the northern woods, being "turned round."
+
+But Dol Farrar was spared for the present a thorough realization of the
+dreadful mishap which had befallen him. He had a shocked, breathless,
+flurried feeling, as if scales had suddenly fallen from his eyes, and he
+saw the dangers of the unknown as he had not before seen them. But even
+in the midst of abusing himself for his rash self-confidence, he uttered
+a cheerful "Hurrah!"
+
+"Why, good gracious!" he cried. "Here's another trail! Now, where on
+earth does this lead to? I don't see any spotted trees"--looking
+carefully about--"but it's a well-beaten track, a regular plain path,
+where people have been walking. It must lead to our camp. I'll follow it
+up, anyhow. That will be better than dodging around here until I get
+'wheels in my head,' as Uncle Eb says he did once when he lost his way
+in the woods, and kept wandering round and round in a circle."
+
+Puffing with excitement and revived hope, the boy started off on this
+new trail, which he blessed at first--oh, how he blessed it!--as if it
+had been a golden clew to lead him out of his difficulty. To be sure, it
+was not a blazed trail; there were no notches in the trees, but the
+ground showed distinct signs of being frequently and recently travelled
+over. Though footprints were not traceable, moss, earth, and in some
+places the forest undergrowth of dwarfed bushes, were thoroughly pressed
+and trodden.
+
+Dol never doubted but that it was a human trail, a track continually
+used by some woodsman; but he thought that the unknown traveller,
+whoever he was, must have agile legs and a taste for athletics, for many
+times he had to hoist himself, his gun, and the ducks over some big
+windfall which lay right across the way. The dead quackers he pitched
+before him, fearing that by the time he got back to camp--if ever he
+did?--their flesh would be too bruised to look like respectable meat;
+for he was obliged to have one hand free to help him in scrambling over
+each fallen tree.
+
+Once or twice this strange trail led him through thickets where the
+bushes grew so high as to lash his face. He came to regard slippery,
+projecting roots and rough stones, which galled his feet, protected only
+by the thin soles of his moccasins, as matters of course. His wind
+decreased, and his blessings ceased. Yet he followed on, walking,
+walking, interminably walking, with now and again an interval of
+climbing or stumbling headlong, accompanied by ejaculations of
+thankfulness that his gun was not loaded.
+
+His breath came in hot, strangling gasps, the veins in his head were
+swollen and stinging like whipcords, there was a dull, pounding noise in
+his ears, and a drumming at his heart. He confessed that he was
+thoroughly "winded" when he had been following the trail for nearly two
+hours, so he seated himself upon a withered stump beside it to rest.
+
+He had relinquished the idea that the track would bring him out near
+Uncle Eb's camp. Had it led thither, he would have rejoined his comrades
+long before this. His only hope now was that by patiently following it
+on he might reach the camp of some other traveller, or the lonely log
+cabin of a pioneer farmer. He had heard of such farm-settlements being
+scattered here and there on forest clearings.
+
+So presently Dol Farrar got to his feet again, when he had recovered
+breath and strength, and told himself pluckily that "he wasn't going to
+knock under," that "he had been in bad scrapes before now, and had not
+shown the white feather." He gritted his teeth, and resolved that he
+would not show that craven pinion, even in the desperate solitude of
+these baffling woods where no eye could see his weakness. He did not
+want to have a secret, humiliating memory by and by that he had been
+faltering and distracted when his life depended on his wits and
+endurance.
+
+He squared his shoulders sturdily, as if to make the most of the
+budding manhood that was in him, and trudged ahead. And, indeed, he had
+need to take his courage in both hands, and force it to stand by him;
+for he had not gone far when, though the forest still continued dense,
+he became aware that he was beginning a steep ascent. Was the trail
+going to lead him up a mountain-side? The way grew yet more rugged.
+Every step was a misery. Jagged edges of rock and never-ending roots
+seemed to brand themselves with burning friction upon his feet, through
+their soft buckskin covering. He tried to hearten himself into a belief
+that he must soon reach some mountain camp or settlement.
+
+But a bleak horror threw a gray shade upon his face as his staring eyes
+saw that the trail was growing fainter--fainter--fainter. At the foot of
+a steep crag, where a mass of earth, stones, and dead spruce-trees
+showed that there had lately been a landslide on the mountain above, he
+lost it altogether. It had led him to a pile of rubbish.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+A FOREST GUIDE-POST.
+
+
+At the foot of that crag Dol stood still, while a great shiver crept
+from his neck up the back of his head, stirring his hair. He peered in
+every direction; but there was no sign of a camp, nothing to show that
+any human foot before his had disturbed the solitude of this
+mountain-side, and no further marks on the ground, save one impression
+on a bed of earth at his feet where some animal had lately lain.
+
+The disappointment was stupefying.
+
+At last a fog of terror settled down upon him,--a fog which blotted out
+every sight and sound, blotted out even his own thoughts, all except
+one, which, like a danger-signal in a mist, kept booming through his
+brain: "Lost! Lost!"
+
+By and by he was sitting on the piled-up stones and dirt of the slide;
+but he had no remembrance of getting to this resting-place, for he was
+still befogged.
+
+Something snorted close to his right ear,--loud snort, which banished
+stupor, and set his pulses jumping. It was a deer, a beautiful doe in a
+coat of reddish-drab, matching the autumnal tints of the forest,
+wherever maples, birches, and cedars mingled with the evergreens. She
+had bounded upon him suddenly from behind a dead spruce and a mound of
+earth.
+
+It was long since the game on this part of the mountain had been
+disturbed. Madam Doe had in all probability never seen a man before,
+therefore her behavior was not peculiar. A shock of surprise thrilled
+through her graceful body as she vented that snort, when she caught
+sight of the new-fangled gray animal who had intruded upon her world,
+and who sat spell-bound, gazing at her with hopeless eyes, in which
+gradually a light broke.
+
+But she did not fear him,--this creature in gray. She stood stock-still,
+and stared at him, so near that he could see her wink her starry eyes,
+with the white rings round them. She stamped one hoof, kicked an insect
+from her ear with another, snorted again, wheeled around, and at last
+broke away for the thick shelter of the trees, lightly and swiftly as a
+breeze which skims from one thicket to another.
+
+Seeing his mother go for the woods, her spotted fawn, which had been
+frolicking among the branches of the fallen spruce-tree, skipped from
+it, passed Dol with a bound which carried him a few feet, and
+disappeared like a whiff too.
+
+Here was a rouser, indeed, which no boy, unless he was in a far-gone
+state of suffering, could withstand. Dol Farrar forgot his terrible
+predicament. The fog had cleared away from his senses, leaving him free
+to think and act once more.
+
+"Well, I never!" he ejaculated, springing to his feet in amazement.
+"Wasn't she a beauty? And wasn't she a snorter? I didn't think a deer
+could make such a row as that. And to stand still and stare at me! I
+wonder whether she took me for some new-fashioned sort of animal or a
+gray old stump."
+
+It was a few minutes before he again thought of his plight, and then he
+was not overcome. He stood perfectly still, trying to review the
+position coolly, and to get a tight grip of his feelings, so that terror
+might not again master him.
+
+"I'm in a worse scrape than I ever dreamt of," he muttered, puckering
+his forehead to do some tall thinking. "And I must do something to get
+out of it. But what? That's the question.
+
+"I wonder if I loaded this 'ole fuzzee,'"--the lad was making a valiant
+effort to cheer himself by being jocular,--"and blazed away with it for
+a while like mad, whether there is any human being around who would hear
+me. Some fellow might be hunting or trapping in this part of the forest,
+or farther up the mountain. But what a blockhead I am! Why on earth
+didn't I do that before I started on this wretched trail?"
+
+But alas! as this was Dol Farrar's first adventure in American woods, it
+had not occurred to him to do the right thing at the right time. Had he
+fired a round of signal shots when first he lost the line of spotted
+trees, he would probably have been heard at his camp, and would have
+been spared the worst scare he ever had in his life. The negligence was
+scarcely his fault, however; for Cyrus Garst, who had never before
+undertaken the responsibility of entertaining a pair of inexperienced
+boys in woodland quarters, had not, at this early stage of the trip,
+arranged with his comrades to fire a certain number of shots to signify
+"Help wanted!" if one of them should stray, or otherwise get into
+trouble. The idea now cropped up in Dol's perplexed mind, through a
+confused recollection of tales about forest misadventures which Uncle Eb
+had told him by the cheery camp-fire.
+
+So he loaded the old shot-gun. It belched forth fire and smoke into
+space. And the thunder of his shot went rolling off in a reverberating
+din among the mountain echoes, until a hundred tongues repeated his
+appeal for help. Again he loaded rapidly and fired. And yet again, with
+nervous, eager fingers. So on, till he had let off half a dozen shots in
+quick succession.
+
+Then he waited, listening as if every pulse in his body had suddenly
+become an ear.
+
+But when the last growling echo had died away, not a sound broke the
+almost absolute silence on the mountain-side. Evidently not a human soul
+was near enough to hear or understand his signals of distress.
+
+In these bitter minutes some sensations ran through Dol Farrar which he
+had never known before; and, as he afterwards expressed it, "they were
+enough to cover any fellow with goose-flesh."
+
+He felt that he had reached the dreariest point of the unknown, and was
+a lonely, drifting atom in this immense solitude of forest and rock.
+
+Never in his life before or afterwards did he come so near to Point
+Despair as when he stumbled down the mountain, spurning that treacherous
+trail, and going wherever his jaded feet found travelling tolerably
+easy. He had picked up the shot-gun; but the black ducks, the primary
+cause of his misadventure, he clean forgot, leaving them lying amid the
+chaos at the foot of the crag, to have their bones picked by some lucky
+raccoon or fox.
+
+Wandering along in a zigzag way, he by and by reached the base of the
+mountain at a point where there was a break in the forest. A patch of
+dreary-looking swamp was before him, covered with clumps of
+alder-bushes--a true Slough of Despond.
+
+Dol Farrar knew none of the miseries of plunging through an alder-swamp,
+but he luckily recalled in time a warning from Cyrus that a slight
+wetting would render his moccasins useless. While he halted undecidedly
+on its brink, he pulled out his watch; one glance at this, and another
+at the sky, which now lay open like a scroll above him, gave him a
+sickening shock. He had started from camp at noon; now it was after five
+o'clock. Little more than another hour, and not twilight, but the
+blackness of a total eclipse, would reign in the forest.
+
+The blood rushed to his head, and his mouth grew feverish at the
+thought. As he licked his cracking lips, he caught a faint, tinkling,
+rumbling sound of falling water somewhere to the right. Of a sudden his
+sufferings of mind and body were merged into one burning desire to
+drink, and he turned eagerly in that direction.
+
+At the edge of the woods he found a little fairy, foamy waterfall, which
+had tumbled down from the mountain to be lost in the dismal swamp. But
+Dol felt that it had accomplished its mission when he unfastened the tin
+drinking-mug which hung from his belt, and drank--drank--drank! He
+straightened himself again, feeling that some of the bubbling life of
+the mountain torrent had passed into him. His eyes lit on a towering
+pine-tree just beyond it. And then--
+
+Well! if that sky-piercing pine had suddenly changed at a jump into a
+gray post, bearing the inscription, "One mile to Boston," Dol Farrar
+could not have been more astonished and relieved than when he saw for
+the first time a rude forest guide-post.
+
+To the dark, knotted trunk was fastened a piece of light, delicate bark,
+stripped from a white-birch tree. On this was scrawled in big letters,
+by some instrument evidently not intended for penmanship:--
+
+  "FOLLOW THE BLAZED TRAIL AND YOU ARE SAFE."
+
+"Another blazed trail! Hurrah!" shouted Dol. "Won't I follow it? I never
+will follow any other again if I live to be a hundred, and come to these
+woods every year till I die!"
+
+The height of his relief could only be measured by the depth of his past
+misery, which would truly have been enough to set a weaker boy crazy.
+With watering eyes and panting breaths that came near to being sobs of
+gladness, he started upon the new trail. It led him off into the forest
+surrounding the swamp.
+
+The pine that had been chosen for guide-post was the first in the line
+of spotted trees. The others followed it closely, with intervals of
+eight or ten yards between them; and as the notches in their trunks were
+freshly cut, Dol followed the track without any difficulty for twenty
+minutes. He had a suspicion that he was nearing the end of it; though he
+was still in forest gloom, with light coming in meagre, ever-lessening
+streaks through the pine-tufts above. Then he started more violently
+than when the deer snorted near his ear.
+
+Suddenly and shrilly the blast of a horn rang through the darkening
+woodland aisles, followed, after a pause of a minute or two, by a second
+and louder blast.
+
+Then a well-pitched, far-reaching voice sang out:--"Come to supper,
+boys! Come to supper!"
+
+"Good gracious!" said Dol, conscious on the instant that he was as
+hollow as a drum. "There are enough surprises in these forests to raise
+the hair on a fellow's head half a dozen times a day!"
+
+A matter of forty yards more, and a burst of light swam before his eyes.
+He had reached the end of the blazed trail.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+ANOTHER CAMP.
+
+
+"Hello! Come to supper, boys! Come to supper right away!"
+
+Half eagerly, half shrinkingly, Dol emerged from the woods, feeling a
+very torment of hunger quickened in him by the tantalizing sound of that
+oft-repeated invitation.
+
+A sight met him which, because of what went before and all that came
+after, will be forever chief among the forest pictures which rise in
+exciting panorama before his memory, when camping is a thing of the
+past.
+
+A broad dash of evening light, the sun's afterglow, fell upon a patch of
+clearing bordered by clumps of slim, outstanding pines, the scouts of
+their massive brethren. That this was used as a camping-ground the
+first glance revealed. A camp which looked to the tired eyes of the lost
+boy a real "home-camp," though it consisted of rude log cabins, occupied
+it. A couple of birch-bark canoes reposed amid a network of projecting
+roots. Withered stumps and tree-tops littered the ground.
+
+In the foreground of the picture stood a man with a horn in his uplifted
+hand, which he had just taken from his mouth. He was minus a coat; and
+the rough-and-tumble disarray of his attire showed that he had been
+lounging by his camp-fire, or perhaps overseeing the preparation of
+supper. Dol had a vague impression that the individual was not a
+forest-guide like Uncle Eb, nor a rough lumberman such as he had heard
+of. He would have taken him for a pioneer farmer,--not having yet
+encountered such a character,--but there could be no farm on this little
+bit of clearing. And he was too dazed to see that there were signs of a
+cultivated intelligence in the tanned, beaming face under the
+horn-blower's broad-brimmed hat. Indeed, the hat itself, its wearer, log
+huts, canoes, and trees seemed to have a strange propensity to waltz
+before the lad's eyes, and there was a queer waving sensation in his
+own legs, as if they, too, would join in the spinning movement. For as
+he advanced into the light out of the sombre shadows, a dizziness from
+long tramping in the woods, and from a hunger such as he had never
+before experienced, overcame him. He reeled against an outstanding tree,
+troubled by an affliction which Uncle Eb had called "wheels in his
+head."
+
+"Ho! you boys. Where in thunder are you? Come to supper, or the venison
+will be spoiled!" shouted the possessor of the horn again, shutting one
+eye into which a crimson ray was pouring, while he swept the skirts of
+the woods with the other; and there was music as well as bluster in his
+shout.
+
+Lo! the first to answer this fetching invitation was the foot-sore,
+leg-weary boy, pale from exhaustion, with his strange equipment of
+powder-horn, coon-skin pouch, and ancient shot-gun, who, getting partly
+the better of his giddiness, crossed the clearing slowly, as if he was
+groping his way. Within a few feet of the horn-blower he halted; for the
+man had lowered his horn, and was gazing at him with keen, questioning
+eyes. Dol tried to find suitable speech to express his need; but though
+words came with considerable effort, his voice sounded hoarse and creaky
+in his own ears, and threatened to crack off altogether.
+
+He was doing his best to brace up and speak plainly, when his sentence
+was stopped by a noise of pounding footsteps. The next moment he saw
+himself surrounded by three well-grown, daring-looking lads, one about
+his own age, one older, one younger, who were gazing at him with
+critical curiosity. All the pluck in Dol Farrar rose to meet this
+emergency. He felt as if his legs were threatening to smash under him
+like pipe-stems. There was a whirling and buzzing in his head. It seemed
+as if his words had such a long way to travel from his brain to his
+tongue that they got confused and changed before he uttered them.
+
+But through it all he was conscious of one clear thought: that he was an
+Old-World boy on parade before these strapping New-World lads. He set
+his teeth, drove his gun hard against the ground, and, as it were,
+anchored himself to it, while strange, doubting lights came into his
+eyes as he tried to get a grip of his senses.
+
+[Illustration: DOL SIGHTS A FRIENDLY CAMP.]
+
+He succeeded. At last he addressed the gentleman with the horn, knowing
+that he was speaking to the point,--
+
+"Good-evening, sir," he said. "I--I--we're camping out somewhere in the
+woods. I--I got lost to-day. I've walked an awful distance. Perhaps you
+could tell me"--
+
+But the man stepped suddenly forward, with a blaze of welcome in his
+eyes; for he saw the brave effort which the lad was making, and that his
+strength was giving out. He put a kindly arm through Dol's, as if to
+warmly greet a fellow-camper, but really to support him.
+
+"I'll not tell you about anything until you've had a good, square meal,"
+he said. "That's our way in woodland quarters,--to eat first, and talk
+afterwards. If you're lost, you've struck a friend's camp, and at the
+right time too, son; so cheer up! After supper you can tell us your
+yarn, and I guess we can set you right."
+
+Here at last was a surprise of unmixed blessedness for poor Dol; namely,
+the brotherly hospitality which is always extended to a stranger in a
+Maine camp, whether that be the temporary home of a millionnaire or the
+shanty of a poor logger.
+
+His new friend led him into the largest of the cabins, which contained
+a fireplace built of huge stones, where red flames frisked around
+fragrant birch logs, a camp-bed of evergreen boughs about ten feet wide,
+a rude table, a bench, and a few stools of pine-wood.
+
+Over the camp-fire was stooping a bright-eyed, muscular fellow, whose
+dress somewhat resembled Uncle Eb's, but who had no negro blood in his
+veins. He was frying meat; and such tempting whiffs mingled with the
+steam which floated up from his pan, that Dol's nostrils twitched, and
+his hungry longing grew almost unbearable as he inhaled them.
+
+"I guess this chunk of ven'zon is about cooked, Doc," said this
+personage, as Dol's kindly host entered the hut, with him in tow,
+followed closely by the boys of his own camp.
+
+"All right, then! Let's have it!" was the reply. "I'm pretty glad our
+camp-fare is decent to-night, Joe, for we've a visitor here; a hungry
+bird who has strayed from his own camp, and has wandered through the
+forest until he looks like a death's head. But we'll soon fix him up;
+won't we, Joe? Give him a mug of hot tea right away. Hot tea is worth a
+dozen of any other drink in the woods for a pick-me-up."
+
+A spark of fun kindled in Dol's eyes when he heard himself described as
+"a hungry bird." It brightened into an appreciative beam as the reviving
+tea trickled down his throat.
+
+"Eatin's wot he wants, I guess," said Joe, the camp guide and cook,
+placing some meat and a slab of bread of his own baking on a tin plate
+for the guest.
+
+Dol began on them greedily; and though the first mouthful or two
+threatened to sicken him, his squeamishness wore off, and he gained
+strength with every morsel.
+
+"How do you like Maine venison, my boy? Like it well enough to have
+another piece, eh?" asked his host, when he saw that the haggard, gray
+look was leaving the wanderer's face, and that the appalled, dazed
+expression, the result of being lost in the woods, had disappeared from
+his eyes.
+
+"I think it's the best meat I ever tasted," answered Dol heartily. "It's
+so tender, and has a splendid taste."
+
+"Ha! ha! It ought to be prime," chuckled the owner of the camp. "It was
+cut from the quarters of a buck which my nephew here, Royal Sinclair,"
+pointing out the tallest of three lads, "shot four days ago. He was a
+regular crackerjack--that buck! I mean, he was as fine a deer as ever I
+saw; weighed over two hundred pounds, had seven prongs to his horns on
+one side and six on the other. Royal is going to take the antlers home
+with him to Philadelphia. We were mighty glad to get him, too; for we
+have been camping here for five weeks, and were running short of
+provisions. Roy had quite an attack of buck-fever over it, though he
+didn't think he was killing the 'fatted calf', to entertain a visitor;
+did you, Roy?"
+
+"I guess not, Uncle! But I'm pretty glad, all the same," answered Royal,
+with a smiling glance at Dol.
+
+Young Farrar found himself in very pleasant quarters; and, now that he
+was recovering, his laugh rang from one log wall to the other.
+
+"What's 'buck-fever'?" he questioned, while Joe filled his plate with
+more venison.
+
+"A sort of disease of which you'll learn the meaning before you leave
+these woods," answered his host merrily. "It attacks a man when he's out
+after a deer, and makes him feel as if one leg stands firm under him,
+while the other shakes as if it had the palsy.
+
+"Now I guess you'd like to know whose camp you're in, my boy, and then
+you can tell your story. Well, to begin with the most useful member of
+the party. That knowing-looking fellow over there, who cooked your
+supper, is Joe Flint, the best guide that ever pulled a trigger or
+handled a frying-pan in this region--barring one. These three rascals,"
+here the speaker beamed upon the strapping lads, with whom Dol had been
+exchanging sympathetic glances of curiosity, "are my nephews, Royal,
+Will, and Martin Sinclair. And I--I--
+
+"Good gracious! Listen to that, Joe! What's up now? Another fellow lost
+in the woods? Somebody is firing a round with his rifle! Perhaps he
+wants help. Those are signal shots, anyhow!"
+
+The camper whose horn had been Dol's signal of deliverance, broke off
+abruptly in his introductions, just as he had arrived at the most
+interesting point, and was proclaiming his own identity. He rattled off
+his short exclamations in excitement, and dashed out of the cabin,
+followed by Joe, his nephews, and Dol, the latter limping painfully, for
+his feet now felt like hot-water bags.
+
+"That Winchester has spoken eight or ten times," said the leader,
+counting the shots fired by somebody away in the dark recesses of the
+forest from a powerful repeating-rifle. "Let's give the fellow, whoever
+he is, an answer, Joe!"
+
+He seized his own rifle hastily, loaded the magazine with blank
+cartridges, and fired a noisy salute.
+
+In the pause which followed, while all strained their ears to listen,
+the sound of a shrill, distant "Coo-hoo!" the woodsman's hail, reached
+them from the forest.
+
+Joe instantly responded with a vehement "Coo-hoo! Coo-hoo-oo!" the first
+call being short and brisk, the second prolonged into a roar which
+showed the strength of the guide's lungs,--a roar that might carry for
+miles.
+
+Shortly afterwards there was a crashing and tearing amid some
+undergrowth near the edge of the forest. A man bounded forth from the
+pitch-black shadows into the clearing, where a little daylight still
+lingered. As he approached the group, Dol, who was in the background,
+gave a startled, yearning cry; but it was drowned in a loud burst from
+his host.
+
+"Why, Cyrus Garst!" exclaimed the latter, peering into the new-comer's
+face. "How goes it, man? I never expected to see you here. Surely you
+haven't come to grief in the woods? You look scared to death!"
+
+Cyrus--for it was he--grasped the welcoming hand which the owner of this
+camp extended to him. But his dark eyes did not linger a moment meeting
+the other's. They turned hither and thither, flashing in all directions
+restlessly, like search-lights.
+
+"I'm glad to see you, Doc," he said. "I didn't know you were anywhere
+near. But I'm half distracted just now. A youngster belonging to our
+camp is missing. I've been scouring the forest for hours, and firing
+signals, hoping he might hear them. But"--
+
+Here Cyrus caught sight of Dol, who with a cry which in its changing
+inflections was longing, penitent, joyful, was making towards him. The
+Harvard student strode forward, and gripped the boy by his elbows. In
+the dusk their eyes were near together; Garst's were stern, Dol's
+blinking and unsteady.
+
+"Adolphus Farrar," began Cyrus in a voice as if he was making an arrest,
+"have you been here in this camp, or where have you been, while your
+brother and I were searching the woods like maniacs? What unheard-of
+folly possessed you to go off by yourself?"
+
+Dol made a gurgling attempt to answer, but his voice rattled and died
+away in his throat. His eyes grew decidedly leaky.
+
+"Say, Cyrus!" interrupted the man who had befriended him and now proved
+his champion, "let the youngster get breath and tell his story from
+start to finish before you blow him up. I guess he wasn't much to blame;
+and if he was, he has suffered for it. He found his way here not quite
+half an hour ago, so played out from wandering through the forest that
+he was ready to drop in his tracks. And I tell you he showed his grit
+too; for he managed to brace up and keep on his feet, though he was as
+exhausted a kid as ever I saw."
+
+The "kid," forgiving this objectionable term because of the soothing
+allusion to a trying time when he had behaved like a man, winked and
+gulped to get rid of his emotion, and twisted his elbows out of Cyrus's
+hold. The latter lost his angry look, and released them.
+
+"I must fire three shots to let Neal and Uncle Eb know I've found you,"
+he said. "We parted company a while ago, and they're beating about the
+woods in another direction. Whoever first came upon any trace of you was
+to fire his rifle three times."
+
+The signal was instantly given.
+
+More far-reaching "Coo-hoos!" were exchanged. Ere long Neal was beside
+his brother, looking at him with eyes which showed the same tendency to
+leak that Dol's had done a while ago, and battling with a desire to
+squeeze the wanderer in a breathless hug. He relieved his feelings
+instead by "blowing up" Dol with withering fire and a rough choke in his
+voice.
+
+But when, in response to an invitation from the genial camper whom Cyrus
+and Joe called "Doc," the whole party, guides included, had gathered
+around the camp-fire in the big log hut, and Dol told his story from
+start to finish, he became the hero of the evening.
+
+His only fault had been a rash venturing into the unknown; and well it
+was that he had not followed the unknown to his death.
+
+"Why, boy!" exclaimed Cyrus, with a strong shudder, when Dol had
+described the false trail which led him to the foot of the crag, "that
+wasn't a human trail at all. It was a deer-road. The deer spend their
+day up in the mountains, and come down to the ponds at evening to feed
+and drink. Now, a buck or doe in its regular journeys to and fro will
+follow one line, to which it becomes accustomed. Perhaps fifty others,
+seeing the ground trodden, will run in the same track. And there you
+have your well-used path, which looks as if it was made by men's feet!
+
+"You may thank your lucky star, Dol, every hour of this night, that the
+false trail didn't lead you away--away--higher--higher--up the mountain,
+until you dropped in your tracks, and died there alone, as others have
+done before."
+
+A shocked hush fell upon the group around the camp-fire. Even the guides
+were silent. But the fragrant birchen logs sputtered and glowed, darting
+out playful tongues of flame. They seemed to call upon everybody to
+dismiss gloomy thoughts of what might have been; to crack jokes, sing
+songs, tell yarns, and be as merry as befitted men who had a log hut for
+a shelter, fresh whiffs of forest air stealing to them through an open
+doorway, and such a camp-fire.
+
+Joe began to prepare supper for the three who had searched so long and
+distractedly for Dol that they confessed to not having eaten for hours.
+While more venison was being cooked, the juveniles, American and
+English, who had been secretly taking stock of each other, cast aside
+restraint, and became as "chummy" as if they had been acquainted for
+years instead of hours.
+
+Such a carnival of fun and noise was started through their combined
+efforts in the old log camp, that its owner declared he "couldn't hear
+himself think." Seizing his horn, he blew a blast which called for
+order.
+
+"Say, my boy, let me have a look at your feet," he said, cornering Dol.
+"A deer-road isn't a king's highway, as I dare say you've found out to
+your cost. Pull off your moccasins and socks, and let me doctor your
+poor trotters."
+
+Young Farrar very gladly did as he was bidden.
+
+"Humph!" said his friend. "I thought so. They're a mass of bruises and
+blisters. You've been pretty well branded, son. Moccasins aren't much
+use to protect the feet from roots and sharp stones, if you happen to
+strike a bad place in forest travelling, unless you have taken the
+precaution to put double soles in them; didn't you know that? Now, Cyrus
+Garst," turning to the student, "you're all going to camp with us
+to-night. This lad can't tramp any more. As a doctor I forbid it."
+
+"Are you a doctor, sir?" questioned Dol, with a thrill of surprise,
+which he managed to conceal.
+
+"Something of the kind, boy," answered his host, smiling. "I don't look
+much like a city physician, do I? I graduated from a medical college in
+Philadelphia, and took my degree. But I had an enthusiasm for the woods.
+One hour of forest life in dear old Maine was to me worth a year spent
+amid streets, alleys, and sky-scraping buildings; so I fixed my
+headquarters at Greenville, and have spent most of my time in the
+wilderness."
+
+"Where every trapper, guide, and lumberman knows Dr. Phil Buck, whom
+they disrespectfully and affectionately call 'Doc,'" put in Cyrus. "And
+many a poor fellow owes his life or limbs to Doc's knowledge and nursing
+in some hard time of sickness, or after one of the dreadful accidents
+common in the forests."
+
+Dol could well understand this; for he now was benefiting by Dr. Phil's
+lively desire to relieve suffering, and was silently breathing blessings
+on his head. The doctor had bathed his puffy feet in warm water taken
+from Joe's camp-kettle, and was anointing them with a healing salve,
+after which he tucked them into a loose pair of slippers of his own.
+Meanwhile, he chatted pleasantly.
+
+"This isn't the first time that your friend Cyrus and I have run against
+each other in the wilds," he said, "nor the first time that we've camped
+together, either. Bless you! we could make you jump with some of our
+stories. Do you remember that night in '89, Cy, when you, with your
+guide, came upon me lying under a rough shelter of bark and spruce
+boughs, which I had rigged up for myself near Roaring Brook, on the side
+of Mount Katahdin?"
+
+"I guess I do remember it," answered Cyrus, laughing.
+
+"A mighty hungry man I was, too, that evening," went on Doc; "for I had
+no food left but one little package of soup-powder and a few beans. I
+had been trying all day to get a successful shot at a moose or deer, and
+muffed it every time. It wasn't the lucky side of the moon for me. Well,
+you behaved like the Good Samaritan to me, then, Cy; shared your meat
+and all your stuff, and we slept like twin brothers under my shelter."
+
+"Yes; and a bear visited our temporary camp in the night!" exclaimed
+Cyrus, bursting into uproarious mirth over some over-poweringly funny
+recollection; "he made off with my knapsack, which I had left lying by
+the camp-fire. I suppose old Bruin thought he'd find something good in
+it to eat; but he didn't. So he tore my one extra shirt and every
+article in the pack to shreds, and chewed up the handle of my razor, so
+that I couldn't shave again until I got back to civilization, when I was
+as bristly as a porcupine."
+
+"Perhaps Bruin tried to shave himself," suggested Dol.
+
+"At all events, he had wisdom enough not to cut his throat," answered
+the story-teller. "We three--Doc, my guide, and myself--were stupidly
+tired, and slept so soundly that we did not discover the theft nor who
+the marauder was until the following morning. Then we found my knapsack
+gone, and the tracks of a huge bear in some soft earth near our shelter.
+We traced his footprints through a bog until we found the spot, not far
+off, where, overcome by greed or curiosity, he ripped up that strong
+leather knapsack as if it was _papier mache_ and made hay of its
+contents."
+
+The boys had all crowded near to listen. It was now the social hour for
+campers. By the camp-fire more reminiscences followed; and the two
+guides chimed in it with moose stories, bear stories, panther stories,
+wild tales of every imaginable and unimaginable kind of adventure, until
+the lads thought no mythology which they had ever learned could rival in
+marvels the forest lore.
+
+At this opportune time, Neal suddenly thought of describing, or
+attempting to describe, that strangest of strange calls which he had
+heard, after the capsizing of the canoe, on the preceding night, when
+Cyrus and he were jacking for deer on Squaw Pond.
+
+Joe grunted expressively. "So help me! it was the moose call!" he
+ejaculated. "What say, Doc?"
+
+"I guess it was," answered Dr. Phil. "It was either the cow-moose
+herself calling, or some hunter imitating her with his birch-bark
+trumpet. It's a weird sort of experience, to hear that call for the
+first time; I shouldn't wonder if your heart went whack-whack, lad?"
+
+"I only hope he'll get a chance to hear it again before he goes back to
+England," said Cyrus.
+
+Forthwith, the Harvard man proceeded to explain that he was bent on
+pressing forward for a distance of sixty miles or so, to the heart of
+the wilderness, to search for moose, but that he intended to do the
+journey in a leisurely, zigzag fashion, camping for a couple of nights
+at various points, in order to do the honors of the forest to his
+English comrades.
+
+"So you're English, are you! Ha! Ha! Ho! Ho!" exclaimed the doctor,
+looking at the young Farrars. "Well, I suppose we'll have to put our
+best foot foremost to give you a good time in American woods."
+
+"I think that's what we're having, sir--such a jolly good time that
+we'll never forget it," answered Neal courteously.
+
+"Yes, it's jolly enough now; but I tell you I didn't find it so to-day,"
+grumbled Dol, while his eyes gleamed like polished steel with the light
+of present fun. "But as long as I live I'll remember the sound of your
+horn, Doctor, when I was dead-beat."
+
+"Is that so? Well, I guess I'll have to make you a present of that horn,
+boy, when we part company, and you go back to civilization, and of the
+piece of birch-bark, too, which led you to our camp. 'Twas Joe who fixed
+that to the pine near the swamp; for my lads had a habit of following
+the trail to the alders, looking for moose or deer signs. He scrawled
+his sentence on it with the end of a cartridge. I guess it would be a
+sort of curiosity in England."
+
+Dol whooped his delight.
+
+"I'll put it under a glass shade! I'll"--
+
+While he was casting about in his mind for some way of immortalizing
+that bit of white bark, Doc's genial bluster was heard again,--
+
+"Come! come! you fellows! No more skylarking in this camp to-night! It's
+high time for all campers to be snoring. Turn in! Turn in!"
+
+But nobody was in a hurry to obey the summons to bed. While hands and
+feet were being stretched out to the sizzling birch logs for a final
+toast, Royal Sinclair, who had a trick of speaking very quickly, with a
+slight click in his utterance, as if his tongue struck his teeth, began
+to pour some communications into Neal's ear in rapid dashes of talk,--
+
+"This is just about the jolliest night we ever had in the forest, and
+we've had a staving time all through. We live in Philadelphia, and Uncle
+Phil--we call him 'Doc' like everybody else--brought us out here for our
+summer vacation. This old log camp was built several years ago by a
+hunting-party, of whom he was one. The walls were getting mouldy; but he
+cleaned up the largest of the huts, with Joe's help, and made it our
+headquarters. He never needs a guide himself; not a bit of it! He can
+find his way anywhere through the woods with his compass. But he is a
+good deal away, so he engaged Joe to go out with us.
+
+"He often starts off at a moment's notice, and travels dozens of miles
+on foot, or in a birch canoe, if he hears of a bad accident far away in
+the forest. Sometimes a lumberman or trapper cuts his foot in two, or
+nearly chops off his leg with his axe; and these poor fellows would
+probably die while their comrades were lugging them through the woods on
+a litter, trying to reach a settlement, if it weren't for our Doc.
+
+"Once in a while, when he comes to visit us in Philadelphia, a few
+people call him a crank, because he lives out here and dresses like a
+settler; but I call him a regular brick."
+
+"So do I," said Neal with spirit.
+
+"You're awfully lucky to be able to camp out during October," rattled on
+Roy. "That's the month for moose-hunting, jacking, and all the most
+exciting sort of fun. We have to go home in a day or two, for our
+school has reopened, unless"--
+
+"When Royal Sinclair gets a streak of talking, you might as well try to
+bottle up the Mississippi as to stop him," said Dr. Phil, laughing. "I
+can't hear what he's saying, but I know that his tongue is clicking like
+a telegraph instrument. But I hope it has given its last message for
+to-night. You really must turn in, boys. I let you have an extra social
+hour, because to-morrow will be Sunday, a day of rest after the travels
+and excitements of the week. Think of it, lads! A Sunday in the
+woods--God's first cathedral! May it do us all good!"
+
+The guide, Joe, built up the fire. Fresh birch logs blistered and
+sputtered as creeping curls of bluish flame enwrapped them. Kindling
+rapidly, they threw out fantastic lights, which danced like a regiment
+of red elves around the old log walls of the cabin.
+
+"If a fellow could only drop off to sleep every night in the year seeing
+and smelling such a fire as that!" breathed Neal, as, accepting a share
+of Royal's blankets, he stretched his tired limbs on the evergreen
+mattress.
+
+"Then life would be too jolly for anything," answered Roy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+A SUNDAY AMONG THE PINES.
+
+
+"Men and boys learn a good many wholesome lessons in the forest, one of
+which is that it pays better to take a day of rest in seven if they want
+to make the most of themselves and their opportunities. Therefore, lads,
+we'll do no tramping to-day. And we'll have a bit of a service by and by
+over there under the pines."
+
+So spoke Doctor Phil on the following morning, when the two sets of
+campers, now one joyous, brotherly crowd, were sitting or lounging about
+the pine-wood table, leisurely emptying tin mugs of tea or coffee, and
+eating porridge and rolls of Joe's baking.
+
+"You haven't told us yet, Cyrus," he went on, "what point you're bound
+for. I know you're level-headed, and plan every forest trip beforehand,
+to economize time."
+
+"Yes, a fellow likes to do that; it adds to the pleasures of
+anticipation," Garst answered. "But it's precious little use, after all,
+when you're visiting a region which is as full of surprises as an egg is
+full of meat. However, I have arranged to meet Herb Heal, the guide whom
+I generally employ, at a hunting-camp near Millinokett Lake."
+
+"A good moose country," put in Doc.
+
+"I know it. At all events, it is a good place for a home-camp; one can
+make excursions into the dense forests at the foot of Katahdin, which
+are unrivalled for big game--so Herb says, and he's an authority. These
+English fellows may expect to have an attack of buck-fever, or
+_moose-fever_ rather, which will set their blood on fire. Not that we're
+out chiefly for killing; we're willing to let his mooseship keep a whole
+skin, and go in peace to replenish the forests, unless he grows
+cantankerous and charges us."
+
+"If he happens to be an old bull, and gits his mad up, he may do that;
+it's as likely as not," chimed in Joe Flint, who was listening.
+
+"Well, it there's a man in Maine who can be warranted to start a moose,
+and to follow up his trail until he gets a sight of him, living or dead,
+that man is Herb Heal," said the doctor. "And his adventures go ahead of
+those of any woodsman up to date. You must get him to tell you how he
+swam across a pond at the tail of a bull-moose, holding with his fingers
+and teeth to the creature's long hair, then got astraddle of its back,
+and severed its jugular vein with his hunting-knife. How's that! It was
+the liveliest swim I ever heard of. But I mustn't spoil his yarns. He
+must tell them himself.
+
+"A fine son of the woods is Herb Heal!" went on the speaker, with
+enthusiasm. "I ran across him first five years ago, when he was trapping
+for fur-bearing animals in the dense forests you mentioned near the foot
+of Mount Katahdin. He had a partner with him then, a half-breed Indian,
+whom woodsmen called 'Cross-eyed Chris,' a willing, plucky, honest
+fellow when he was sober. But he loved fire-water. Let him once taste
+spirits, or smell them, and he went clean crazy. He did a dog's trick to
+Herb,--stole all his furs and savings, with a splendid pair of moose
+antlers, while he was away from camp one day, and skipped out of the
+State. Herb swore he'd shoot him. But I don't think he has ever come
+across him since. And if he should, he wouldn't stick to his threat.
+He's not built that way."
+
+There was a general hum of interest over this story, which even Cyrus
+had not heard before.
+
+"Now, how are you going to reach your camp on Millinokett Lake?" asked
+Dr. Phil, when the buzz had subsided. "That's the next question."
+
+"We intend to tramp the entire distance by easy stages, and get there
+about the middle of October," answered young Garst for himself and his
+comrades. "Uncle Eb will go along with us as guide; and he'll supply a
+tent, so that we can rest for two or three nights at a time if we
+choose."
+
+"Hum!" said the doctor doubtfully, laying his hand on Dol's shoulder.
+"This youngster oughtn't to do much tramping for a few days, Cyrus. That
+deer-road did up his feet pretty badly. I'll be travelling in your
+direction myself the day after to-morrow. I want to visit a
+farm-settlement within a dozen miles of the lake, where the farmer has a
+sickly child, the only treasure in his log shanty. The mite frets if
+Doc doesn't come to see her once in a while.
+
+"Therefore, I propose that we join forces, and press forward together. I
+guess I'll keep my nephews out here for a week longer, and take the
+responsibility of their missing that time at school. Now that they have
+fallen in with your friends, it would be a shame to separate Young
+England and Young America without giving them a chance to get friendly."
+
+Here Dr. Phil beamed upon the five boys, who, after one night in the
+forest, sleeping in a light-hearted row on the evergreen boughs, with
+their feet to the fire, had reached a brotherly intimacy which years of
+city life might not have bred.
+
+"I further propose," he went on, "that we hire a roomy wagon and a pair
+of strong horses from a settler who has a clearing about two miles from
+here. There is an old logging-road which runs through the woods towards
+the point for which we're heading. We could follow that for the first
+half of our journey. It isn't a turnpike, you know. In fact, it's only a
+broad track where the underbrush has been cleared away, and the trees
+cut down, with strips of corduroy road sandwiched in. But the lumbermen
+still haul supplies over it to their camps, and I propose that we
+follow their example. We can pile our tent, camp duffle [stores], and
+all our packs into the wagon, together with the hero of the
+deer-road,"--winking at Dol,--"and the rest of us can take turns in
+riding. It will be a big lark for these youngsters to travel over a
+corduroy road. A very bracing ride they'll have in more senses than one;
+but they can spin plenty of yarns about it when they get home."
+
+The "youngsters," one and all, signified their approval of the
+suggestion. Cyrus, who, as a college man, was above this category, was
+pleased to acquiesce too.
+
+"When can we get the wagon, Doctor?" asked Neal, burning to press
+onward.
+
+"Oh! the day after to-morrow, I guess. And now, lads!" Dr. Phil's voice
+was serious, but exultant, "we're a thoroughly happy set of fellows, in
+accord with each other and our surroundings. We feel our brains clear,
+our gladness springing up, and our lungs swelling to double their size
+with the whiffs which reach us from those sky-piercing pines yonder. So
+we will remember that 'the wide earth is our Father's temple.' Over
+there in the woods we will worship him, while millions of forest
+creatures about us, flying, bounding, or building, in obedience to his
+laws, simply worship too."
+
+A music soft, deep, sighing, like the murmur of an organ under the
+fingers of a master musician, rolled through the pine-tops as the band
+of campers, guides included, followed Doc into the forest. They passed
+the clumps of slender trees near the camp, and reached a dimly-lit green
+aisle.
+
+Towering pines, so tall and erect that they seemed shooting upward to
+kiss the clouds, were the pillars of their cathedral. Its roof of
+tasselled boughs was stabbed by flashing needles of sunlight, which let
+in a flickering, mellow radiance, and traced a pattern on the woodland
+carpet. Every whiff of forest air was natural incense.
+
+Dr. Phil stood as if in the audience-chamber of the King, and removed
+his wide-brimmed hat.
+
+"Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be
+honor and glory, for ever and ever. Amen!" he said.
+
+Then Cyrus's voice led the worship.
+
+  "Praise God, from whom all blessings flow!"
+
+he sang, in a strong, glad outburst.
+
+Boys and guides, in a great chorus, swelled the familiar words. Each
+sweetly chirping woodland bird, after its own manner, echoed them. The
+music among the pine-tops mingled with them. The forest fairly rang with
+a magnificent, adoring Doxology.
+
+"We ought to be decent kind of fellows after this," said Cyrus, when the
+little service was over.
+
+And the doctor answered,--
+
+"I tell you, boy, the church was never built where a man feels so ready
+to worship the God-Father in spirit and in truth as he does in the wild
+woods."
+
+And looking on the six fresh, manly faces before him, Dr. Phil saw that
+this happy woodland trip would have grander results than adding to the
+campers' inches and to the breadth of their shoulders. For each one of
+them had realized this morning that behind all strength and beauties of
+forest growth, behind their own souls' gladness, was a Presence which
+they could "almost palpably feel."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+FORWARD ALL!
+
+
+Speculations about the journey, and in especial about the corduroy road,
+were rife in the boys' minds during the forty and odd hours which
+elapsed between the Sunday service and the time of their start.
+
+The travellers met at the settler's cabin early on Tuesday morning,
+having broken camp shortly after daybreak. On Monday evening Cyrus and
+Neal, with Uncle Eb, had returned to the bark hut to pack their
+knapsacks, and make ready for a forward march. On the way thither, it
+being just the hour for the deer to be running,--that is, descending
+from the hills for an evening meal,--Neal got a successful shot at a
+small two-year-old buck. This was a stroke of luck for the campers, and
+a necessary deed of death. It supplied them with venison for their
+journey; and, as Cyrus said, "they had already put a shamefully big hole
+in Dr. Phil's stores, and must procure a respectable supply of meat to
+make up for it."
+
+It also provided Tiger with plenty of bones to crunch during his
+master's absence; for the dog was left behind in charge of the hut, as
+indeed he often was for a week or more while Uncle Eb was away guiding.
+The sportsmen who engaged the latter's services were generally averse to
+the creature's presence with the party, lest he should scare their game.
+
+Cyrus and Neal bade him a pathetic farewell, remembering the exciting
+fun he had given them with the raccoon. Dol sent him lots of approving
+messages, which were duly delivered, with rough pats and shakes, by
+Uncle Eb, who fully believed that the brute understood every word of
+them. Indeed, the sign language of Tiger's expressive tail confirmed
+this opinion.
+
+Dol had remained at the log camp with his new friends, Dr. Phil thinking
+it well that he should rest his feet until the morning of the start. His
+brother promised to bring his knapsack and rifle to the settler's
+cabin. Uncle Eb repossessed himself of his shot-gun, pouch, and
+powder-horn, which he carried back to his hut, and left under Tiger's
+protection, telling Dol that "if he wanted to bag any more black ducks
+he'd have to give 'em a dose wid de rifle, for he warn't a-goin' to lug
+dat ole fuzzee t'rough de woods."
+
+It was the perfection of an October morning, sunshiny and pleasant, with
+a mellow freshness in the air which matched the mellow tints of the
+forest, when the travellers joined forces at the farm-settlement.
+
+Engaged in the thrilling work of felling a pine-tree to extend his
+father's clearing, they found the settler's son, a brawny fellow about
+Cyrus's age, in buckskin leggings and coon-skin cap, who wielded his axe
+with arms which were tough and knotted as pine limbs. He bawled to them
+in the forceful language of the backwoods, which to unaccustomed ears
+sounded a trifle barbaric, to keep out of the way until his tree had
+fallen.
+
+When the pine at last tumbled earthward with a thud which reverberated
+for miles through the forest, he gave a mighty yell, waved his skin cap,
+and came towards the visitors.
+
+"Hulloa, Lin!" boomed the doctor, greeting this native as an old
+acquaintance.
+
+"Hello, Doc!" answered Lin. "By the great horn spoon! I didn't expect to
+see you here. Who are these fellers?"
+
+The doctor introduced his comrades. Lin greeted them with bluff
+simplicity, and called them one and all by their Christian names as soon
+as these could be found out. Doc alone came in for his short title--if
+such it could be called. Luckily the campers of both nationalities, from
+Cyrus downward, were without any element of snobbery in their
+dispositions. It seemed to them only a jolly part of the untrammelled
+forest life that man should go back to his primitive relations with his
+brother man; that in the woods, as Doc said, "manhood should be the only
+passport," and that titles and distinctions should never be thought of
+by guides or anybody else. They were well-pleased to be taken simply for
+what they were,--jolly, companionable fellows,--and to be valued
+according to the amount of grit and good-temper they showed.
+
+And they learned this morning to appreciate the pioneer courage and
+resolute spirit of the rugged settlers who had cleared a home for
+themselves amid the surrounding wilderness of forest and stream. Their
+roughness of speech was as nothing in comparison with their brave
+endurance of hardships, their deeds of heroism, and their free-handed
+hospitality.
+
+Lin led his visitors straight to a log cabin, before which his father, a
+veteran woodsman, who bore the scars of bears' teeth upon his body, was
+digging and planting. This old farmer, too, greeted Doc as a friend, and
+when the wagon was talked about, was quite willing to do anything to
+serve him.
+
+"But ye must have a square meal afore ye travel," he said. "Jerusha! I
+couldn't let ye go without eatin'. Mother!" shouting to his wife, who
+was inside the cabin. "Say, Mother! Ha'n't ye got somethin' fer these
+fellers to munch?"
+
+Forthwith a big, rosy woman, who had herself fought a bear in her time,
+and had shot him, too, before he attacked her farmyard, hustled round,
+and got up such a meal as the travellers had not tasted since they
+entered the woods. They had a splendid "tuck-in," consisting of fried
+ham, boiled eggs, potatoes, hot bread, yellow butter, and coffee. And
+the meal was accompanied with thrilling stories from the lips of the old
+settler about the hardships and desperate scenes of earlier pioneering
+days. Doc coaxed him to relate these for the boys' benefit. And many
+eyes dilated as he told of blood-curdling adventures with the "lunk
+soos," or "Indian devil," the dreadful catamount or panther, which was
+once the terror of Maine woodsmen.
+
+"So help me! I'd a heap sooner meet a ragin' lion than a panther," said
+the old man. "My own father came near to bein' eaten alive by one when I
+was a kid. He was workin' with a gang o' lumbermen in these forests at
+timber-makin', and was returnin' to their camp, when the beast bounced
+out of a thicket all of a suddint. Poor dad was skeered stiff. The thing
+screeched,--a screech so turrible that it was enough to turn a man's
+sweat to ice-water, an' a'most set him crazy. Dad hadn't no gun with
+him; so he shinned up the nighest tree like mad, an' hollered fit to
+bust his windpipe, hopin' t'other fellers at the camp 'ud hear him.
+
+"But the panther made up another tree hard by, an' sprang 'pon him. Fust
+it grabbed dad by the heel. Then it tore a big piece out o' the calf of
+his leg, an' devoured it. Think of it, boys! Them's the sort o' dangers
+that the fust settlers an' lumbermen in these woods had to face.
+
+"Wal, dad reckoned he was a goner, sure. But he managed to cut a limb
+from the tree with his huntin'-knife, an' tied the knife to the end of
+it. With that he fought the beast while his comrades, who had heard his
+mad yells, were gittin' to him. With the fust shot that one of 'em fired
+the catamount made off.
+
+"Dad was the sickest man ye ever saw fer a spell. His wound healed after
+a bit, under the care of an Injun doctor; but his hair, which had been
+soot-black on that evenin' when he was returnin' to camp, was as white
+as milk afore he got about again; an' he was notional and narvous-like
+as long as he lived.
+
+"He said the animal was like a tremenjous big cat, about four feet high
+an' five or six feet in length. It was a sort o' bluish-gray color. An'
+it had a very long tail curled up at the end, which it moved like a
+cat's.
+
+"Boys, that catamount is the only animal that an Indian is skeered of.
+Ask a red man to hunt a moose, a bear, or a wolf, an' he's ready to
+follow it through forest an' swamp till he downs it or drops. But ask
+him to chase a panther, an' he'll shake his head an' say, 'He all one
+big debil!' He calls the beast, in his own lingo, 'lunk soos,' which
+means 'Injun devil;' an' so we woodsmen call it too."
+
+It was at this moment that Lin put his head in at the cabin-door, and
+announced that "the wagon an' hosses war a' ready."
+
+"Wal, boys, I swan! it's many a long year since a panther was seen in
+these forests, so ye needn't feel skeery about meetin' one," said the
+old settler, as he stood outside his log home, and watched his guests
+start. "I'll 'low ye won't find travellin' too easy 'long the ole
+corduroy road. Come again!"
+
+There was much waving of hats as the wagon, a roomy, four-wheeled
+vehicle, moved off, with a creaking in its joints as if it were
+squealing a protest against its load, which consisted of the five lads,
+together with knapsacks, guns, tents, and the camp duffle.
+
+"Forward, all!" shouted Dr. Phil, who had been chosen to act as captain
+of the two companies during the few days while they journeyed together.
+
+Lin, who was charioteer, cracked a long whip above his horses. The boys
+cheered, while Doc, Cyrus, and the two guides fell behind, choosing to
+follow the wagon on foot for the first few miles of the journey.
+
+"Where did you buy that, Lin?" asked Neal, climbing over to a perch
+beside the driver, and pointing to a heavy Colt's revolver which the
+young settler was buckling round his waist.
+
+"Didn't buy it. I traded a calf for it at Greenville more'n a year ago,"
+was the reply. "Fust-rate gun it is, too, I vum! I've stood at our
+cabin-door, and killed many a buck with it. On'y 'tain't much good for
+tackling a bear. Wish't the bears ud get as scarce as the panthers! Then
+we'd be rid o' two master pests. Hello! Don't y'u git to tumbling out
+jist yet! That's on'y a circumstance to the jolts there'll be when we
+strike a bit o' corduroy road."
+
+Lin Hathaway grabbed young Farrar by the elbow while he spoke, and held
+him steady with the horny hand which had swung the axe against the
+doomed pine-tree. For Neal had shown a sudden inclination to pitch
+headlong out of the wagon, as its right wheels were hoisted a foot or
+more above the left ones by rolling over a mossy bump in the ground.
+
+For the first five miles the forest road had been simply constructed
+thus: First, the bushy undergrowth had been cut away and thrown to one
+side, the space cleared being about eight feet wide; then all trees
+growing in the range of this track had been sawn off close to the
+ground, and windfalls which barred the way were removed. It was a rude
+highway, with plenty of deformities, such as ends of rotting stumps,
+twisted roots, ridges and bumps which had never been levelled; yet it
+was beautiful beyond any smooth, well-graded road which the travellers
+had ever seen. As it wound along in graceful curves through the woods,
+it was shaded now by an emerald arch of evergreens, now by a royal
+crimson canopy of maple branches, while patches of buff, orange, and
+dull red commingled where other trees interlaced with these to whisper
+woodland secrets.
+
+But the boys soon understood what Doc meant when he spoke of their
+having "a bracing ride in more senses than one;" for the motion of the
+wagon was a giddy series of jolts and bounces, with just sufficient
+interval between each shock for them to brace themselves, with stiffened
+backbones, for the next upheaval. They had already begun, as Royal said,
+"to have kinks in all their limbs," when Lin suddenly announced,--
+
+"Yon's a bit o' corduroy road, I declar'!"
+
+He pointed with his whip ahead, and the travellers shot out their necks
+to see this novel highway. It extended for about a quarter of a mile
+over a swamp, and spoke volumes for the energy and ingenuity of the
+hardy lumbermen who constructed it.
+
+These brawny heroes, who are fine types of American grit and manhood,
+when clearing a broad track over which their great timber logs could be
+hauled from the depths of the forest to the landing on some big river,
+had found the swampy tracts an impassable obstacle for animals
+trammelled with harness and a heavy load.
+
+They bridged them by laying down logs cut to even lengths in a slightly
+slanting position across the way for the entire extent of miry ground.
+Each piece of timber was tightly wedged in by its fellow; nevertheless,
+there was a space of several inches between their rounded tops. Hence
+the track presented a striped appearance, which suggested to some
+spirited genius among woodsmen its name of "corduroy road."
+
+"Well, Neal, do you think you can tell your folks a thing or two about
+forest travelling when you get back to England?" asked Doc, when the
+order of march was changed, young Farrar and the Sinclairs turning out
+to do their share of tramping, while the doctor, Cyrus, and the guides
+benefited by "a lift."
+
+"I rather think I can," answered Neal; "but goodness! I feel as if there
+were aches and bruises all over me. Once or twice my head seemed jumping
+straight off my shoulders. No more going in a wagon over corduroy roads
+for me! I'd rather be leg-weary any day."
+
+The travellers halted that evening about five o'clock on the banks of a
+lonely stream. The guides pitched the two tents--Joe had provided one
+for his party--facing each other on a patch of clearing, with a space of
+about fifteen feet between them, in the centre of which blazed a roaring
+camp-fire. Now all the axes and knifes among the band were in demand for
+cutting and sharpening stakes and ridge-poles on which to stretch their
+canvas.
+
+Moreover, no evergreen boughs could be procured for beds; and the boys
+had to work with a will, helping Uncle Eb and Joe to cut bundles of the
+long, rank grass that grew by the water to form a bed for their tired
+bodies.
+
+Every one was camp-hungry, as they had not halted for a meal since
+leaving the settlement. After a splendid supper of venison, broiled
+over sizzling logs, bread, and fried potatoes,--for they had added to
+their stores at the farm,--they had a glorious social hour by the
+camp-fire. Joe got off any amount of "ripping" stories; and the sound of
+many a jolly chorus, led by Cyrus, and swelled by the musical efforts of
+the entire crew, mingled with the lonely rustle of the night wind among
+faded and drifting leaves.
+
+When Doc's summons came to turn in, they stretched themselves upon the
+grassy beds, not undressing, as the night was chilly and the temporary
+quarters were not so snug as their previous ones. Still in their warm
+jerseys, trousers, woollen stockings, and knitted caps, with the heat
+from the piled-up camp-fire streaming under the raised flaps of the
+tents, they slept as cosily as if they lay on spring mattresses,
+surrounded by pictured walls.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+BEAVER WORKS.
+
+
+About noon on the following day they were obliged to bid farewell to Lin
+Hathaway, his wagon and horses, as the logging-road went no farther. The
+young settler turned homeward rather regretfully. It might be many
+months again before he got a chance of talking to anybody beyond his
+father and mother, and the boys had brought a dash of outside life into
+his woodland solitude.
+
+The travellers proceeded on foot through a dense forest, which, luckily
+for Dol, had little undergrowth and mostly a soft carpet of moss or dry
+pine needles. Still they had plenty of climbing over windfalls, with
+many rough pokes and jibes from forward boughs and rotten limbs, to rob
+the way of sameness. Through this labyrinth they were safely piloted by
+Uncle Eb and Joe, the latter with his compass in his hand, and the
+former simply studying the "Indian's compass," which is observing how
+the moss grows upon the tree-trunks, there being always a greater
+quantity on the side which faces north.
+
+Before nightfall they reached another log cabin, tenanted by a man who
+had just settled down for the purpose of clearing up a farm. Here they
+were lodged for the night, without trouble of making camp.
+
+The third day of their journey was marked by two sensations. They halted
+for a short rest at a point where there was an extensive break in the
+forest. Scarcely had they emerged from the gloom of a dense growth of
+cedars, when Dol exclaimed.--
+
+"Good gracious! That looks as if people had been building a jolly high
+railroad out here."
+
+On the right rose a bare, steep ridge of sand and gravel, nearly ninety
+feet in height, and closely resembling a railway embankment.
+
+"Well, boy," laughed Dr. Phil, "if that's a railroad, Nature built it,
+and by a mighty curious process too. The sand, rocks, and gravel of
+which it is mostly formed must have been swept here by a great rush of
+waters that once prevailed over this land. We call the ridge a
+'Horseback.' If you like, we'll climb to the top of it, after we've had
+our snack [lunch], and you can get a peep at the surrounding country."
+
+So they did. The top was level, and wide enough for two carriages to
+drive abreast; and the view from it was one which could never be
+forgotten. Around them were millions of acres of forest land, beautiful
+with the contrasts of October; here dipping into a cedar valley, in the
+midst of which they saw the silver smile of a woodland lake, there
+rising into a hill crowned with towering pines, some of them over a
+hundred feet in height.
+
+But, most thrilling sight of all, they beheld, only half a dozen miles
+away, rising in sublime grandeur against the sky, the mountain of
+mountains in Maine,--great Katahdin. They had caught glimpses of its
+curved line of peaks before. Now they saw its forests, and the rugged
+slides where avalanches of bowlders and earth from the top had ploughed
+heavily downward, sweeping away all growth.
+
+Cyrus lifted his hat, and waved it at the distant mass.
+
+"Hurrah!" he cried. "There's the home of storms! There's old Katahdin!
+The Indians named it Ktaadn 'the biggest mountain.'"
+
+"Want to hear the Indian legend about it, lads?" asked Dr. Phil.
+
+A general chirp of assent was his reply, and the doctor began:--
+
+"Well, when the redskins owned these forests, they believed that the
+summit of Katahdin was the home of their evil spirit, or, as they call
+him, 'The Big Devil.' He was named Pamolah. And he was a mighty
+unpleasant sort of neighbor. Once, so tradition says, he ran away with a
+beautiful Indian maiden, and carried her up to his lonely lair among
+those peaks. When her tribe tried to rescue her, he let loose great
+storms upon them, his artillery being thunder, lightning, hail, and
+rain, before which they were forced to flee helter-skelter. An old red
+chief long ago told me the story, and added gravely that 'it was sartin
+true, for han'some squaw always catch 'em debil.'
+
+"The foundation of the legend lies in the fact that there really is a
+very curious granite basin among Katahdin's peaks, and it is the
+birthplace of most storms which sweep over our State. I myself have
+seen clouds forming in it, when I made an ascent of the mountain in my
+younger days, and whirling out in all directions. The roar of its winds
+may sometimes be heard miles away. There are several ponds in the basin;
+one of them, a tiny, clear lake, without any visible outlet, is
+Pamolah's fishing-ground. That's the yarn about the mountain as I heard
+it."
+
+[Illustration: IN THE SHADOW OF THE KATAHDIN.]
+
+"Ain't it a'most time for us to be gittin' down from this Horseback,
+Doc?" asked Joe, who had been listening with the others. "I thought we'd
+reach the farm you're heading for to-night, but we're half a dozen miles
+off it yet; and we can't do more'n another mile or two afore it'll be
+time to halt and make camp. There's some pretty bad travelling and a
+plaguy bit of swamp ahead."
+
+"I guess you're about right, Joe," said Doc, rising with alacrity from
+the stone where he had seated himself while telling his yarn.
+
+Joe's bad travelling meant a great deal of tripping and floundering
+through soft mud and mire, with slippery moss-stones sandwiched in, and
+dwarfed bushes which ran along the ground, and twisted themselves in an
+almost impassable tangle. These had a knack of catching a fellow's feet,
+and causing him to sprawl forward on his face and hands, whereupon his
+knapsack would hit him an astounding thwack on the back.
+
+After three-quarters of an hour of this fun, very muddy, clammy with
+perspiration, and thoroughly winded, the party reached firmer ground,
+and the guides called a halt.
+
+"Guess we'd better rest a bit," said Joe, "afore we go farther. There's
+nothing in forest travelling that'll take the breath out of a man like
+crossing a swamp," eying compassionately the city folk; for he himself
+was as "fit" as when he started. "Then we'd better follow that stream
+till we strike a good place for a camping-ground. What say, Doc?"
+
+Dr. Phil, as captain, signified his assent. After a short
+breathing-spell he again gave the command, "Forward!" And his company
+pushed on into the woods, following the course of a dark stream which
+had gurgled through the swamp.
+
+"There used to be an old beaver-dam somewheres about here," broke forth
+Joe presently, when they had made about a quarter of a mile, the younger
+guide taking the lead, for he was evidently more at home in this part of
+the forest land than his senior, Uncle Eb. "Hullo, now! there it is.
+Look, gentlemen!"
+
+He pointed to a curved bank of brushwood, mostly alder branches, piled
+together in curious topsyturvy fashion, which formed a dam across the
+stream. It bristled with sticks, poking out and up in every direction;
+for the bushy ends of the boughs had been heavily plastered with mud and
+stones, to keep them down.
+
+"That a beaver-dam!" gasped Neal in amazement. "Why, I always had an
+idea that beavers were half human in intelligence, and wove their
+branches in and out in a sort of neat basketwork when making dams.
+That's a funny rough-and-tumble looking old pile."
+
+"It's a good water-tight dam, for all that," answered Cyrus. "And don't
+you begin to underrate Mr. Beaver's intelligence until you see more of
+his works. I've torn the bottom out of a dam like this on a cold, rainy
+night,--beavers like rainy nights for work,--and then hidden myself in
+some bushes to watch the result. It was a trial of strength and
+patience, I assure you, to remain there for six mortal hours,--though I
+had rubber overalls on,--with wet twigs and leaves slapping my face. But
+the sight I saw was more wonderful than anything I could have imagined.
+There was a cloudy, watery moon; and shortly after it rose, five beavers
+appeared upon the dam, scrambling up and down, and examining the great
+hole through which the water was fast leaking out of their pond. Then,
+following a big fellow, who was evidently the boss beaver, they swam to
+the bank. He stationed himself near a tree about twenty inches in
+circumference, and his four boys at once started to fell it. I tell you
+they worked like hustlers, each one sawing on it in turn with his sharp
+teeth, and sometimes two of them together on different parts of the
+trunk.
+
+"At last the tree--it was an ash--fell, toppling into the water just
+where the beavers wanted it. They pushed and tugged it down-stream for
+about ten yards, to the dam, and propped it against the opening which I
+had made. I couldn't see the rest of the operations clearly; but I
+caught glimpses of them, marching about on their hind-legs, carrying mud
+snug up to their chins like this," here Cyrus folded his arms across his
+chest. "And before daybreak that dam was perfectly repaired, with never
+a leak in it.
+
+"You know they build the dams in very shallow water, only a few inches
+deep; and they generally roll in a couple of long logs for a solid
+foundation. It was one of these which I had torn out. Now, Neal, what do
+you say about the beaver's intelligence?"
+
+"If I didn't know you, Cyrus, I'd say you were making up as you went
+along," answered Neal. "It seems one of those things which a fellow can
+scarcely believe in. Hulloa! What's that?"
+
+A loud report, like the bang of a gun, made all the boys, who had been
+standing very quietly, gazing at the dam, suddenly jump.
+
+"It's only a beaver striking the water with his tail," laughed Cyrus.
+"He has been swimming about somewhere up-stream, and has scented us, and
+dived. I have heard one do that a dozen times in the night, if he
+detected the presence of man; but it's very unusual in the daytime, for
+they rarely venture out in broad light. In diving, if suddenly alarmed,
+they strike the surface of the water a tremendous whack with their
+tails, as a signal of alarm, making this report, which in still weather
+resounds for a great distance.
+
+"I'm very glad you heard it, boys; for your chances of seeing the master
+beaver or any of his colony are mighty slim. But we'll probably come on
+their lodge a little higher up."
+
+Above the shallow water where the dam was built, the stream widened into
+a broad, deep pool. About fifty yards ahead, in the centre of this, was
+a tiny island. On its extreme edge Joe pointed out the beaver lodge. It
+was shaped something like a huge beehive, being about a dozen feet in
+diameter and five feet high. The outside seemed to be entirely covered
+with mud and fibrous roots, through which the sticks which formed its
+framework poked out here and there.
+
+"The doors are all underwater," said Cyrus, "and so far down that
+they'll be beneath the ice when the stream freezes in winter. Otherwise
+the beavers could not reach their pile of food-wood, which they keep at
+the bottom, and would starve to death. They are clerks of the weather,
+if you like. They seem to know when the first hard frost is coming, and
+sink their stores a day or two before. Man has not yet discovered their
+mysterious knack of sinking wood, and keeping it stationary through many
+months.
+
+"They feed on the inner bark of poplar, white birch, and willow trees.
+In autumn they fell these along the banks, generally so that they will
+fall into the water, tug and push them down-stream, and float them near
+to their lodges. If the trees are too big to be easily handled, they saw
+them into convenient lengths."
+
+"I call it tough luck, not being able to get a sight of the animals,
+after seeing so much of their works," grumbled Royal.
+
+"Ye might wait here till midnight, and not have any better," said Joe.
+"That fellow's tail was like a fire-alarm to them. They ain't to home
+now, you bet! They've dusted out of their house as if it was on fire;
+and they've either dived to the bottom, or hidden themselves in holes
+along the bank. Guess we'd better be moving on. It's a'most time to
+think about making camp."
+
+"The beavers have been working here!" exclaimed the guide a few minutes
+later, as he strode ahead. "These white birches were felled by 'em; and
+a dandy job they did too."
+
+He pointed to two slim birches which lay prone with their tops in the
+water, and to a third, the trunk of which was partly sawn through in
+more than one place. The ground was strewn with little clippings of
+timber, bearing the saw-marks of the beavers' teeth. The boys gathered
+them up as curiosities.
+
+"Oh, the skilful little animals can beat this work by long odds!"
+exclaimed Doc. "These trunks only measure from eight to twelve inches in
+circumference. I've seen a tree fully two feet round which was felled by
+them. Say, Joe! don't you think we'd better camp to-night somewhere on
+the _brulee?_"
+
+"Just what I'm planning, Doc," answered Joe. "We must be pretty near it
+now."
+
+A few minutes afterwards the party filed out of the dense woods, passed
+through a grove of young spruces, forded a brook which emptied itself
+into the stream they were following, and came upon a scene blasted,
+barren, and unutterably dreary.
+
+The band of boys, who, in spite of swamps and jungles, had learned to
+love the forest dearly, for its many beauties, and for the wild
+offspring with which it teemed, sorrowfully gasped, as if they saw the
+skeleton of a friend.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+"GO IT, OLD BRUIN!"
+
+
+Before them lay a ruined tract of country, extending northward farther
+than eye could reach. It is called by Maine woodsmen a _brulee_, name
+borrowed from their French-Canadian neighbors, who dwell across the
+boundary line which separates the Dominion from the United States.
+
+The word signifies "burnt tract;" but it gives a feeble idea of the
+fire-smitten, blackened region on which the lads looked.
+
+The forest until now had been a wilderness truly, but a wilderness where
+every kind and size of growth, from the giant pine to the creeping
+wintergreen and shaded mosses, mingled in beautiful confusion. Here it
+became a desert. For the terrible forest fires, the woodsman's tragic
+enemy, had swept over it not long before, devastating an area of many
+square miles. Millions of dollars worth of valuable timber had been
+reduced to rotting embers. Storm-defying pines had crashed to the earth,
+and were overridden by the flames in their wild rush onward. Sometimes
+only a smutty stump showed where they had stood; sometimes, robbed of
+life and every limb, portions of the fire-eaten trunks still remained
+erect,--bare, blackened poles. All smaller growth, and even the surface
+of the ground, parched by summer heats, had burned like tinder. Rocks
+and stones were baked and crumbling.
+
+"Boys, that's the most mournful sight a woodsman can see," said Doc,
+looking away over the wrecked region, touched with golden lights from an
+October sunset. "It makes one who loves the woods feel as if he had lost
+a living friend."
+
+"Well, 'tain't no manner o' use to fret over it," declared Joe
+energetically. "Nature don't waste time in fretting, you bet! She starts
+in and tries to cover the stripped ground, as if she was sort of ashamed
+to have it seen."
+
+The guide pointed earthward. At his feet a dwarfed growth of blueberry
+bushes and tiny trees was already springing up to screen the unsightly,
+ash-strewn land.
+
+"True enough, Joe! Nature is a grand one for remedies," answered the
+doctor. "Still, it will be half a century or more before she can raise a
+timber growth here again. Hulloa! Dol, what are you fellows up to?"
+
+While his elders were studying the _brulee_, Dol, who objected to dreary
+sights, had marched down to the brink of the stream, accompanied by
+Royal's young brothers, Will and Martin Sinclair. The little river
+gurgled and frisked along beside the burnt tract, like a line of life
+bordering death. It seemed to the boys to prattle about its victory over
+the flames when it stopped their sweeping course, so that the woods on
+its opposite bank were uninjured, as were those beyond the brook in the
+rear.
+
+"We're studying the ways of the great sea-serpent!" shouted back Dol,
+who was splashing about in a sedgy pool.
+
+By and by when the guides had finished their work of making camp, when
+they had pitched the tents, cut boughs for beds and fuel in the spruce
+grove behind, and were cooking an odorous supper, the three juveniles
+came slowly towards the camp-fire from the water.
+
+"What on earth have you got there, young one?" asked Dr. Phil; for
+Adolphus Farrar was bareheaded, and carried his hat very gingerly, with
+its corners clutched together to form a bag.
+
+"The big sea-serpent himself," answered Dol mysteriously.
+
+Of a sudden he opened his dripping hat, and spilled out a small
+water-snake, about ten inches long, upon the doctor's lap.
+
+There was a great roar of laughter, in which Dol's abettors, Will and
+Martin, joined with cheerful shouts. The little joke had the effect of
+winning everybody's thoughts from roaring flames, wrecked forests, and
+the dreary _brulee_. Uncle Eb killed the snake, maintaining that
+water-snakes were "plaguy p'isonous," while Cyrus scouted the idea. The
+supper that evening was a merry enough meal. The camp, lit by the ruddy
+glow from its great fire, looked an oasis of light, warmth, and jollity
+in the black and burnt desert.
+
+The darky, hearing Cyrus declare that he was fearfully hungry, mixed
+some flapjacks to form a second course, after the venison steaks and
+potatoes. He had exhausted his stock of maple sugar, but he produced a
+small wooden keg of the apparently inexhaustible molasses.
+
+"He! he! he! Dat jest touches de spot, don't it?" he chuckled, when,
+having carefully served each member of the party, he seated himself
+about three feet from the camp-fire, with a round dozen of the thin
+cakes for his own eating.
+
+He coated them with the thick molasses, and set the keg down side by
+side with a bag of potatoes which had been brought from the settlement.
+
+There these provisions remained when, earlier than usual, the party
+turned in, and stretched their tired limbs to rest, lying down, as they
+had done before when sleeping under canvas, with all their garments on
+save coats and moccasins. Whether Uncle Eb forgot his "m'lasses," or
+whether he purposely left it without, there not being a spare inch of
+room in the small tents, no one then or afterwards inquired.
+
+As a result of the jolly intimacy that had sprung up between the two
+companies during the few days when they had all things in common, the
+boys disposed of themselves for the night as they pleased. Neal turned
+in with the doctor, Royal, and Joe, the four stretching themselves on
+the evergreen boughs, with their feet to the opening of the tent, and
+their rifles and ammunition within reach. Of course the Winchesters were
+empty, it being a strict rule that firearms should not be brought into
+camp loaded.
+
+The younger Sinclairs, with Cyrus, Dol, and Uncle Eb, occupied the other
+tent.
+
+It seemed to Neal that he had hardly slept one hour,--probably it was
+nearer to three,--during which time he had been dreaming with vague
+foreshadowings of the final and crowning sport of the trip, the grand
+moose-stalking, and of Herb Heal, the mighty hunter, when he was
+awakened by a shrill scream just outside the canvas. He started, with
+his heart going whackety-whack. The cry was sudden and intensely
+startling, appearing twice as loud as it really was when it broke the
+pathetic stillness of the _brulee_, where not a tree rustled or twig
+snapped, and the night wind only sighed faintly and fitfully through the
+newly springing growth.
+
+Again sounded that startling screech; and yet again, making a dreary,
+piercing din.
+
+"By all that's funny! it's another coon," gasped Neal; and he gently
+pinched the shoulder of Joe, who lay on his left.
+
+"Joe!" he whispered. "Wake up! There's a raccoon just outside the tent.
+I heard his cry."
+
+The guide was awake and alert in an instant. So, too, was Dr. Phil.
+
+"What's up, boys?" asked the latter, hearing a murmur.
+
+"There's a coon close by," said Neal again. "Listen to him!"
+
+Even while he spoke, young Farrar caught sight of two feathered things
+hopping along the avenue of light which lay between him and the
+camp-fire, the red flare of the flames mingling with the white radiance
+of a cloudless moon. At the same time the screech sounded and resounded.
+
+"Coon!" exclaimed Joe derisively. "That's no coon. It's only a little
+owl. Bless ye! I've had five or six of 'em come right into this tent of
+a night, and ding away at me till I had to talk to 'em with the rifle to
+scare 'em off. I'll give 'em a dose o' lead now if they don't scoot
+mighty quick; that'll stop their song an' dance."
+
+"Their cry is pretty much like a raccoon's, Neal," said Doc. "Only it's
+a great deal weaker. Lie down, boy. Go to sleep, and don't mind them."
+
+The owls perhaps apprehended danger. At all events, they were silent for
+a while; and in three minutes each occupant of the tent was fast asleep
+again, with the exception of Neal. The sharp awakening had upset his
+nerves a bit. He obeyed the doctor, and hugged his blankets round him,
+hoping sleep would return; but he lay with eyes narrowed into two slits,
+peeping at the ruddy camp-fire, involuntarily listening for the
+screeching of the birds, and wishing that he had not been such a
+greenhorn as to disturb his comrades for nothing. Royal, who lay on his
+right, was of a less excitable temperament. Although he had been
+awakened, he was now snoring lustily, insomnia being a rare affliction
+in camps.
+
+"What's that?"
+
+About half an hour had passed when Neal Farrar suddenly and sharply
+rapped out these words close to Joe's ear. He felt certain that he would
+not now bring upon him the woodsman's good-natured scorn for making a
+disturbance about nothing. A heavy, stealthy tread, as of some big
+animal, was crushing the pygmy bushes near the tent. Immediately
+afterwards he saw an uncouth black shape in the lane of light between
+himself and the fire. It disappeared while his heart was giving one
+jump, and he heard a dull, mumbling noise, such as a pig might make when
+rooting amid rubbish, varied with an occasional low growl.
+
+Joe was already awake. His hunter's instinct told him that something
+truly exciting was on now.
+
+"My cracky! I b'lieve it's a bear!" he muttered, forming his words away
+down in his throat, so that Neal only caught the last one. "Keep still
+as death!"
+
+The guide reached out a long arm, and clutched his rifle. Hurriedly he
+jammed half a dozen cartridges into its magazine. Then lightly and
+silently, as if he was made of cork, he got upon his feet, and bounded
+out of the tent, Neal copying his actions nimbly and noiselessly as he
+could; though, in his excitement, he only succeeded in getting two
+cartridges into his Winchester.
+
+Royal's snoring ceased. Doc's eager question, "What's up now, boys?"
+reached the two just as they quitted shelter, and passed into the broad
+moonlight, crossed with red gleams from their fire.
+
+"A bear!" yelled Joe in answer, his rifle and he breaking silence
+together.
+
+Three times the Winchester sharply cracked.
+
+Then with a mad "Halloo!" the guide seized a flaming stick from the
+fire, and, swinging it above his head, started after the big black
+animal of which Neal had caught a glimpse before. He now saw it plainly
+as, already fifty yards ahead, it made off at a plunging gallop across
+the moonlit _brulee_.
+
+Young Farrar had been the champion runner of his school, and he blessed
+his trained legs for giving him a prominent part in the wild chase that
+followed. Still imitating the woodsman, he pulled another half-lighted
+stick from the camp-fire, and waved it in a frenzy of excitement, while
+he ran like a buck at Joe's side.
+
+"Tumble out! Tumble out, boys! A bear! A bear!" now rang from one tent
+to another.
+
+In two minutes every camper, in his stocking feet, just as he had risen
+from his bed, was tearing across the _brulee_ in the wake of Bruin,
+yelling, leaping, and swinging smouldering firebrands.
+
+It was a scene and a chase such as the boys, in their most far-fetched
+dreams, had never pictured,--the white moonlight glimmering on the
+black stumps and tottering trunks of the ruined tract, the hunted bear
+plunging off among them, frightened by the shouting and the lights, the
+heavy, lumbering gallop enabling it at first to distance its pursuers.
+
+Owing to their fleetness and the odds they had at the start, the guide
+and Neal kept far ahead of their comrades. The noise which Bruin made as
+he lumbered over the pygmy growth, and the charred, rotting timber that
+littered the ground beneath it, were quiet enough to guide Joe
+unerringly in the bear's wake, even when that bulky shape was not
+distinguishable.
+
+"What's this?" screeched the woodsman suddenly, as he stumbled upon
+something at his feet. "By gracious! it's our keg of m'lasses. He made
+off with that, and has dropped it out o' sheer fright, or because he's
+weakening. I know I hit him twice when I fired; but he's not hurt too
+badly to run, or to fight like a fiend if we come to close quarters.
+Like as not 'twill be a narrow squeak with us if we tackle him. If
+you're scared a little bit, Neal, let up, an' I'll finish him alone."
+
+"Scared!" Neal flung the word back with scorn, as if he was returning a
+blow. For the life of him he could not bring out another syllable,
+going at a faster rate than ever he had done in the most stubbornly
+contested handicap. The strong-winded guide rapped out his sentences as
+he ran, apparently without waste of breath.
+
+The feverish enthusiasm of the hunter, which he had never felt before,
+was now alive in Neal. His blood raced through his veins like liquid
+fire. He had been long enough in Maine to know that in wreaking
+vengeance on Bruin for many misdeeds he would be acting in the interests
+of justice. For the black bear is still such a master pest to the
+settlers who are trying to establish their farms amid the forests where
+it roams, that the State has outlawed the beast, and pays a bounty for
+its skin.
+
+Joe thought little about this; for a gentleman whom he had guided early
+in the summer had lately written to him, offering a price of fifteen
+dollars for a good bearskin.
+
+Here was the woodsman's golden opportunity--an opportunity for which he
+had been thirsting since the receipt of that letter.
+
+[Illustration: "GO IT, OLD BRUIN! GO IT WHILE YOU CAN!"]
+
+He already regarded his triumph over the bear as secure, and its hide as
+forfeited. He nearly caused Neal Farrar to burst a blood-vessel from
+the combined effects of struggling laughter and running, when he began
+to apostrophize the flying foe with grim humor, thus:--
+
+"Go it, old Bruin! Go it while ye can! There ain't a hair on yer back
+that b'longs to ye!"
+
+But it soon became evident that the bear couldn't go on much longer at
+this breakneck pace. Its pursuers heard its steps with increasing
+distinctness, and then its labored breathing. They were gaining on it
+fast.
+
+The brute came into full view about forty yards ahead, as it ascended a
+slight elevation, crowned with blasted tree trunks.
+
+"I'll draw bead on him from here," said Joe, stopping short. "Get ready
+to fire, lad, if he turns. It'll take lots o' lead to finish that
+fellow."
+
+Twice Joe's rifle spoke again. One shot took effect. There was a fearful
+growl from the beast, but it was not yet mortally wounded.
+
+Maddened and desperate, it wheeled about, and came straight for its
+pursuers. Again the guide fired. Still the bear advanced, gnashing its
+teeth and mumbling horribly; Neal saw its black shape not thirty yards
+from him.
+
+"Shoot! shoot, boy!" screamed Joe. "Or give me your rifle. I haven't got
+a charge left!"
+
+For half a minute Farrar shook all over as with ague. His nostrils felt
+choked. His mouth was wide open in his efforts to breathe. His heart
+pounded like a sledge-hammer. With that mumbling brute advancing upon
+him, he felt as if he couldn't fire so as to hit a haystack or a flock
+of hens at a barn-door.
+
+Then, suddenly, he was cool again, seeing and hearing with extraordinary
+clearness. The ignominious alternative of giving his rifle to Joe
+produced a revulsion. His fingers were on the trigger, his left hand
+firmly gripped the barrel of his Winchester; he brought it to his
+shoulder.
+
+"Aim low! Try to hit him in the front of the neck where it joins the
+body," said Joe, in tones sharp as a razor, which cut his meaning into
+Neal's brain.
+
+Bruin was only fifteen yards away when Farrar's rifle cracked
+once--twice--sending out its messengers of death.
+
+There was a last terrible growl, a plunge, and a thud which seemed to
+shake the ground under Neal's feet. As the smoke of his shots cleared
+away, Joe beheld him leaning on his rifle, with a face which in the
+moonlight looked white as chalk, and the bear lying where it had fallen
+headlong towards him. It made a desperate struggle to regain its feet,
+then rolled on its side, dead.
+
+One bullet had pierced the spot which Joe mentioned, and had passed
+through the region of the heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+"THE SKIN IS YOURS."
+
+
+A regular war-dance was performed about the slain marauder by the young
+Sinclairs and Dol Farrar, when these laggards in the chase reached the
+spot where he fell. The firebrands had all died out before the enemy
+turned; but in the white moon-radiance the bear was seen to be a big
+one, with an uncommonly fine skin.
+
+Neal took no part in the triumphal capers. He still leaned upon his
+rifle, his breath coming in gusty puffs through his nostrils and mouth.
+Not alone the desperate sensations of those moments when he had faced
+the gnashing, mumbling brute, but the unexpected success of his first
+shot at big game, had unhinged him. By his endurance in the chase, by
+the pluck with which he stood up to the bear, above all, by his being
+able, as Joe phrased it, to "take a sure pull on the beast at a
+paralyzing moment," he had eternally justified his right to the title of
+sportsman in the eyes of the natives. The guides, Joe and Eb, were not
+slow in telling him that he had behaved from start to finish like no
+"greenhorn," but a regular "old sport."
+
+"My cracky! 'twas lucky for me that you had game blood in you, which
+showed up," exclaimed Joe, catching the boy's arm in a friendly grip,
+with an odd respect in his touch, which marked the admission of young
+Farrar into the brotherhood of hunters. "I hadn't a charge left, an' not
+even my hunting-knife. Lots o' city swells 'u'd have been plumb scared
+before a growler like that,"--touching Bruin's carcass with his
+foot,--"even if they had a small arsenal to back 'em up. They'd have
+dropped rifle and cartridges, and hugged the nearest trunk. I've seen
+fellers do it scores o' times, bless ye! after they came out here rigged
+up in sporting-book style, talking fire about hunting bears and moose.
+But that was all the fire there was to 'em."
+
+Yet Neal's triumph over the poor brute, which had raced well for its
+life, was not without a faint twinge of pain; and he was too manly to
+look on this as a weakness. A sportsman he might be, of the sort who can
+shoot straight when necessity demands it, but never of that class who
+prowl through the forests with fingers tingling to pull the trigger,
+dreading to lose a chance of "letting blood" from any slim-legged moose
+or velvet-nosed buck which may run their way. It needed Doc's praise to
+make him feel fully satisfied with his deed.
+
+"It was a crack shot, boy," said the doctor proudly. "And I guess the
+farmer at the next settlement will feel like giving you a medal for it.
+Old Bruin has only got what he gave to every creature he could master."
+
+There being no tree conveniently near to which they could string up the
+dead bear, the guides decided to leave the ugly matter of skinning and
+dissecting him for morning light. The excited party returned to camp,
+but not to sleep. They built up their scattered fire, squatted round it,
+and discoursed of the night's adventure until a clear dawn-gleam
+brightened the eastern sky. Then Uncle Eb and Joe started out again
+across the _brulee_. They reappeared before breakfast-time, bringing
+Bruin's skin and a goodly portion of his meat.
+
+Joe laid the hide at Neal's feet.
+
+"There, boy," he said, "the skin is yours. It belongs rightly to the man
+who killed the bear; and I guess the brute wasn't mortally hurt at all
+till your bullet nipped him in the neck."
+
+"But what about the fifteen dollars from that New York man, Joe? You'll
+lose it," faltered young Farrar, with a triumphant heart-leap at the
+thought of taking this trophy back to England, but loath to profit by
+the woodsman's generosity.
+
+"Don't you bother about that; let it go," answered Joe, whose business
+of guiding was profitable enough for him. "'Tain't enough for the skin,
+anyhow. Nary a finer one has been taken out o' Maine in the last five
+years; and mighty lucky you Britishers were to git a chance of a
+bear-hunt at all. Old Bruin must have been powerful hungry to come
+around our camp."
+
+There was a grand breakfast before the travellers broke camp that
+morning. The guides and Doc--who had got accustomed to the luxury during
+visits to settlers and lumber-camps--feasted off bear-steaks. Cyrus and
+the boys, American and English, declined to touch it. The whole
+appearance of Bruin as he lay stretched on the ground the night before
+made their "department of the interior" revolt against it.
+
+When a start was made for the settlement, Joe bundled up the skin, and,
+as a tribute of respect to Neal's "game blood," carried it, in addition
+to his heavy pack, for a distance of four miles over the desolate
+_brulee_ and across a soft, miry bog. On reaching the farm clearing, he
+cut the stem of a tall cedar bush, which he bent into the shape of a
+hoop, binding the ends together with cedar bark. He then pricked holes
+all around the edges of the hide with the sharp point of his
+hunting-knife, stretched it to its full extent, and fastened it to the
+hoop, which he hung up to a tree near the settler's cabin, telling Neal
+that in a few days it would be dry enough to pack away in a bag.
+
+But as it was a cumbersome article to carry while tramping a dozen miles
+farther to the camp on Millinokett Lake, the farmer offered to take
+charge of it for its owner until he passed that way again on his return
+journey; an offer which Neal thankfully accepted. The old backwoodsman
+was, truth to tell, delighted to see hanging up near his cabin door the
+skin of an enemy who had ofttimes plundered him so unmercifully.
+
+He made the travellers royally welcome, let them have the roomy kitchen
+of his log shanty to sleep in, with a soft bed of hay. Here he lay with
+them, while his wife and sickly little girl occupied an adjoining space
+about twelve feet square, which had been boarded off. This was all the
+accommodation the log home afforded.
+
+The forest child was a puzzle to the lads. To them she looked as if the
+soul of a grandmother had taken possession of a thin, long-limbed body
+which ought to belong to a girl of ten. Her pinched features and
+over-wise eyes told a tale of suffering, and so did her high-pitched,
+quivering voice, as it made elfishly sharp remarks about the boys until
+they blenched before her.
+
+This was the little one of whom the doctor had said "that she fretted if
+he did not come to see her once in a while." And with Doc she was a
+different being. Her voice softened, her eyes became childlike, and thin
+tinkles of laughter broke from her as she clung to him, and received
+certain presents of medicines and picture-books which he had brought
+for her in a corner of his knapsack.
+
+For two nights the travellers slept in a row on their hay bed; for two
+long-remembered days the five boys roamed the country round the
+clearing, starting deer, catching glimpses of a wildcat, a marten or
+two, and of another coon. Then came, to use Dol's expression, "the
+beastly nuisance of saying good-by."
+
+Dr. Phil was obliged to return to Greenville; and he declared that now
+he must surely start his nephews homeward, for Royal expected to
+graduate from the High School during the following year, and to let him
+waste more time from study would be questionable kindness. Joe Flint of
+course would go back with his party. And here Cyrus paid Uncle Eb's fees
+for guiding, and dismissed him too.
+
+Only a dozen miles of tolerably easy travelling now separated Garst and
+his English comrades from the camp on Millinokett Lake, where they were
+to meet the redoubtable Herb Heal. The settler, knowing this tract of
+country as thoroughly as he knew his own few fields, offered to lead our
+trio for the first half of their onward march; and as they could follow
+a plain trail for the remainder of the way, they had no further need of
+their guide's services. They promised to visit Eb at his bark hut on
+their return journey, to bid him a final farewell, and hear one more
+stave of:--
+
+  "Ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!"
+
+"Good-by, you lucky fellows!" said Royal Sinclair huskily, as he gripped
+Neal's hand, then Dol's, in a brotherly squeeze when the hour of parting
+came. "I wish I was going on with you. We've had a stunning good time
+together, haven't we? And we'll run across each other in these woods
+some time or other again, I know! You'll never feel satisfied to stay in
+England, where there's nothing to hunt but hares and foxes, after
+chasing bears and moose."
+
+"Oh! we'll come out here again, depend upon it," answered Neal. "Drop me
+a line occasionally, won't you, Roy? Here's our Manchester address."
+
+"I will, if you'll do the same."
+
+"Agreed. Good-by again, old fellow!"
+
+"I've got the slip of birch-bark and the horn safe in my knapsack, Doc,"
+Dol was saying meanwhile, feeling his eyes getting leaky as he bade
+farewell to the doctor. "I--I'll keep them as long as I live."
+
+Doctor Phil had been as good as his word. He had made Joe rip the slip
+of white bark, with the rude writing on it, off the pine-tree near the
+swamp, and had presented it to Dol ere the boy quitted his camp.
+
+"Well, confusion to partings anyhow!" broke in Joe. "Don't like 'em a
+bit. Hope you'll get that bear-skin safe to England, Neal. When you show
+it to your folks at home, tell 'em Joe Flint said he knew one Britisher
+who would make a woodsman if he got a chance. Don't you forgit it."
+
+"Good-by," said the doctor, as he clasped in turn the hands of the
+departing three. "Good luck to you, boys! Keep your souls as straight as
+your bodies, and you'll be a trio worth knowing. We'll meet again some
+day; I'm sure of it."
+
+Martin and Will were chirping farewells, and lamenting that they would
+have no more chances of studying water-snakes in sedgy pools with Dol.
+Amid cheers and waving of hats the campers separated.
+
+"Forward, Company Three!" cried Cyrus encouragingly, stepping briskly
+ahead, his comrades following. "Now for a sight of the 'Jabberwock' of
+the forest, the mighty moose. Hurrah for the wild woods and all
+woodsmen!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+A LUCKY HUNTER.
+
+
+Amid cracking of jokes, and noise which would have disgraced a squad of
+Indians, "Company Three," as Cyrus dubbed his reduced band, reached the
+crowning-point of their journey, the log camp on the shore of
+Millinokett Lake.
+
+During the first half-dozen miles of the way, though each one manfully
+did his best to be lively, a sense of loss made their fun flat and
+pointless. Royal's tear-away tongue, his brothers' racket, Joe's racy
+talk, Uncle Eb's kind, dark face, and more than all, Doc's
+companionship, which was as tonic to the hearts of those who travelled
+with him, were missed.
+
+But spirits must be elastic in forest air. When they halted at noon to
+eat their "snack" on the side of a breezy knoll, with a tiny brook
+purling through a pine grove beneath them, with Katahdin's rugged sides
+and cloud-veiled peaks looming in majesty to the north, the thought of
+what lay behind was inevitably lost in what lay before. Enthusiasm
+replaced depression.
+
+"It's no use grizzling because we can't have those fellows with us all
+the time," remarked Neal philosophically. "'Twas a big piece of luck our
+running against them at all. And I've a sort of feeling that this won't
+be the end of it; we'll come across them again some day or other."
+
+"And at all events we'll probably get a sight of Doc at Greenville as we
+go back," said Dol, to whom this was no small comfort.
+
+"Well, needless to say, I'd have been glad of their company for the rest
+of the trip. But still, if they had taken a notion to come on with us,
+it would have reduced to nothing our chances of seeing a moose. We're a
+big party already for moose-calling or stalking--three of us, with
+Herb;" this from Cyrus.
+
+"Now, fellows, don't you think we'd better get a move on us?" added the
+leader. "We've half a dozen miles to do yet; but the trail begins right
+here, and is clearly blazed all the way to our camp. Let's keep a stiff
+upper lip, and the journey will soon be over."
+
+It was very delightful to sit there in the crisp October air, with the
+brook seemingly humming tender legends of the woods, which witless men
+could not translate, with an uncertain breeze playing through the newly
+fallen maple-leaves, now turning them one by one in lazy curiosity, then
+of a sudden making them caper and swirl in a scarlet merry-go-round.
+Still, the young Farrars were not loath to move on. Now that they were
+nearing the climax of their journey, their minds were full of Herb Heal.
+Their longing to meet this lucky hunter grew with each mile which drew
+them nearer to him.
+
+They pressed hard after their leader, looking neither right nor left,
+while he carefully followed the trail; and one hour's tramping brought
+them to the shores of Millinokett Lake.
+
+Here, despite their eagerness to reach their new camp, they were forced
+to stop and admire the great sheet of forest-bound water, smiling back
+the sky in tints of turquoise and pearl, dotted with apparently
+countless islets, like specks upon the face of a mirror.
+
+The irregular shores of the lake were broken by "logons," narrow little
+bays curving into the land, shining arms of water, sometimes bordered by
+evergreens, sometimes by graceful poplars and birches. From the opposite
+bank the woods stretched away in undulating waves of ridge and valley to
+the foot of Mount Katahdin, which still showed grandly to the northward.
+
+"Millinokett Lake," said Cyrus, prolonging the syllables with a soft,
+liquid sound. "It's an Indian name, boys; it signifies 'Lake of
+Islands.' Whatever else the red men can boast of, the music of their
+names is unequalled. I don't know exactly how many of those islets there
+are, but I believe Millinokett has over two hundred of them anyhow. Our
+camp is on the western shore. Shall we be moving?"
+
+After skirting the water for another mile or two, the travellers reached
+a broad, open tract, bare of timber. At the farther end of this clearing
+were two log cabins, low, but very roomy, situated at a distance of a
+few hundred yards from the lake, with a background of splendid firs and
+spruces, the lively green of the latter making the former look black in
+contrast.
+
+"Is that our camp? How perfectly glorious!" boomed Neal and Dol
+together.
+
+"It's our camp, sure enough," answered Garst, with no less enthusiasm.
+"At least the first cabin will be ours. I don't know whether there are
+any hunters in the other one just now."
+
+The log shanties had been put up by an enterprising settler to
+accommodate sportsmen who might penetrate to this far part of the wilds
+in search of moose or caribou. Cyrus had arranged for the use of one
+during the months of October and November. Here it was that Herb Heal
+had engaged to await him. And as he had commissioned this famous guide
+to stock the camp with all such provisions as could be procured from
+neighboring settlements, such as flour, potatoes, pork, etc., he
+expected to slide into the lap of luxury.
+
+In one sense he did. When the trio, their hearts thumping with
+anticipation, reached the low door of the first cabin, they found it
+securely fastened on the outside, so that no burglar-beast could force
+an entrance, but easily opened by man. Cyrus hurriedly undid the bolts,
+and stepped under the log roof, followed by his comrades. The camp was
+in beautiful order, clean, well-stocked, and provided with primitive
+comforts. An enticing-looking bed of fresh fir-boughs was arranged in a
+sort of rude bunk which extended along one side of the cabin, having a
+head-board and foot-board. The latter was fitted to form a bench as
+well. A man might perch on it, and stretch his toes to the fire in the
+great stone fireplace only two feet distant.
+
+The boys could well imagine that this would make an ideal seat for a
+hunter at night, where he might lazily fill his pipe and tell big yarns,
+while the winter storm howled outside, and snow-flurries drifted against
+his log walls. But they looked at it wistfully now, for it was empty.
+There was no figure of a moccasined forest hero on bench or in bunk.
+There was no Herb Heal.
+
+"Bless the fellow! Where on earth is he?" Garst exclaimed. "He's been
+here, you see, and has the camp provisioned and ready. Perhaps he's only
+prowling about in the woods near. I'll give him a 'Coo-hoo!'"
+
+[Illustration: "HERB HEAL."]
+
+He stepped forth from the cabin to the middle of the clearing, and sent
+his voice ringing out in a distance-piercing hail. He loaded his rifle
+and blazed away with it, firing a volley of signal-shots.
+
+Neither shout nor shots brought him any answer.
+
+The second cabin was likewise empty, and, judging from the withered
+remains of a bed, had evidently been long unused.
+
+"Well, fellows!" said the leader, with manifest chagrin, "we'll only
+have to fix up something to eat, make ourselves comfortable, and wait
+patiently until our guide puts in an appearance. Herb Heal never broke
+an engagement yet. He's as faithful a fellow as ever made camp or
+spotted a trail in these forests. And he promised to wait for me here
+from the first of October, as it was uncertain when I might arrive. I'm
+mighty hungry. Who'll go and fetch some water from the lake while I turn
+cook?"
+
+Dol volunteered for this business, and brought a kettle from the cabin.
+He found it near the hearth, on which a fire still flickered, side by
+side with a frying-pan and various articles of tinware. Cyrus rolled up
+his sleeves, took the canisters of tea and coffee with other small
+stores from his knapsack, proceeded to mix a batter for flapjacks, and
+showed himself to be a genius with the pan.
+
+The meal was soon ready. The food might be a little salt and greasy; but
+camp-hunger, after a tramp of a dozen miles, is not dulled by such
+trifles. The trio ate joyously, washing the fare down with big draughts
+of tea, rather fussily prepared by Neal, which might have "done credit
+to many a Boston woman's afternoon tea-table"--so young Garst said.
+
+Yet from time to time longing looks were cast at the low camp-door. And
+when daylight waned, when stars began to glint in a sky which was a
+mixture of soft grays and downy whites like a dove's plumage, when the
+islets on Millinokett's bosom became black dots on a slate-gray sheet,
+and no laden hunter with rifle and game put in an appearance, even Cyrus
+became fidgety and anxious.
+
+"I hope the fellow hasn't come to grief somewhere in the woods," he
+said, while a shiver of apprehension shot down his back. "But Herb has
+had so many hairbreadth escapes that I believe the animal has yet to be
+born which could get the better of him. And he can find his way anywhere
+without a compass. Every handful of moss on a trunk or stone, every
+turn of a woodland stream, every sun-ray which strikes him through the
+trees, every glimpse of the stars at night, has a meaning for him. He
+reads the forest like a book. No fear of his getting lost anyhow. Come,
+boys, I guess we'd better build up our fire, make things snug for the
+night, and turn in."
+
+Rather dejectedly the trio set about these preparations. In twenty
+minutes' time they were stretched side by side in the wide bunk, with
+their blankets cuddled round them, already venting random snores.
+
+"Hello! So you've got here at last, have you?"
+
+The exclamations were loud and snappy, and awoke the sleeping campers
+like the banging of rifle-shots. With jumping pulses they sprang up,
+feeling a wave of cold air sweep their faces; for the cabin-door, which
+they had closed ere lying down, was now ajar.
+
+The camp was almost in darkness. Only one dull, red ray stole out from
+the fire, on which fresh logs had been piled. But while the young
+Farrars rubbed their sleep-dimmed eyes, and slowly realized that the
+woodsman whom they had been expecting had at last arrived, a strangely
+brilliant illumination lit up the log walls.
+
+This sudden and bewildering light showed them the figure of a hunter in
+mud-spattered gray trousers, with coarse woollen stockings of lighter
+hue drawn over them above his buckskin moccasins. His battered felt hat
+was pushed back from his forehead, a guide's leathern wallet was slung
+round him, and the rough, clinging jersey he wore, being stretched so
+tightly over his swelling muscles that its yarn could not hold together,
+had a rent on one shoulder.
+
+His slate-gray eyes with jetty pupils, which were miniatures of
+Millinokett Lake at this hour, gazed at the awakened trio in the bunk,
+with a gleam of light shooting athwart them, like a moonbeam crossing
+the face of the lake.
+
+The hunter held in his hand a big roll of the inflammable paper-like
+bark of the white birch-tree, which he had brought in with him to kindle
+his fire, expecting that it had gone out during his absence. Seeing a
+glow still on the hearth, and feeling instantly that the cabin was
+tenanted, he had applied a match to his bark, causing the vivid flare
+which revealed him to the eyes of those who had longed for his
+presence.
+
+"Herb Heal, man, is it you?" shouted Cyrus, his voice like a midnight
+joy-chime, as he sprang from the fir-boughs and gripped the woodsman's
+arm. "I'm delighted to see you, though I was ready to swear you wouldn't
+disappoint us! I didn't fasten the cabin-door, for I thought you might
+possibly get back to camp during the night."
+
+"Cyrus, old fellow, how goes it?" was Herb's greeting. "I had a'most
+given up looking for you. But I'm powerful glad you've got here at
+last."
+
+The hunter's voice had still the quick snap and force which made it
+startling as a rifleshot when he entered the cabin.
+
+"These are my friends, Neal and Adolphus Farrar," said Cyrus,
+introducing the blanketed youths, who had now risen to their feet.
+"Boys, this is Herb Heal, our new guide, christened Herbert Healy--isn't
+that so, Herb?"
+
+"I reckon it is;" answered the young hunter, laughing. "But no woodsman
+could spring a sugary, city-sounding name like that on me. I've been
+Herb Heal from the day I could handle a rifle."
+
+He nodded pleasantly as he spoke to the strange lads, and began to chat
+with them in prompt familiarity, looking straight and strong as a young
+pine-tree in the halo of his birch torch. Garst, whose inches his
+juniors had hitherto coveted, was but a stripling beside Herb Heal.
+
+"Is this your first trip into Maine woods, younkers?" he asked. "Well, I
+guess you've come to the right place for sport. I'm sorry I wasn't on
+hand to welcome you when you arrived. A pretty forest guide you must
+have thought me. But I guess I'll show you a sight to-morrow that'll
+wipe out all scores."
+
+There was such triumph in the hunter's eye that the voices of the trio
+blended into one as they breathlessly asked,--
+
+"What sight is it?"
+
+"A dead king o' the woods, boys," answered Herb Heal, his voice
+vibrating. "A fine young bull-moose, as sure as this is a land of
+liberty. I dropped him by a logon on the east bank of Fir Pond, about
+four miles from here. I started out early, hoping to nab a deer; for I
+had no fresh meat left, and I didn't want to have a bare larder when you
+fellows came along. But the woods were awful still. There didn't seem to
+be anything bigger than a field-mouse travelling. Then all of a sudden
+I heard a tormented grunting, and the moose came tearing right onto me.
+I was to leeward of him, so he couldn't get my scent. A man's gun
+doesn't take long to fly into position at such times, and I dropped him
+with two shots. There he lies now by the water, for I couldn't get him
+back to camp till morning. He's not full-grown; but he's a fine fellow
+for all that, and has a dandy pair of antlers. By George! I'd give the
+biggest guide's fees I ever got if you fellows had been there to hear
+him striking the trees with 'em as he tore along. He was a buster.
+
+"But you'll see him to-morrow anyhow, and have a taste of moose-meat for
+the first time in your lives, I guess."
+
+Here Herb waved the fag-end of his bark roll, threw it down as it
+scorched his horny fingers, and stamped upon it.
+
+The interior of the log cabin, ere it was extinguished, was a scene for
+a painter,--the lithe, muscular figure, tanned face, and gleaming eyes
+of the lucky hunter shown by the flare of his birch torch, and the three
+staring listeners, with blankets draped about them, who feared to miss
+one point of his story.
+
+Cyrus was grinding his teeth in vexation that he had narrowly missed
+seeing the moose alive. The two Farrars were burning with excitement at
+the thought of beholding the monarch of the forest at all, even in
+death. For they had heard enough wood-lore to know that the bull-moose,
+with his extreme caution, is like a tantalizing phantom to hunters.
+Continually he lures them to disappointment by his uncouth noises, or by
+a sight of his freshly made tracks, while his sensitive ears and
+super-sensitive nose, which can discriminate between the smell of man
+and every other smell on earth, will generally lead him off like a
+wind-gust before man gets a sight of him.
+
+"I'm sorry to keep you awake, boys," said Herb Heal, making for the
+fire, after he had finished his story; "but I haven't had a bite since
+morning, and I'm that hungry I could chaw my moccasins. I'll get
+something to eat, and then we'll turn in. We'll have mighty hard work
+to-morrow, getting the moose to camp."
+
+Herb was not long in making ready the stereotyped camp-fare of flapjacks
+and pork. To light his preparations, he took a candle out of a precious
+bundle which he had brought from a town a hundred miles distant, and
+set it in a primitive candlestick. This was simply a long stick of white
+spruce wood, one end of which was pointed, and stuck into the ground;
+the other was split, and into it the candle was inserted, the elasticity
+of the fresh wood keeping the light in place.
+
+The tired hunter did not dawdle over his supper. In a quarter of an hour
+he had finished it, and was building up the fire again. Then he
+stretched himself beside the trio in the rude bunk, drawing one thin
+blanket over him. Neal, who lay on his right, was conscious of some
+prickings of excitement at having such a bedfellow on the
+fir-boughs,--the camper's couch which levels all. There flashed upon the
+fair-haired English boy a remembrance of how Cyrus had once said that
+"in the woods manhood is the only passport." He thought that, measured
+by this standard, Herb Heal had truly a royal charter, and might be a
+president of the forest land; for he looked as free, strong, and
+unconquerable as the forest wind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+A FALLEN KING.
+
+
+The hunter was the only one who slept soundly that night on the fragrant
+boughs. Nevertheless, the moose was on his mind. Again in his dreams he
+imagined himself back by the quiet, shining logon, listening to the ring
+of the antlers as they struck the trees, and to the heaving snorts and
+deep grunts of the noble game as it tore through the forest to its
+death.
+
+The moose was on the minds of his companions too. Again and again they
+awoke, and pictured him lying by the pond, where he had fallen,--a dead
+monarch. They tossed and grumbled, longing for day.
+
+Neal and Dol surprised themselves and their elders by being up and
+dressed shortly after five, before a streak of light had entered the
+cabin. But their guide was not much behind them. Herb had the camp-fire
+going well, and was preparing breakfast before six o'clock. The campers
+tucked away a substantial meal of fried pork, potatoes, and coffee. The
+first glories of the young sun fell on their way as they started across
+the clearing and away through the woods beyond, towards the distant pond
+where the hunter had got his moose.
+
+Lying amid the small growth and grasses, by a lonely, glinting logon,
+they found the conquered king, sleeping that sleep from which never sun
+again would wake him. A bullet-hole, crusted with dark blood, showed in
+his side. The slim legs were bent and stiff, and the mighty forefeet
+could no more strike a ripping blow which would end a man's hunting
+forever. The antlers which had made the forest ring were powerless horn.
+
+"Do you know, boys," said Herb, as he stooped and touched them,
+fingering each prong, "I've hunted moose in fall and winter since I was
+first introduced to a rifle. I've still-hunted 'em, called 'em, and
+followed 'em on snowshoes; but I never felt so thundering mean about
+killing an animal as I did about dropping this fellow. After his antics
+in the woods, when he tramped out onto the open patch where I was
+waiting under cover of those shrubs, I popped up and covered him with my
+Winchester. He just raised the hair on his back and looked at me, with a
+way wild animals sometimes have, as if I was a bad riddle. Like as not
+he'd never seen a human being before, and a moose's eyes ain't good for
+much as danger-signals. It's only when he hears or smells mischief that
+he gets mad scared.
+
+[Illustration: A FALLEN KING.]
+
+"Well, I was out for meat, and bound to have it; so I pulled the
+trigger, and killed him with two shots. When the first bullet stung him
+he reared up, making a sharp noise like a wounded horse. Then he swung
+round as if to bolt; but the second went straight through his heart, and
+he fell where you see him now. I made sure that he was past kicking, and
+crept close to his head, thinking he was dead. He wasn't quite gone,
+though; for he saw me, and laid back his ears, the last pitiful sign a
+moose makes when a hunter gets the better of him. I tell you it made me
+feel bad--just for a minute. I've got my moose for this season, and I'm
+sort o' glad that the law won't let me kill another unless it's a
+life-saving matter."
+
+"How tall should you say this fellow was when alive?" asked Cyrus,
+stroking the creature's shaggy hair, which was a rusty black in color.
+
+"Oh! I guess he stood about as high as a good-sized pony. But I've shot
+moose which were taller than any horse. The biggest one I ever killed
+measured between seven and eight feet from the points of his hoofs to
+his shoulders, and the antlers were four feet and nine inches from tip
+to tip. He was a monster--a regular jing-swizzler! A mighty queer way I
+got him too! I'll tell you all about it some other time."
+
+"Oh! you must," answered Garst. "You'll have to give us no end of
+moose-talk by the camp-fire of evenings. These English fellows want to
+learn all they can about the finest game on our continent before they go
+home."
+
+"Why, for evermore!" gasped Herb, in broad amazement. "Are you
+Britishers? And have you crossed the ocean to chase moose in Maine
+woods? My word! You're a gamy pair of kids. We'll have to try to
+accommodate you with a sight of a moose at any rate--a live one."
+
+Though they would gladly have appropriated the compliment, the "gamy
+kids" were obliged to acknowledge that hunting had not been in their
+thoughts when they traversed the Atlantic. But they avowed that they
+were the luckiest fellows alive, and that the American forest-land, with
+its camps and trails and wild offspring, was such a glorious old
+playground that they would never stop singing its praises until a swarm
+of boys from English soil had tasted the novel pleasures which they
+enjoyed.
+
+"Now, then, gentlemen!" said the guide, "I haven't much idea that we'll
+be able to haul this moose along to camp whole. If I skin and dress him
+here, are you all ready to help in carrying home the meat?"
+
+The trio briskly expressed their willingness, and Herb began the
+dissecting business; while from a tree near by that strange bird which
+hunters call the "moose-bird" screamed its shrill "What cheer? What
+cheer?" with ceaseless persistence.
+
+"Oh, hold your noise, you squalling thing!" said the guide, answering it
+back. "It's good cheer this time. We'll have a feast of moose-meat
+to-night, and there'll be pickings for you."
+
+He then explained, for the benefit of the English lads, that this bird,
+whose cry is startlingly like the hunters' translation of it, haunts the
+spot where a moose has been killed, waiting greedily for its meal off
+the creature after men have taken their share of the meat. Herb declared
+that it had often followed him for hours while he was stealthily
+tracking a moose, to be in at the death. And now it kept up the din of
+its unceasing question until he had finished his disagreeable work.
+
+As the party started back to camp, each one weighted with forty pounds
+or more of meat, Herb carrying a double portion, with the antlers hooked
+upon his shoulders, they heard the moose-bird still insatiably shrieking
+"What cheer?" over its meal.
+
+"Say, boys," said the guide, as he stalked along with his heavy load,
+never blenching, "if you want to get a pair o' moose-antlers, now's your
+time. I ain't a-going to sell these, but I'll give 'em outright to the
+first fellow who can learn to call a moose successfully while he's
+hunting with me. I know what sort of sportsman Cyrus Garst is. He'll go
+prowling through the woods, starting moose and coolly letting 'em get
+off without spilling a drop of blood, while he's watching the length of
+their steps. I b'lieve he'd be a sight prouder of seeing one crunch a
+root than if he got the finest head in Maine. So here's your chance for
+a trophy, boys. I guess 'twill be your only one."
+
+"Hurrah! I'm in for this game!" cried Neal.
+
+"I too," said Cyrus.
+
+"I'm in for it with a vengeance!" whooped Dol. "Though I'm blessed if
+I've a notion what 'calling a moose' means."
+
+"How much have you larned, anyhow, Kid, in the bit o' time you've been
+alive?" asked the woodsman, with good-humored sarcasm.
+
+"Enough to make my fists talk to anybody who thinks I'm a duffer,"
+answered Dol, squaring his shoulders as if to make the most of himself.
+
+"Good for you, young England!" laughed Cyrus.
+
+Herb turned his eyes, and regarded the juvenile Adolphus with amused
+criticism.
+
+"Britisher or no Britisher, I'll allow you're a little man," he
+muttered. "Keep a stiff upper lip, boys; we're not far from camp now."
+
+A word of cheer was needed. Not one of the trio had growled at their
+load, but the flannel shirts of the two Farrars clung wetly to their
+bodies. Their breath was coming in hard puffs through spread nostrils. A
+four-mile tramp through the woods, heavily laden with raw meat, was a
+novel but not an altogether delightful experience.
+
+However, the smell of moose-steak frying over their camp-fire later on
+fully compensated them for acting as butcher's boys. When the taste as
+well as the smell had been enjoyed, the rest which followed by the
+blazing birch-logs that evening was so full of bliss that each camper
+felt as if existence had at last drifted to a point of superb content.
+
+Their camp-door stood open for ventilation; and a keen touch of frost,
+mingling with the night air which entered, made the fragrant warmth
+delightful.
+
+When supper was ended, and the tin vessels from which it had been eaten,
+together with all camp utensils, were duly cleaned, Herb seated himself
+on the middle of the bench, which he called "the deacon's seat," and
+luxuriously lit his oldest pipe. His brawny hands had performed every
+duty connected with the meal as deftly and neatly as those of a
+delicate-fingered woman.
+
+"Well, for downright solid comfort, boys, give me a cosey camp-fire in
+the wilderness, when a fellow is tired out after a good day's outing.
+City life can offer nothing to touch it," said Cyrus, as he spread his
+blankets near the cheerful blaze, and sprawled himself upon them.
+
+Neal and Dol followed his example. The three looked up at their guide,
+on whose weather-tanned face the fire shed wavering lights, in lazy
+expectation.
+
+"Now, Herb," said Garst, "we want to think of nothing but moose for the
+remainder of this trip; so go ahead, and give us some moose-talk
+to-night. Begin at the beginning, as the children say, and tell us
+everything you know about the animal."
+
+Herb Heal swung himself to and fro upon his plank seat, drawing his pipe
+reflectively, and letting its smoke filter through his nostrils, while
+he prepared to answer.
+
+"Well," he said at last, slowly, "it seems to me that a moose is a
+troublesome brute to tackle, however you take him. It's plaguy hard for
+a hunter to get the better of him, and if it's only knowledge you're
+after, he'll dodge you like a will-o'-the-wisp till you get pretty mixed
+in your notions about his habits. I guess these English fellows know
+already that he's the largest animal of the deer tribe, or any other
+tribe, to be seen on this continent, and as grand game as can be found
+on any spot of this here earth. I hain't had a chance to chase lions an'
+tigers; but I've shot grizzlies over in Canada,--and that's scarey work,
+you better b'lieve!--and I tell you there's no sport that'll bring out
+the grit and ingenuity that's in a man like moose-hunting. Now, boys,
+ask me any questions you like, an' I'll try to answer 'em."
+
+"You said something to-day about moose 'crunching twigs,'" began Neal
+eagerly. "Why, I always had a hazy idea that they fed on moss
+altogether, which they dug up in the winter with their broad antlers."
+
+"Land o' liberty!" ejaculated the woodsman. "Where on earth do you city
+men pick up your notions about forest creatures--that's what I'd like to
+know? A moose can't get its horns to the ground without dropping on its
+knees; and it can't nibble grass from the ground neither without
+sprawling out its long legs,--which for an animal of its size are as
+thin as pipe-stems,--and tumbling in a heap. So I don't credit that yarn
+about their digging up the moss, even when there's no other food to be
+had; though I can't say for sure it's not true. In summer moose feed
+about the ponds and streams, on the long grasses and lily-pads. They're
+at home in the water, and mighty fine swimmers; so the red men say that
+they came first from the sea.
+
+"In the fall, and through the winter too, so far as I can make out, they
+eat the twigs and bark of different trees, such as white birches and
+poplars. They're powerful fond of moose-wood--that's what you call
+mountain ash. I guess it tastes to them like pie does to us."
+
+"Well, Dol, I feel that you're twitching all over with some question,"
+said Cyrus, detecting uneasy movements on the part of the younger boy
+who lay next to him. "What is it, Chick? Out with it!"
+
+"I want to hear about moose-calling," so spoke Dol in heart-eager tones.
+
+The guide swung his body to the music of a jingling laugh.
+
+"Oh; that's it; is it?" he said. "You're stuck on winning those antlers;
+ain't you, Dol? Well, calling is the 'moose-hunter's secret,' and it's
+a secret that he don't want to give away to every one. When a man is a
+good caller he's kind o' jealous about keeping the trick to himself. But
+I'll tell you how it's done, anyhow, and give you a lesson sometime.
+Sakes alive! if you Britishers could only take over a birch-bark
+trumpet, and give that call in England, you'd make nearly as much fuss
+as Buffalo Bill did with his cowboys and Injuns. Only 'twould be a
+onesided game, for there'd be no moose to answer."
+
+The young Farrars were silent, breathlessly waiting for more. The
+camp-firelight showed their absorbed faces; it played upon bronzed
+cheeks, where the ruddy tints of English boyhood had been replaced by a
+duller, hardier hue. On Neal's upper lip a fine, fair growth had
+sprouted, which looked white against his sun-tinged skin. As for Cyrus,
+he had never brought a razor into the woods since that memorable trip
+when the bear had overhauled his knapsack; so the Bostonian's chin was
+covered with a thick black stubble.
+
+Neither of the youths, however, was at present giving a thought to his
+hirsute adornment, about which questionable compliments were frequently
+bandied. Their minds were full of moose, and their ears alert for the
+guide's next words.
+
+"P'raps you folks don't know," went on the woodsman, "that there are
+four ways o' hunting moose. The first and fairest is still-hunting 'em
+in the woods, which means following their signs, and getting a shot in
+any way you can, _if_ you can. But that's a stiff 'if' to a hunter. Nine
+times out o' ten a moose will baffle him and get off unhurt, even when a
+man has tracked him for days, camping on his trail o' nights. The
+snapping of a twig not the size of my little finger, or one tramping
+step, and the moose'll take warning. He'll light out o' the way as
+silently as a red man in moccasins, and the hunter won't even know he's
+gone.
+
+"The second way is night-hunting, going after 'em in a canoe with a
+jack-light; same thing as jacking for deer. I guess you've tried that,
+so you'll know what it's like--skeery kind o' work."
+
+Neal nodded an eloquent assent, and Herb went on:--
+
+"The third method is a dog's trick. It's following 'em on snowshoes over
+deep snow. I've tried that once, and I'm blamed if I'll ever try it
+again. It's butchery, not sport. The crust of snow will be strong enough
+for a man to run on, but it can't support the heavy moose. The
+creature'll go smashing through it and struggling out, until its slim
+legs are a sight to see for cuts and blood. Soon it gets blowed, and can
+stumble no farther. Then the hunter finishes it with an axe."
+
+Disgust thickened the voices of the listening three, as with one accord
+they raised an outcry against this cruel way of butchering a game
+animal, without giving it a single chance for its life. When their
+indignation had subsided, the hunter went on to describe the fourth and
+last method of entrapping moose--the calling in which Dol was so
+interested.
+
+"P'raps you won't think this is fair hunting either," he said; "for it's
+a trick, and I'll allow that there's times when it seems a pretty mean
+game. Anyhow, I'd rather kill one moose by still-hunting than six by
+calling. But if you want to try work that'll make your blood race
+through your body like a torrent one minute, and turn you as cold as if
+your sweat was ice-water the next, you go in for moose-calling. I guess
+you know all about the matter, Cyrus; but as these Britishers do not,
+I'll try and explain it to' em.
+
+"Early in September the moose come up from the low, swampy lands where
+they have spent the summer alone, and begin to pair. Then the
+bull-moose, as we call the male, which is generally the most wide-awake
+of forest creatures, loses some of his big caution, an' goes roaming
+through the woods, looking for a mate. This is the time for fooling him.
+The hunter makes a horn out o' birch-bark, somewheres about eighteen
+inches long, through which he mimics the call of the cow-moose, to coax
+the bull within reach of his rifle-shots."
+
+"What is the call like?" asked Neal, his heart thumping while he
+remembered that strange noise which had marked a new era in his
+experience of sounds, as he listened to it at midnight by Squaw Pond.
+
+"Sho! a man might keep jawing till crack o' doom, and not give you any
+idea of it without you heard it," answered Herb Heal, the dare-all
+moose-hunter. "The noise begins sort o' gently, like the lowing of a
+tame cow. It seems, if you're listening to it, to come
+rolling--rolling--along the ground. Then it rises in pitch, and gets
+impatient and lonely and wild-like, till you think it fills the air
+above you, when it sinks again and dies away in a queer, quavery sound
+that ain't a sigh, nor a groan, nor a grunt, but all three together.
+
+"The call is mostly repeated three times; and the third time it ends
+with a mad roar as if the lady-moose was saying to her mate, '_Come_
+now, or stay away altogether!'"
+
+"Joe Flint was right, then!" exclaimed Neal, in high excitement. "That's
+the very noise I heard in the woods near Squaw Pond, on the night when
+we were jacking for deer, and our canoe capsized."
+
+"P'raps it was," answered Herb, "though the woods near Squaw Pond ain't
+much good for moose now. They're too full of hunters. Still, you might
+have heard the cow-moose herself calling, or some man who had come
+across the tracks of a bull imitating her."
+
+"But if the bull has such sharp ears, can't he tell the real call from
+the sham one?" asked Dol.
+
+"Lots of times he can. But if the hunter is an old woodsman and a clever
+caller, he'll generally fool the animal, unless he makes some awkward
+noise that isn't in the game, or else the moose gets his scent on the
+breeze. One whiff of a man will send the creature off like a wind-gust,
+and earthquakes wouldn't stop him. And though he sneaks away so
+silently when he _hears_ anything suspicious, yet when he _smells_
+danger he'll go through the forest at a thundering rush, making as much
+noise as a demented fire-brigade."
+
+"Good gracious!" ejaculated Neal and Dol together.
+
+"Is the moose ever dangerous, Herb?" asked the former.
+
+"I guess he is pretty often. Sometimes a bull-moose will turn on a
+hunter, and make at him full tilt, if he's in danger or finds himself
+tricked. And he'll always fight like fury to protect his mate from any
+enemy. The bulls have awful big duels between themselves occasionally.
+When they're real mad, they don't stop for a few wounds. They prod each
+other with their terrible brow antlers till one or the other of 'em is
+stretched dead. If a moose ever charges you, boys, take my advice, and
+don't try to face him with your rifles. Half a dozen shots mightn't stop
+him. Make for the nearest tree, and climb for your lives. Fire down on
+him then, if you can. But once let him get a kick at you with his
+forefeet, and one thing is sure--_you'll_ never kick again. Are you
+tired of moose-talk yet?"
+
+"Not by a jugful!" answered Cyrus, laughing. "But tell us, Herb, how are
+we to proceed to get a sight of this 'Jabberwock' alive?"
+
+"If to-morrow night happens to be dead calm, I might try to call one
+up," answered the guide. "There's a pretty good calling-place near the
+south end of the lake. As this is the height of the season, we might get
+an answer there. We'll try it, anyhow, if you're willing."
+
+"Willing! I should say we are!" answered Garst. "You're our captain now,
+Herb, and it's a case of 'Follow my leader!' Take us anywhere you like,
+through jungles or mud-swamps. We won't kick at hardships if we can only
+get a good look at his mooseship. Up to the present, except for that one
+moonlight peep, he has always dodged me like a phantom."
+
+"Are you going to be satisfied with a look?" The guide's eyes narrowed
+into two long slits, on which the firelight quivered, as he gazed
+quizzically down upon Cyrus. "If the moose comes within reach of our
+shots, ain't anybody going to pump lead into him? Or is he to get off
+again scot-free? I've got my moose for this season, and I darsn't send
+my bullets through the law by dropping another, so I can't do the
+shooting."
+
+"My friends can please themselves," said the Bostonian, glancing at the
+English lads. "For my own part I'll be better pleased if Mr. Moose
+manages to keep a whole skin. Our grand game is getting scarce enough; I
+don't want to lessen it. I once saw the last persecuted deer in a
+county, after it had been badgered and wounded by men and dogs, limp off
+to die alone in its native haunts. The sight cured me of bloodthirst."
+
+"I guess 'twould be enough to cure any man," responded Herb. "And we
+don't want meat, so this time we won't shoot our moose after we've
+tricked him. Good land! I wouldn't like any fellow to imitate the call
+of my best girl, that he might put a bullet through me. Come, boys, it's
+pretty late; let's fix our fire, and turn in."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+MOOSE-CALLING.
+
+
+Nothing was talked about among the campers on the following day but the
+forthcoming sport of the evening--moose-calling.
+
+Herb Heal had decided that his call should be given from the water, his
+"good calling-place" being an alder-fringed logon at the loneliest
+extremity of the lake.
+
+During the afternoon he took Neal and Dol with him into a grove of
+poplars and birches which bordered one end of the clearing, leaving
+Cyrus lounging by the camp-fire. Here the woodsman began the exciting
+work of preparing his birch-bark horn, that primitive but potent trumpet
+through which he would sigh, groan, grunt, and roar, imitating each
+varying mood of the cow-moose. To her call he had often listened as he
+lay for hours on a mossy bed in the far depths of the forest, learning
+to interpret the language of every woodland creature.
+
+Unsheathing his hunting-knife, and selecting a sound white-birch tree,
+Herb carefully removed from it a piece of bark about eighteen inches in
+length and six in width. This he carefully trimmed, and rolled into a
+horn as a child would twist paper into a cornucopia package for sweets,
+tying it with the twine-like roots of the ground juniper. The tapering
+end of the trumpet, which would be applied to the caller's lips,
+measured about one inch across; its mouth measured five.
+
+Returning to camp, Herb dipped the horn in warm water and then let it
+dry, saying that this would produce a mellow ring. He stoutly refused
+all appeals from the boys to give them a few illustrations of
+moose-calling there and then, with a lesson in the art, declaring that
+it would spoil the night's sport, and that they must first hear the call
+amid proper surroundings. From time to time he impressed upon them that
+they were going to engage in an expedition which required absolute
+silence and clever stratagem to make it successful. He vowed to wreak a
+woodsman's vengeance on any fellow who balked it by shaking the boat, or
+by moving body or rifle so as to make a noise.
+
+A light, humming breeze had been blowing all day; but as the afternoon
+waned, it died down. The evening proved clear, chilly, and still.
+
+"Is this a likely night for calling, Herb?" asked Cyrus anxiously,
+taking a survey of sky and lake from the camp-door about an hour before
+the start.
+
+"Fine," answered Herb with satisfaction. "Guess we'll get an answer
+sure, if there's a moose within hearing. There ain't a puff of wind to
+carry our scent, and give the trick away. But rig yourselves up in all
+the clothing you've got, boys; the cold, while we're waiting, may be
+more than you bargain for."
+
+The guide had a light boat on the lake, moored below the camp. At six
+o'clock he seated himself therein, taking the oars in his brawny hands.
+Cyrus and Neal took their places in the stern; while Dol disposed of
+himself snugly in the bow, right under a jack-lamp which Herb had
+carefully trimmed and lit. But he had closed its sliding door, which,
+being padded with buckskin, could be opened and shut without a sound, so
+that not a ray of light at present escaped.
+
+"Moose won't stand to watch a jack as deer do," he said. "Twill only
+scare 'em off. They're a heap too cute to be taken in by an onnatural
+big star floating over the water. But 'taint the lucky side of the moon
+for us. She'll rise late, and her light'll be so feeble that it wouldn't
+show us an elephant clearly if he was under our noses. So if I succeed
+in coaxing a bull to the brink of the water, I'll open the jack, and
+flash our light on him. He'll bolt the next minute as quick as greased
+lightning on skates; but if you only get a short sight of him, I promise
+that 'twill be one you'll remember."
+
+"And if he should take a notion to come for us?" said Cyrus.
+
+"He won't, if we don't fire. The boat will be lying among the black
+shadows, snug in by the bank, and he'll see nothing but the dazzling
+light. But you fellows must keep still as death. Off we go now, boys,
+and mum's the word!"
+
+This was almost the last sentence spoken. Not a syllable moved the lips
+of any one of the four, as the boat glided away from camp towards the
+south end of the lake, the oars making scarcely a sound as Herb handled
+them. By and by he ceased rowing for an instant, took his pipe from his
+mouth, knocked out its ashes, and put it in his pocket with a wise look
+at his companions, murmuring, "Don't want no tobacco incense floating
+around!"
+
+At the same time, from a distant ridge upon the eastern shore, covered
+with evergreens which stood out like dark steeples against the evening
+sky, came a faint, dull noise, as if some belated woodsman was driving a
+blunt axe against a tree. The sound itself would scarcely have awakened
+a hope of anything unusual in the minds of the inexperienced; but,
+combined with the guide's aspect as he pocketed his pipe, it made Cyrus
+and his comrades sit suddenly erect, listening as if ears were the only
+organs they possessed.
+
+The queer, dull noise was once repeated. Then again there was silence
+almost absolute, Herb's oars moving with the softest swish imaginable,
+as the boat skimmed along the lonely, curved bay which he had chosen for
+a calling-place. It came to a stop amid shadows so dense and black that
+they seemed almost tangible, close to a bank fringed with overhanging
+bushes, having a background of evergreens. These last, in the
+fast-gathering darkness, looked like a sable array of mourners in whose
+ranks a pale ghost or two mingled, the spectres being slim white-birch
+trees.
+
+The opposite bank presented a similar scene.
+
+It was amid such surroundings that Neal Farrar heard for the second time
+in his life the weird sound of the moose-hunter's call. He was a strong,
+well-balanced young fellow; yet here again he knew the sensation as if
+needles were pricking him all over, which he had felt once before in
+these wilds, while his heart seemed to be performing athletic sports in
+his body.
+
+Cyrus and Dol confessed afterwards that they were "all shivers and
+goose-flesh" as the call rose upon the night air.
+
+After he had shipped his oars, and laid them down, Herb Heal noiselessly
+turned his body to face the bow, and took up the birch-bark horn which
+lay beside him. He breathed into it anxiously once or twice, then
+paused, drew in all the air which his big lungs could contain, put the
+trumpet again to his lips with its mouth pointing downward, and began
+his summons.
+
+The first part of the call lasted half a minute, or so, without a break.
+During its execution the hunter moved his neck and shoulders first to
+the left, then to the right, and slowly raised the horn above his head,
+the rolling, plaintive sounds with which he commenced gathering power
+and pitch with the ascending motion. As the birch trumpet pointed
+straight upward, they seemed to sweep aloft in a surging crescendo, and
+boom among the tree-tops.
+
+Carrying his head again to the left and right, Herb gradually lowered
+the horn until it was once more pointed towards the bottom of the boat,
+having in its movements described in the air a big figure of eight. The
+call sank with it, and died away in a lonely, sighing, quavering grunt.
+
+Two seconds' pause, two slow, great throbs of the boys' hearts, so loud
+that they threatened to burst the stillness.
+
+Then the call began again, low and grumbling. Again it rose, swelled,
+quavered, and sank, full of lonely longing.
+
+A third time it surged up, and ended abruptly in a wild, ear-splitting
+roar, which struck the tops of distant hills, and rolled off in
+thunder-like echoes among them.
+
+Silence followed. Not a gasp came from Herb after his efforts. Cyrus and
+the Farrars tried to still their heaving chests, while each quick breath
+was an expectation.
+
+An answer! Surely it was an answer! The boys never doubted it; though
+the responding sound they caught was only a repetition of that far-away
+chopping noise, which resembled the heavy thud of an axe against wood.
+This came nearer--nearer. It was followed once by a sort of short, sharp
+bark.
+
+Then the motionless occupants of the boat heard random, guttural grunts,
+a smashing of dead branches, crashing of undergrowth, and the proud ring
+of mighty antlers against the trees. The lord of the forest, a big
+bull-moose, was tearing recklessly through the woods towards the lake,
+in answer to the call of his imaginary mate.
+
+To say that the hearts of our trio were performing gymnastic feats
+during these awfully silent minutes of waiting, is to say little. All
+the repressed motion of their bodies seemed concentrated in these
+organs, which raced, leaped, stopped short, and pounded, vibrating to
+such questions as:--
+
+"Will he come? Where shall we first see him? How near is he now? Does he
+suspect the trick? Will he give us the slip after all?--_Has he gone_?"
+
+For of a sudden dead stillness reigned in the forest. No more trampling,
+grunting, and knocking of antlers. The spirits of the three sank to
+zero. Their breathing became thick. The blood, which a moment before had
+played like wildfire in their veins, now stirred sluggishly as if it was
+freezing. Disappointment, blank and bitter, shivered through them from
+neck to foot.
+
+So passed quarter of an hour. A filmy mist rose from the surface of the
+water, and drifted by their faces like the brushing of cold wings. For
+lack of motion hand and feet felt numb. Mid the pitch-black shadows,
+snug in by the bank, no man could see the face of his fellow, though the
+trio would have given a fortune to read their guide's. Not a word was
+spoken. Once, when a deep breath of impatience escaped him, Neal heard
+the folds of his coat rub each other, and clenched his teeth to stop an
+exclamation at the sound, which he had never noticed before.
+
+Nearly twenty minutes had elapsed since the last noise had been heard in
+the woods, when Herb took up the horn which he had laid down, and put
+it to his mouth. Again the call rolled up. It was neither loud nor long
+this time, ending with a quick, short roar.
+
+As it ceased the guide plunged his arm into the water and slowly
+withdrew it, letting drops dribble from his fingers.
+
+The novices could only suspect that this manoeuvre was another lure for
+the bull-moose, if he chanced to be still within hearing. Its success
+took their breath away.
+
+The wary bull which had answered, having doubtless harbored a suspicion
+that all was not exactly right with the first call, had halted in his
+on-coming rush, with head upreared, and nostrils spread, trying to catch
+any taint in the air which might warn him of danger. But in the dead
+calm the heavy evergreens stirred not; no whiff reached him. The second
+call upset his prudence. Then he heard that splash and dribble in the
+water, and imagined that his impatient mate was dipping her nose into
+the lake for a cool drink.
+
+A snort! A bellowing challenge quite indescribable! On he came again
+with a thundering rush!
+
+Bushes were thrashed and spurned by his sharp hoofs. Branches snapped.
+Trees echoed as his antlers struck them.
+
+A musk-rat leaped from the bank ahead, and dived to reach his hole in
+the bank. Under cover of the noisy splash which the little creature
+made, one whisper was hissed by Herb's tongue into the ears of his
+comrades. It was:--
+
+"Gee whittaker! he's a big one! Listen to them shovels against the
+trees!"
+
+A minute later, with a deep gulp of intense excitement, and a general
+racket as if an engine had broken loose from brakes and checks, and was
+carrying all before it, the monarch of the woods crashed through the
+alders and halted, with his hoofs in the water, scarcely thirty yards
+from where the boat lay in shadow.
+
+This was a supreme moment for our travellers. Leaning forward, fearful
+lest their heart-beats should betray them, they could barely distinguish
+the outlines of the moose, as he stood with his enormous nose high in
+air, giving vent to deep gulps and grunts, and looking to right and left
+in bewilderment for that cow which he had heard calling.
+
+For fully five minutes he stood thus, badly puzzled, now and again
+stamping a hoof, and scattering spray in rising wrath. Then Herb bent
+forward, shot out a long arm, and silently opened the jack.
+
+Meteor-like its silver light flashed forth, to reveal a sight which
+could never be wiped from the memories of the beholders, though it
+affected each of them differently.
+
+Herb Heal involuntarily gripped the loaded rifle which lay beside
+him,--he was too wary a woodsman to be unprepared for emergencies; but
+he did not cock it, for he remembered the law, and the bargain which he
+had made about to-night.
+
+Cyrus's eyes gleamed like fires in a face pale from eagerness, as he
+strove in a minute of time to take in every feature of the monster
+before him, from hoof to horn.
+
+Neal sat as if paralyzed.
+
+Dol--well, Dol lost his head a bit. A deep, throaty gulp, which was a
+weak reproduction of the sound made by the moose, as if the boy and the
+animal were sharing the same throes of excitement, burst from him. There
+was a rattle and struggle of his vocal organs, which in another second
+would have become a shout, had not Herb's masterful left hand gripped
+him. Its touch held in check the speech which Dol could no longer
+control.
+
+The moose was a big one, "about as big as they grow," as the guide
+afterwards declared. Under the jack-light he looked a regular behemoth.
+He must have been over seven feet high at the shoulders, for he was
+taller than the tallest horse the boys had ever seen. His black mane
+bristled. His antlers were thrown back. His great nose, with its dilated
+nostrils, looked as if it were drinking in every scent of the night
+world. His eyes had a green glare in them, as for ten seconds he gazed
+at the strange light which had suddenly burst into view, its silver
+radiance so dazzling him that he saw not the screened boat beneath.
+
+At the rash noise which Dol made his ears twitched. He splashed a step
+forward as if to investigate matters, seeing which, Herb held his
+Winchester in readiness to fly to his shoulder at a moment's notice. But
+the moose evidently regarded the jack-lamp as a supernatural, terrible
+phenomenon. He shrank from it as man might shrink beneath a flaming
+heaven.
+
+With one more despairing look right and left for that phantom cow which
+had deluded him, he wheeled around, and crashed back into the forest,
+tearing away more rapidly than he came.
+
+"He's off now, and Heaven knows when he'll stop!" said Herb, breaking
+the weird spell of silence. "Not till he reaches some lair where nary a
+creature could follow him. Well, boys, you've seen the grandest game on
+this continent, the king o' the woods. What do you think of him?"
+
+All tongues were loosened together. There was a general shifting of
+cramped bodies, accompanied by a gust of exclamations.
+
+"He was a monster!"
+
+"He was a behemoth!"
+
+"Oh! but you're a conjurer, Herb. How on earth did you give such a
+fetching call?"
+
+"I could never have believed that those sounds came from a human throat
+and a birch-bark horn, if I hadn't been sitting in the boat with you!"
+
+When there was a break in the excited chorus, Herb, without answering
+the compliments to his calling powers, asked quietly,--
+
+"Didn't you think we'd lost him, boys, when he stopped short in the
+middle of his rush, and you heard nothing?"
+
+"We just did," answered Cyrus. "That was the longest half-hour I ever
+put in. What made him do it?"
+
+"I guess he was kind o' criticising my music," said the guide, laughing.
+"Mebbe I got in a grunt or two that wasn't natural, and the old boy
+wasn't satisfied with his sweetheart's voice. He was sniffing the air,
+and waiting to hear more. But 'twasn't more 'n twenty minutes before I
+gave the second call, though no doubt it seemed longer to you. A man
+must be in good training to get the better of a moose's ears and nose."
+
+"I'm going to get the better of them before I leave these woods!" cried
+Dol, who was still puffing and gasping with intense excitement. "I'll
+learn to call up a moose, if I crack my windpipe in doing it."
+
+"Hurrah for the Boy Moose-Caller!" jeered Cyrus, with a teasing laugh,
+which Neal echoed.
+
+But Herb Heal, who had from the beginning regarded "the kid of the camp"
+with favor, suddenly became his champion.
+
+"Don't let 'em down you, Dol," he said. "I hate to hear a youngster, or
+a man, 'talk fire,' as the Injuns say, which means _brag_, if he's a
+coward or a chump; but I guess you ain't either. Here we are at camp,
+boys! I tell you the home-camp is a pleasant sort of place, after
+you've been out moose-calling!"
+
+Thereupon ensued loud cheers for the home-camp, the boys feeling that
+they were letting off steam, and atoning for that long spell of silence,
+which had been a positive hardship. In the midst of an echoing hubbub
+the boat was hauled up and moored, and the party reached their log
+shelter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+HERB'S YARNS.
+
+
+The following day was spent by our trio in exploring the woods near
+Millinokett Lake, in listening to more moose-talk, and in attempting the
+trick of calling. Herb gave them many persistent lessons, making the
+sounds which he had made on the preceding night, with and without the
+horn, and patiently explaining the varied language of grunts, groans,
+sighs, and roars in which the cow-moose indulges.
+
+Perhaps the woodsman expended extra pains on the teaching of his
+youngest pupil, whom he had championed. And certainly Dol's own talent
+for mimicry came to his aid. No matter to what cause the success was
+due, each one allowed that Dol made a brilliant attempt to get hold of
+"the moose-hunter's secret," and give a natural call.
+
+The boy had been a genius at imitating the voices of English birds and
+animals; many a trick had he played on his schoolfellows with his carols
+and howls. And his proficiency in this line was a good foundation on
+which to work.
+
+"You'll get there, boy," said Herb, surveying him with approval, as he
+stood outside the camp-door with the moose-horn to his lips. "Make
+believe that there's a moose on the opposite shore of the lake now, and
+give the whole call, from start to finish."
+
+Whereupon Dol slowly carried his head to left and right, as he had seen
+the guide do on the previous night, raising and lowering the horn until
+it had described an enormous figure of eight in the air, while he
+groaned, sighed, rasped, and bellowed with a plaintive intensity of
+expression, which caused his brother and his friend to shriek with
+laughter.
+
+"You'll get there, Kid," repeated the woodsman, with a great triumphant
+guffaw. "You'll be able to give a fetching call sooner than either of
+the others. But be careful how you use the trick, or you'll be having
+the breath kicked out of you some day by a moose's forefeet."
+
+For days afterwards, the birch-bark horn was rarely out of Dol Farrar's
+hands. The boy was so entranced with the new musical art he was
+mastering, which would be a means of communication between him and the
+behemoth of the woods, that he haunted the edges of the forest about the
+clearing, keeping aloof from his brother and friend, practising
+unceasingly, sometimes under Herb's supervision, sometimes alone. He
+learned to imitate every sound which the guide made, working in touching
+quavers and inflections that must tug at the heart-strings of any
+listening moose. He learned to give the call, squatting Indian fashion,
+in a very uncomfortable position, behind a screen of bushes. He learned
+to copy, not the cow's summons alone, but the bull's short challenge
+too; and to rasp his horn against a tree, in imitation of a moose
+polishing its antlers for battle.
+
+And now, for the first time, Dol Farrar of Manchester regarded his
+education as complete. He was prouder of this forest accomplishment,
+picked up in the wilds, than of all triumphs over problems and 'ologies
+at his English school. He had not been a laggard in study, either.
+
+But the finishing of Dol's education had one bad result. If there
+happened to be another moose travelling through the adjacent forests, he
+evidently thought that all this random calling was too much of a good
+thing, had his suspicions aroused, and took himself oft to wilder
+solitudes. Though the guide tried his powers in persuasive summons every
+night at various calling-places, he could not again succeed in getting
+an answer.
+
+At last, on a certain evening, after supper, a solemn camp-council was
+held around an inspiring fire, and Herb Heal suggested that if his party
+were really bent on seeing a moose again, before they turned their faces
+homeward, they had better rise early the following morning, shoulder
+their knapsacks, and set out to do a few days' hunting amid the dense
+woods near the base of Katahdin.
+
+"I killed the biggest bull-moose I ever saw, on Togue Ponds, in that
+region," said the guide meditatively; "and I got him in a queer way. I
+b'lieve I promised to tell you that yarn."
+
+"Of course you did!"
+
+"Let's have it!"
+
+"Go ahead, Herb! Don't shorten it!"
+
+Thus encouraged by the eager three, the woodsman began:--
+
+"It is five years now, boys, since I spent a fall and winter trapping in
+them woods we were speaking of--I and another fellow. We had two
+home-camps, which were our headquarters, snug log shelters, one on Togue
+Ponds, the other on the side of Katahdin. As sure as ever the sun went
+down on a Saturday night, we two trappers met at one or other of these
+home-camps; though during the week we were mostly apart. For we had
+several lines of traps, which covered big distances in various
+directions; and on Monday morning I used to start one way, and my chum
+another, to visit these. Generally it took us five or six days to make
+the rounds of them. While we were on our travels we'd sleep with a
+blanket round us, under any shelter we could rig up,--a few
+spruce-boughs or a bark hut. When the snow came, we were forced to
+shorten our trips, so as to reach one of the home-camps each night.
+
+"Well, it was early in the season, one fine fall evening, that I was
+crossing Togue Ponds in a canoe. I had been away on the tramp for a'most
+a week; and though I had a rifle and axe with me, I had nary an ounce
+of ammunition left. All of a sudden I caught sight of a moose, feeding
+on some lily-roots in deep water. Jest at first I was a bit doubtful
+whether it was a moose or not; for the creature's head was under, and I
+could only see his shoulders. I stopped paddling. I tried to stop
+breathing. Next, I felt like jumping out of my skin; for, with a big
+splash, up come a pair of antlers a good five feet across, dripping with
+water, and a'most covered with green roots and stems, which dangled from
+'em.
+
+"Good land! 'twas a queer sight. 'Herb Heal,' thinks I, 'now's your
+chance! If you can only manage to nab that moose-head, you'll get two
+hundred dollars for it at Greenville, sure!' And mighty few cents I had
+jest then.
+
+"I could a'most have cried over my tough luck in not having one dose of
+lead left. But the bull's back was towards me. The water filled his ears
+and nose, so that he couldn't hear or smell. And he was having a
+splendid tuck-in. It was big sport to hear him crunch those lily-roots."
+
+"I should think it was!" burst out Cyrus enviously. "But did you have
+the heart to kill him in cold blood, in the middle of his meal?"
+
+"I did. I guess I wouldn't do it now; anyhow, not unless I was very
+badly off for food. But I had an old mother living at Greenville that
+time,"--here there was the least possible tremble in the woodsman's
+voice,--"and while I paddled alongside the moose, without making a
+sound, I was thinking that the price I'd be sure to get from some city
+swell for the head would come in handy to make her comfortable. The
+creature never suspicioned danger till I was close to him, and had my
+axe lifted, ready to strike. Then up came his head. Out went his
+forefeet. Over spun the canoe. There was as big a commotion as if a
+whale was there.
+
+"I managed to keep behind the brute so as to dodge his kicks; and
+gripping the axe in one hand, I dug the other into his long hair. He was
+mad scared. He started to swim for the opposite shore, which was about
+half a mile distant, with me in tow, snorting like a locomotive. As his
+feet touched ground near the bank, I jumped upon his back. With one blow
+of the axe I split his spine. Perhaps you'll think that was awful cruel,
+but it wasn't done for the glory of killing."
+
+"And what became of the head? Did you sell it?" asked Dol, who was, as
+usual, the first to break a breathless silence.
+
+There was no reply. Herb feigned not to hear.
+
+"Did you get two hundred dollars for the head?" questioned the impetuous
+youngster again, in a higher key, his curiosity swelling.
+
+"I didn't. It was stole."
+
+The answer was a growl, like the growl of a hurt animal whose sore has
+been touched. The tone of it was so different from the woodsman's
+generally strong, happy-go-lucky manner of speech, that Dol blenched as
+if he had been struck.
+
+"Who stole it?" he gasped, after a minute, scarcely knowing that he
+spoke aloud.
+
+Unnoticed in the firelight, Cyrus clapped a strong hand over the boy's
+mouth, to stifle further questions.
+
+"Keep still!" he whispered.
+
+But Herb, who was, as usual, perched upon the "deacon's seat," leaned
+forward, with a laugh which was more than half a snarl.
+
+"Who stole it?" he echoed. "Why, the other fellow--my chum; the man whom
+I carried for a mile on my back, through a snow-heaped forest, the first
+time I saw him, when I had lugged him out of a heavy drift. _He_ stole
+it, Kid, and a'most everything I owned with it."
+
+[Illustration: THE CAMP ON MILLINOKETT LAKE.]
+
+With a savage kick of his moccasined foot, the woodsman suddenly
+assaulted a blazing log. It sent a shower of sparks aloft, and caused a
+bright flame to shoot, rocket-like, from the heart of the fire, which
+showed the guide's face. His fine eyes reminded Cyrus of Millinokett
+Lake when a thunder-storm broke over it. Their gray was dark and
+troubled; the black pupils seemed to shrink, as if a tempest beat on
+them; fierce flashes of light played through them.
+
+Muttering a half-smothered oath, Herb flung himself off his bench,
+stamped across the cabin to the open camp-door, and passed into the
+darkness outside.
+
+The boys, who had been stretched out in comfortable positions, drew
+themselves bolt upright, and sat aghast. They stared towards the
+camp-door, murmuring disjointedly. Into the mind of each flashed a
+remembrance of some story which Doctor Phil had told about a thieving
+partner who once robbed Herb Heal.
+
+"You've stirred up more than you bargained for, Dol," said Cyrus. "I
+wish to goodness you hadn't been so smart with your questions."
+
+But the words were scarcely spoken when the guide was again in their
+midst, with a smile on his lips.
+
+"It's best to let sleeping dogs lie, young one," he said, looking down
+reassuringly on Dol, who was feeling dumfounded. "I guess you all think
+I'm an awful bearish fellow. But if you had lived the lonely life of a
+trapper, tramping each day through the dark woods till you were
+leg-weary, visiting your steel traps and deadfalls, all to get a few
+furs and make a few dollars; and turned up at camp one evening to find
+that your partner had skipped with every skin you had procured, I reckon
+'twould take you a plaguy long time to get over it."
+
+"I'm pretty sure it would, old man," said Cyrus.
+
+"And I minded the loss of the furs a sight less than I minded losing
+that moose-head," continued Herb, taking his perch again upon the
+"deacon's seat." "The hound took 'em all. Every woodsman in Maine was
+riled about it at the time, and turned out to ketch him; but he gave 'em
+the slip. Now, boys, I've got to feeling pretty chummy with you. Cyrus
+is an old friend; and, to speak plain, I like you Britishers. I don't
+want you to think that I bust up your fun to-night for nothing. I'll
+tell you the whole yarn if you want to hear it."
+
+The looks of the trio were sufficient assent.
+
+"All right, boys. Here goes! Since I was a kid in Maine woods I've
+worked at a'most everything that a woodsman can do. Six year ago I was a
+'barker' in a lumber-camp on the Kennebec River. A 'barker' is a man who
+jumps onto a big tree after a chopper has felled it, and strips the bark
+off with his axe, so that the trunk can be easily hauled over the snow.
+Well, it's pretty hard labor, is lumbering. But our camp always got
+Sunday for rest.
+
+"Well, I was prowling about in the woods by myself one Sunday afternoon,
+when an awful snow-storm come on, a big blizzard which staggered the
+stripped trees like as if 'twould tumble 'em all down, and end our work
+for us. I was bolting for camp as fast as I was able, when I tripped
+over something which was a'most covered over in a heavy drift. 'Great
+Scott!' says I, 'it's a man!' And 'twas too. He was near dead. I hauled
+him out, and set him on his legs; but he couldn't walk. So I threw him
+across my shoulders, same way as I carry a deer. He didn't weigh near as
+much as a good buck, for he was little more'n a kid and awful lean. But
+'twas dreadful travelling, with the snow half blinding and burying you.
+I was plumb blowed when I struck the camp, and pitched in head foremost.
+
+"For an hour we worked over that stranger to bring him round, and we
+succeeded. We saw at once that he was a half-breed. When he could use
+his tongue, he told us that his father was a settler, and his mother a
+Penobscot Indian. He was sick for a spell and wild-like, then he talked
+a lot of Indian jargon; but when he got back his senses, he spoke
+English fust-rate. Chris Kemp he said was his name. And from the start
+the lumbermen nicknamed him 'Cross-eyed Chris; for his eyes, which were
+black as blackberries, had a queer squint in 'em.
+
+"Well, in spite of the squint, I took to Chris, and he to me. And the
+following year, when I decided to give up lumbering, and take to
+trapping fur-bearing animals in the woods near Katahdin, he joined me.
+We swore to be chums, to stick to each other through thick and thin, to
+share all we got; and he made one of his outlandish Indian signs to
+strengthen the oath. A fine way he kept it too!
+
+"Now, if I'm too long-winded, boys, say so; and I'll hurry up."
+
+"No, no! Tell us everything."
+
+"Spin it out as long as you can."
+
+"We don't mind listening half the night. Go ahead!"
+
+At this gust of protest Herb smiled, though rather soberly, and went
+ahead as he was bidden.
+
+"We made camp together--him and me. We had two home-camps where I told
+you, and met at the end of each week, bringing the skins we had taken,
+which we stored in one of 'em. We got along together swimmingly for a
+bit. But Chris had a weakness which I had found out long before. I guess
+he took it from his mother's people. Give him one drink of whiskey, and
+it stirred up all the mud that was in him. There's mud in every man, I
+s'pose; and there's nothing like liquor for bringing it to the surface.
+A gulp of fire-water changed Chris from an honest, right-hearted fellow
+to a crazy devil. This had set the lumbermen against him. But I hoped
+that in the lonely woods where we trapped he wouldn't get a chance to
+see the stuff. He did, though, and when I wasn't there to make a fight
+against his swallowing it.
+
+"It happened that one week he got back to our camp on Togue
+Ponds,--where most of our stuff was stored, and where I kept that
+moose-head, waiting for a chance to take it down to Greenville,--a day
+or two sooner'n me. And the worst luck that ever attended either of us
+brought a stranger to the camp at the same time, to shelter for a night.
+He was an explorer, a city swell; and I guess he didn't know much about
+Injuns or half-breeds, for he gave Chris a little bottle of fiery
+whiskey as a parting present. The man told me about it afterwards, and
+that he was kind o' scared when the boy--for he wasn't much
+more--swallowed it with two gulps, and then followed him into the woods,
+howling, capering, and offering to sell him my grand moose-head, and all
+the furs we had, for another drink of the burning stuff. I guess that
+stranger felt pretty sick over the mischief he had done. He refused to
+buy 'em. But when I got back to camp next day, to find the skins gone,
+antlers gone, Chris gone; when I ran across the traveller and ferreted
+out his story,--I knew, as well as if I seen it, that my partner had
+skipped with all my belongings, to sell 'em or trade 'em at some
+settlement for more liquor. We had a couple of big birch canoes,--one of
+'em was missing too,--and a river being near, the thing could be easy
+managed.
+
+"I'll allow that I raged tremendous. The losses were bad; but to be
+robbed by your own chum, the man you had saved and stuck to, the only
+being you had said a word to for months, was sickening. I swore I'd
+shoot the hound if I found him. I spread the news at every camp and
+farm-settlement through the forest country, and we had a rousing hunt
+after the fellow; but he gave us the slip, though I heard of him
+afterwards at a distant town, where he sold the furs."
+
+"I suppose he left the State," said Cyrus.
+
+"I guess he did. But for a big while I used to think he'd come back to
+our camp some day, and let me have it out with him; for he wasn't a
+coward, and we had been fast chums."
+
+"And he didn't?"
+
+"Not as I know of. The next year I gave up trapping, which was an awful
+cruel as well as a lonely business, and took to moose-hunting and
+guiding. I haven't been anear the old camps for ages."
+
+"Perhaps you will come across him again some day," suggested Dol, with
+unusual timidity.
+
+"P'raps so, Kid. And, faith, when I think of that, it seems as if there
+were two creatures inside o' me fighting tooth and claw. One is all for
+hammering him to a jelly. The other is sort o' pitiful, and says, 'Mebbe
+'twasn't out-an'-out his fault.' Which of them two'll get the best of
+it, if ever I'm face to face with Cross-eyed Chris, I dunno."
+
+Cyrus Garst rose suddenly. He kicked the camp-fire to make a blaze, then
+looked the woodsman fair in the eyes.
+
+"I know, Herb," he said; "the spirit of mercy will conquer."
+
+"Glad you think so!" answered Herb. "But I ain't so sure. Sho! boys,
+I've kept you up till near midnight with my yarns. We must go to roost
+quick, or you'll never be fit to light out for Katahdin to-morrow."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+TO LONELIER WILDS.
+
+
+Before daybreak next morning Herb Heal was astir. Apparently even a
+short night's sleep had driven from him all disturbing memories. He
+whistled and hummed softly, like the strong, hopeful fellow he was,
+controlling his notes so that they should not awaken his companions,
+while he hauled out and overlooked the canvas for a tent, to see if it
+was sound. Next he surveyed the camp-stores, and put up a supply of
+flour, pork, and coffee in a canvas bag, enough for four persons to
+subsist upon with economy during an excursion of six or seven days. For
+he knew that his employers would follow his suggestion, and be eager to
+start for the woods near Katahdin soon after they got their eyes open.
+
+He had been doing his work with a candle held in his brown fingers; but
+as dawn-light began to enter the cabin, he quenched its dingy, yellow
+flicker, opened the camp-door, and surveyed the morning sky.
+
+"It'll be a good day to start out, I guess," he muttered. "Let's see,
+what time is it?"
+
+The stars had not yet paled, and Herb forthwith fell to studying them;
+for they were his jewelled time-piece, by which he could tell the hour
+so long as they shone. Watch he had none.
+
+While he gazed aloft at the glinting specks, he unconsciously began to
+croon, in a powerful bass voice, with deep gutturals, some words which
+certainly weren't woodsman's English.
+
+  "_N'loan pes-saus, mok glint ont-aven,
+  Glint ont-aven, nosh morgan_."
+
+"What on earth is that outlandish thing you're singing, Herb?" roared
+Neal Farrar from the bunk, awakened by the sounds. "Give us that stave
+again--do!"
+
+The guide started. He had scarcely been aware of what he was humming,
+and his laugh was a trifle disconcerted.
+
+"So you're waking up, are ye?" he said. "Tain't time to be stirring yet;
+I ought to be kicked for making such a row."
+
+"But what's that you were singing?" reiterated Neal. "The words weren't
+English, and they had a fine sort of roll."
+
+"They're Injun," was the answer. "I guess 'twas all the talking I done
+last night that brung 'em into my head. I picked 'em up from that fellow
+I was telling you about. He'd start crooning 'em whenever he looked at
+the stars to find out the hour."
+
+"Are they about the stars?"
+
+"I guess so. A city man, who had studied the redskins' language a lot,
+told me they meant:--
+
+  'We are the stars which sing,
+  We sing with our light.'"[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Mr. Leland's translation.]
+
+Then Herb chanted the two lines again in the original tongue.
+
+"There was quite a lot more," he said; "but I can't remember it. I
+learned some queer jargon from Chris, and how to make most of the signs
+belonging to the Indian sign-talk. The fellow had more of his mother
+than his father in him. I guess I'd better give over jabbering, and cook
+our breakfast."
+
+It was evident that Herb did not want to dwell upon his reminiscences.
+And Neal had tact enough to swallow his burning curiosity about all
+things Indian. He asked no more questions, but rolled off the
+fir-boughs, and dressed himself.
+
+Cyrus and Dol sprang up too. All three were soon busy helping forward
+preparations for the start. They packed their knapsacks with a few
+necessaries; and after a hearty breakfast had been eaten,--their last
+meal off moose-steaks for a while, as Herb informed them he "could not
+carry any fresh meat along,"--the guide's voice was heard shouting:--
+
+"Ready, are ye, boys? Got all yer traps? Here, Cyrus, jest strap this
+pack-basket on my shoulders. Now we're off!"
+
+The pack contained the tent, the camp-kettle, and frying-pan, together
+with the aforementioned provisions, a good axe, etc. It was an
+uncomfortable load, even for a woodsman's shoulders. But Herb strode
+ahead with it jauntily. And many times during that first day's tramp of
+a dozen miles, his comrades--as they trudged through rugged places after
+him, spots where it was hard to keep one's perpendicular, and feet
+sometimes showed a sudden inclination to start for the sky--threw
+envious glances at his tall figure, "straight as an Indian arrow," his
+powerful limbs, and unerring step. Even the horny, capable hands came in
+for a share of the admiration.
+
+"I guess anything that got into your grip, Herb, would find it hard to
+get out again without your will," said Cyrus, studying the knotted fists
+which held the straps of the pack-basket.
+
+"Mebbe so," answered the guide frankly. "I've a sort of a trick of
+holding on to things once I've got 'em. P'raps that was why I didn't let
+go of Chris in that big blizzard 'till I landed him at camp. But I
+hope"--here Herb's shoulders shook with heaving laughter, and the
+cooking utensils in his pack jingled an accompaniment--"I hope I ain't
+like a miserly fellow we had in our lumber-camp. He was awful pious
+about some things, and awful mean about others. So the boys said, 'he
+kept the Sabbath and everything else he could lay his hands upon.' He
+used to get riled at it.
+
+"Not that I've a word to say against keeping Sunday," went on Herb, in a
+different key. "Tell you what, out here a fellow thinks a heap of his
+day o' rest, when his legs can stop tramping, and his mind get a chance
+to do some tall thinking. Now, boys, we've covered twelve good miles
+since we left Millinokett Lake, and you needn't go any farther to-day
+unless you've a mind to. We can make camp right here, near that stream.
+It will be nice, cold drinking-water, for it has meandered down from
+Katahdin."
+
+He pointed to a brook a little way ahead, shimmering in the rays of the
+afternoon sun, of which they caught stray peeps through the gaps in an
+intervening wall of pines and hemlocks. A few minutes brought them to
+its brink. Tired and parched from their journey, each one stooped, and
+quenched his thirst with a delicious, ice-cold draught.
+
+"Was there ever a soda-fountain made that could give a drink to equal
+that?" said Cyrus, smacking his lips with content. "But listen to the
+noise this stream makes, boys. I guess if I were to lie beside it for an
+hour, I'd think, as the Greenlanders do, that I could hear the spirits
+of the world talking through it."
+
+"That's a mighty queer notion," answered Herb; "and I never knew as
+other folks had got hold of it. But, sure's you live! I've thought the
+same thing myself lots o' times, when I've slept by a forest stream.
+Who'll lend a helping hand in cutting down boughs for our fire and bed?
+I want to be pretty quick about making camp. Then we'll be able to try
+some moose-calling after supper."
+
+At this moment a peculiar gulping noise in Neal's throat drew the eyes
+of his companions upon him. His were bright and strained, peering at the
+opposite bank.
+
+"Look! What is it?" he gasped, his low voice rattling with excitement.
+
+"A cow-moose, by thunder!" said Herb. "A cow-moose and a calf with her!
+Here's luck for ye, boys!"
+
+One moment sooner, simultaneously with Neal's gulp of astonishment,
+there had emerged from the thick woods on the other bank a brown,
+wild-looking, hornless creature, in size and shape resembling a big
+mule, followed by a half-grown reproduction of herself.
+
+Her shaggy mane flew erect, her nostrils quivered like those of a
+race-horse, her eyes were starting with mingled panic and defiance.
+
+A snort, sudden and loud as the report of a shot-gun, made the four
+jump. Neal, who was standing on a slippery stone by the brink, lost his
+balance and staggered forward into the water, kicking up jets of shining
+spray. The snort was followed by a grunt, plaintive, distracted, which
+sounded oddly familiar, seeing that it had been so well imitated on
+Herb's horn.
+
+And with that grunt, the moose wheeled about and fled, making the air
+swish as she cut through it, followed by her young, her mane waving like
+a pennon.
+
+"Well, if that ain't bang-up luck, I'd like to know what is," said the
+guide, as he watched the departure. "I never s'posed you'd get a chance
+to see a cow-moose; she's shyer'n shy. Say! don't you boys think that
+I've done her grunt pretty well sometimes?"
+
+"That you have," was the general response. "_We_ couldn't tell any
+difference between your noise and the real thing."
+
+"But she wasn't a patch on the bull-moose in appearance," lamented Dol.
+
+"No more she was, boy. Most female forest creatures ain't so
+good-looking as the males! And that's queer when you think of it, for
+the girls have the pull over us where beauty is concerned. We ain't in
+it with 'em, so to speak."
+
+There was a big gale of laughter over Herb Real's gallant admiration for
+the other sex, and the sigh which accompanied his expression of it. He
+joined in the mirth himself, though he walked off to make camp,
+muttering:--
+
+"Sho! You city fellows think that because I'm a woodsman I never heard
+of love-making in my life."
+
+"Perhaps there is a little girl at some settlement waiting for a home to
+be fixed up out of guide's fees," retorted Cyrus.
+
+And the three shouted again for no earthly reason, save that the
+stimulus of forest air and good circulation was driving the blood with
+fine pressure through their veins, and life seemed such a glorious,
+unfolding possession--full of a wonderful possible--that they must hold
+a sort of jubilee.
+
+Herb, who perhaps in his lonely hours in the woods did cherish some
+vision such as Cyrus suggested, was so infected with their spirit, that,
+as he swung his axe with a giant's stroke against a hemlock branch, he
+joined in with an explosive:--
+
+"Hurrup! Hur-r-r-rup!"
+
+This startled the trio like the bursting of a bomb, and trebled their
+excitement; for their guide, when abroad, had usually the cautious,
+well-controlled manner of the still-hunter, who never knows what chances
+may be lurking round him which he would ruin by an outcry.
+
+"Quit laughing, boys," he said, recovering prudence directly he had let
+out his yell. "Quit laughing, I say, or we may call moose here till
+crack o' doom without getting an answer. I guess they're all off to the
+four winds a'ready, scared by our fooling."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+TREED BY A MOOSE.
+
+
+"I told you so, boys," breathed the guide two hours later, with an
+overwhelming sigh of regret, after he had given his most fetching calls
+in vain. "I told you so. There ain't anything bigger'n a buck-rabbit
+travelling. That tormented row we made scared every moose within
+hearing."
+
+Herb was standing on the ground, horn in hand, screened by the great
+shadows of a clump of hemlocks; the three were perched upon branches
+high above him, a safe post of observation if any moose had answered.
+
+"You may as well light down now," he continued, turning his face up,
+though the boys were invisible; "I ain't a-going to try any more music
+to-night. I guess we'll stretch ourselves for sleep early, to get ready
+for a good day's work to-morrow. An eight-mile tramp will bring us to
+the first heavy growth about the foot of Katahdin, and I'll promise you
+a sight of a moose there."
+
+His companions dropped to earth; and the four sought the shelter of
+their tent, which had been pitched a few hundred yards from the
+calling-place. Some dull embers smouldered before it; for Herb, even
+while preparing supper, had kept the camp-fire very low, lest any
+wandering clouds of smoke should interfere with the success of his
+calling.
+
+Now he heaped it high, throwing on without stint withered hemlock boughs
+and massive logs, which were soon wrapped in a sheet of flame, making an
+isle of light amid a surrounding sea of impenetrable darkness.
+
+Many times during the night the watchful fellow arose to replenish this
+fire, so that there might be no decrease in the flood of heat which
+entered the tent, and kept his charges comfortable. Once, while he was
+so engaged, the placid sleepers whom he had noiselessly quitted were
+aroused to terror--sudden, bewildering night-terror--by a gasping cry
+from his lips, followed by the leaping and rushing of some brute in
+flight, and by a screech which was one defiant note of unutterable
+savagery.
+
+"Good heavens! What's that?" said Cyrus.
+
+"Is it--can it--could it be a panther?" stammered Dol.
+
+"Get out!" answered Neal contemptuously. "The panthers have got out long
+ago, so every one says."
+
+"A lynx! A Canada lynx, boys, as sure as death and taxes!" panted Herb
+Heal, springing into the tent on the instant, with a burning brand in
+his hand. "'Tain't any use your tumbling out, for you won't see him.
+He's away in the thick of the woods now."
+
+Cyrus gurgled inarticulate disappointment. At the first two words he had
+sprung to his legs, having never encountered a lynx.
+
+"The brute must have been prowling round our tent," went on Herb, his
+voice thick from excitement. "He leaped past me just as I was stooping
+to fix the fire, and startled me so that I guess I hollered. He got
+about half a dozen yards off, then turned and crouched as if he was
+going to spring back. Luckily, the axe was lying by me, just where I had
+tossed it down after chopping the last heap of logs. I caught it up,
+and flung it at him. It struck him on the side, and curled him up. I
+thought he was badly hurt; but he jumped the next moment, screeched, and
+made off. A pleasant scream he has; sounds kind o' cheerful at night,
+don't it?"
+
+No one answered this sarcasm; and Herb flung himself again upon his
+boughs, pulling his worn blanket round him, determined not to relinquish
+his night's sleep because a lynx had visited his camp. The city fellows
+sensibly tried to follow his example; but again and again one of them
+would shake himself, and rise stealthily, convinced that he heard the
+blood-curdling screech ringing through the silent night.
+
+It was nearly morning before fatigue at last overmastered every
+sensation, and the three fell into an unbroken sleep, which lasted until
+the sun was high in the sky. When they awoke, their sense of smell was
+the first sense to be tickled. Fragrant odors of boiling coffee were
+floating into the tent. One after another they scrambled up, threw on
+their coats, and hurried out to find their guide kneeling by the
+camp-fire on the very spot from which he had hurled his axe at the lynx
+a few hours before. But now his right hand held a green stick, on which
+he was toasting some slices of pork into crisp, appetizing curls.
+
+"'Morning, boys!" he said, as the trio appeared. "Hope your early rising
+won't opset ye! If you want to dip your faces in the stream, do it
+quick, for these dodgers are cooked."
+
+The "dodgers" were the familiar flapjacks. Herb set down his stick as he
+spoke to turn a batch of them, which were steaming on the frying-pan,
+tossing them high in air as he did so, with a dexterous turn of his
+wrist.
+
+The boys having performed hasty ablutions in the stream, devoted
+themselves to their breakfast with a hearty will. There was little
+leisure for discussing the midnight visit of the lynx, or for anything
+but the joys of satisfying hunger, and taking in nutrition for the day's
+tramp, as Herb was in a hurry to break camp, and start on for Katahdin.
+The morning was very calm; there seemed no chance of a wind springing
+up, so the evening would probably be a choice one for moose-calling.
+
+In half an hour the band was again on the march, the business of
+breaking camp being a swift one. The tent was on Herb's shoulders; and
+naught was left to mark the visit of man to the humming stream but a
+bed of withering boughs on which the lynx might sleep to-night, and a
+few dying embers which the guide had thrashed out with his feet.
+
+No halt was made until four o'clock in the afternoon. Then Herb Heal
+came to a standstill on the edge of a wide bog. It lay between him and
+what he called the "first heavy growth;" that is, the primeval forest,
+unthinned by axe of man, which at certain points clothes the foot of
+Katahdin.
+
+The great mountain, dwelling-place of Pamolah, cradle of the flying
+Thunder and flashing Lightning, which according to one Indian legend are
+the swooping sons of the Mountain Spirit, now towered before the
+travellers, its base only a mile distant.
+
+"I've a good mind to make camp right here," said Herb, surveying the bog
+and then the firm earth on which he stood. "We may travel a longish ways
+farther, and not strike such a fair camping-ground, unless we go on up
+the side of the mountain to that old home-camp I was telling you about,
+which we built when we were trapping. I guess it's standing yet, and
+'twould be a snug shelter; but we'd have a hard pull to reach it this
+evening. What d'ye say, boys?"
+
+"I vote for pitching the tent right here," answered Cyrus.
+
+The English boys were of the same mind, and the guide forthwith
+unstrapped his heavy pack-basket. As he hauled forth its contents, and
+strewed them on the ground, the first article which made its appearance
+was the moose-horn; it had been carefully stowed in on top. Dol snatched
+it up as a dog might snatch a bone, and touched it with longing in every
+finger-tip.
+
+"There's one bad thing about this place," grumbled Herb presently,
+surveying the landscape wherever his eye could travel, "there isn't a
+pint of drinking-water to be seen. There may be pools here and there in
+that bog; but, unless we want to keel over before morning, we'd better
+let 'em alone. Say! could a couple of you fellows take the camp-kettle,
+and cruise about a bit in search of a spring?"
+
+"I volunteer for the job!" cried Dol instantly, with the light of some
+sudden idea shining like a sunburst in his face.
+
+"You don't budge a step, old man, unless I go with you," said Cyrus.
+"Not much! I don't want to patrol the forests like a lunatic for five
+mortal hours in search of you, and then find you roasting your shins by
+some other fellow's camp-fire. One little hide-and-seek game of that
+kind was enough."
+
+"Well! the fact that I did bring up by Doc's camp-fire shows that I am
+able to take care of myself. If I get into scrapes, I can wriggle out of
+them again," maintained the kid of the camp, with a brazen look, while
+his eyes showed flinty sparks, caused by the inspiring purpose hidden
+behind them, which had little to do with water-carrying.
+
+"Why can't you both go without any more palaver?" suggested Herb, as he
+started away towards a belt of young firs to cut stakes for the tent.
+"Cruise straight across the bog, mark your track by the bushes as you go
+'long, don't get into the woods at all, and 'twill be plain sailing. I
+guess you'll strike a spring before very long."
+
+Cyrus caught up the camp-kettle, and stepped out briskly over the
+springy, spongy ground. Dol Farrar followed him. The two were half-way
+across the bog before the elder noticed that the younger was carrying
+something. It was the moose-horn.
+
+"If we run across any moose-signs, I'm going to try a call," said Dol,
+his strike-a-light eyes fairly blazing while he disclosed his purpose.
+"You may laugh, Cy, and call me a greenhorn; but I bet you I'll get an
+answer, at least if there's a bull-moose within two miles."
+
+"That's pretty cheerful," retorted the Boston man; "especially as
+neither of us has brought a rifle. Mr. Moose may be at home, and give
+you an answer; but there's no telling what sort of temper he'll be in."
+
+"I left my Winchester leaning against a tree on the camping-ground,"
+said the would-be caller regretfully. "But you know you wouldn't fire on
+him, Cy, unless he came near making mince-meat of us. If he should
+charge, we could make a dash for the nearest trees. Let's risk it if we
+run across any tracks!"
+
+"And in the meantime, Herb will be wondering where we are, vowing
+vengeance on us, and waiting for the kettle while we're waiting for the
+moose," argued Garst. "It won't do, Chick. Give it up until later on. We
+undertook the job of finding water, and we're bound to finish that
+business first."
+
+"If I wait until later on, I may wait forever," was the boy's gloomy
+protest. "Tonight, when Herb is there, Neal and you will just sit on me,
+and be afraid of my making a wrong sound, and spoiling the sport.
+
+"And I _know_ we'll see moose-tracks before we get back to camp!" wound
+up the young pleader passionately. "I've been working up to it all day.
+I mean I've felt as if something--something fine--was going to happen,
+which would make a ripping story for the Manchester fellows when we go
+home. Do let me have one chance, Cy,--one fair and honest chance!"
+
+There was such a tremendous force of desire working through the English
+boy that it set his blood boiling, and every bit of him in motion. His
+eyes were afire, his eyelids shut and opened with their quick snap, his
+lips moved after he had finished speaking, his fingers twitched upon the
+moose-horn.
+
+He was a picture of heart-eagerness which Cyrus could not resist, though
+he shook with laughter.
+
+"I'll take mighty good care that the next time I go to find water for
+the camp-supper, I don't take a crank with me, who has gone mad on
+moose-calling," he said. "See here! If we do come across moose-signs,
+I'll get under cover, and give you quarter of an hour to call and listen
+for an answer--not a second longer. Now stop thinking about this fad,
+and keep your eyes open for a spring."
+
+But, unfortunately, this seemed to be a thirsty and tantalizing land for
+travellers. The soft sod under their feet oozed moisture; slimy,
+stagnant bog-pools appeared, but not a drop of pure, gushing water, to
+which a parched man dare touch his lips.
+
+They crossed the wide extent of bog, Cyrus breaking off stunted bushes
+here and there to mark his pilgrimage; they reached the dense
+timber-growth at the base of the mountain, longing for the sight of a
+spring as eagerly as ever pilgrims yearned to behold a healing well; but
+their search was unsuccessful.
+
+Decidedly nonplussed, Dol all the time keeping one eye on the lookout
+for water and the other for moose-signs, they took counsel together, and
+determined to "cruise" to the right, skirting the foot of Katahdin,
+hoping to find a gurgling, rumbling mountain-torrent splashing down.
+Having travelled about half a mile in this new direction, with the giant
+woods which they dared not enter rising like an emerald wall on the one
+hand, and the dreary bog-land on the other, they at last, when patience
+was failing, came to a change in the landscape.
+
+The desired water was not in view yet; but the bog gave way to fairer,
+firmer ground, covered with waving grasses, studded with rising knolls,
+and having no timber growth, save stray clumps of birches and hemlocks,
+several hundred yards apart.
+
+"Now, this is jolly!" exclaimed Dol. "This looks a little bit like an
+English lawn, only I'm afraid it's not a likely place for moose-tracks.
+But I'm glad to be out of that beastly bog."
+
+"Confusion to your moose-tracks," ejaculated Cyrus, half exasperated. "I
+wish we could find a well. That would be more to the purpose. Listen,
+Dol, do you hear anything?"
+
+"I hear--I hear--'pon my word! I _do_ hear the bubbling and tinkling of
+water somewhere! Where on earth is it? Oh! I know. It comes from that
+knoll over there--the one with the bushes."
+
+Dol Farrar, as he finished his jerky sentences, pointed to an eminence
+which was two or three hundred yards from where they stood, and a like
+distance from the wall of forest.
+
+"Well! It's about time we struck something at last," grumbled Garst.
+"Catch me ever coming on a water pilgrimage again! I'll let Herb fill
+his own kettle in future. Now, I believe that fellow could smell a
+spring."
+
+"Just as I smelt this one!" exclaimed Dol triumphantly. "I told you
+'twas on the side of the knoll. And here it is!"
+
+"Bravo, Chick! You've got good ears, if you are crazy upon one subject."
+
+And so speaking, Cyrus, with a chuckle of joy, unslung the tin
+drinking-cup which hung at his belt, filled and refilled it, drinking
+long, inspiriting draughts before he prepared to fill the camp-kettle.
+
+"The best water I ever tasted, Dol!" he exclaimed, smacking his lips.
+"It's ice-cold. There's not much of it, but it has quality, if not
+quantity."
+
+The long-sought well was, in truth, a tiny one. It came bubbling up,
+clear and pellucid, from the bowels of the earth, and showed its
+laughing face amid a cluster of bushes--which all bent close to look at
+it lovingly--half-way up the knoll. A wee stream trickled down from
+it,--dribble--dribble--a rivulet that had once been twice its present
+size, judging from the wide margin of spattered clay at each side.
+
+Dol had been following his companion's example, and drinking joyfully
+before thinking of aught else. When the moment came for him to
+straighten his back, and rise upon his legs, instead of this natural
+proceeding, he suddenly crouched close to the ground, his breath coming
+in quick puffs, his eyes dilating, a froth of excitement on his lips.
+
+"What on earth are you staring at?" asked Cyrus. "You look positively
+crazy."
+
+For answer, the English boy shot up from his lowly posture, seized his
+companion by the arm, making him drop the camp-kettle, which he was just
+filling, and forced him to scan the soft clay by the rivulet.
+
+"Look there--and there!" gurgled Dol, his voice sounding as if he was
+being choked by suppressed hilarity. "I told you we'd find them, and you
+didn't believe me! Aren't those moose-tracks? They're not deer-tracks,
+anyhow; they're too big. I may be a greenhorn, but I know that much."
+
+"They _are_ moose-tracks," Cyrus answered slowly, almost unbelievingly,
+though the evidence was before him. "They certainly are moose-tracks,"
+he repeated, "and very recent ones too. A moose has been drinking here,
+perhaps not half an hour ago. He can't be far away."
+
+Garst was now warming into excitement himself. His bass tones became
+guttural and almost inarticulate, while he lowered them to prevent their
+travelling. On the reddish clay at his feet were foot-marks very like
+the prints of a large mastiff. He studied them one by one, even tracing
+the outline with his forefinger.
+
+"Then I'm going to call," whispered Dol, his words tremulous and
+stifled. "Lie low, Cy! You promised you'd give me a fair chance; you'll
+have to keep your word."
+
+"I'll do it too," was the answering whisper. "But let's get higher up on
+the knoll, behind those big bushes at the top. And listen, Dol, if a
+moose makes a noise anywhere near, we must scoot for the trees before he
+comes out from cover. I've got to answer to your father for you."
+
+It was an intense moment in Dol Farrar's life; sensation reached its
+highest pitch, as he crouched low behind a prickly screen, put the
+birch-bark horn to his mouth, and slowly breathed through it with the
+full power of his young lungs, marvellously strengthened by the forest
+life of past weeks.
+
+There was a minute's interval while he removed it again, and drew in all
+the air he could contain. Then a call rose upon the evening air, so
+touching, so plaintive, with such a rising, quavering impatience as it
+surged out towards the woods,--whither the boy-caller's face was
+turned,--that Cyrus could scarcely suppress a "Bravo!"
+
+The summons died away in a piteous grunt. A second time the call rose
+and fell. On the third repetition it broke off, as usual, in an abrupt
+roar, which seemed to strike the tops of the giant trees, and boom among
+them.
+
+A froth was on Dol Farrar's lips, his eyes were reddened, he puffed hard
+through spread nostrils, like a young horse which has been trying its
+mettle for the first time, as he lowered that moose-horn, lifted his
+head, and cocked his ears to listen.
+
+Two soundless minutes passed. Dol, who, if he had mastered the hunter's
+call, had certainly not mastered his patience, put the bark-trumpet
+again to his lips, determined to try the effect of a surpassingly
+expressive grunt.
+
+But he never executed this false movement, which would have given away
+the trick at once.
+
+A bellow--a short, snorting, challenging bellow--burst the silence,
+coming from the very edge of the woods. It brought Cyrus to his feet
+with a jump. It so startled the ambitious moose-caller, that, in rising
+hurriedly from his squatting position, he lost his balance, and rolled
+over and over to the bottom of the knoll, smashing the horn into a
+hundred pieces.
+
+He picked himself up unhurt, but with a sensation as if all the bells in
+Christendom were doing a jumbled ringing in his head. And loud above
+this inward din he heard the sound, so well remembered, as of an axe
+striking repeatedly against a tree, the terrible chopping noises of a
+bull-moose, not two hundred yards away.
+
+No sooner had he scrambled to his legs, than Garst was at his side,
+gripping his arm, and forcing him forward at a headlong run.
+
+"You've done it this time with a vengeance!" bawled the Bostonian. "He's
+coming for us straight! And we without our rifles! The trees! The trees!
+It's our only chance!"
+
+With the belling still in his head, and so bewildered by his terrible
+success that he felt as if his senses were shooting off hither and
+thither like rockets, leaving him mad, Dol nevertheless ran as he had
+never run before, shoulder to shoulder with his comrade, dashing wildly
+for a clump of hemlocks over a hundred yards distant. Yet, for the life
+of him, he could not help glancing back once over his shoulder, to see
+the creature which he had humbugged, luring it from its forest shelter,
+and which now pursued him.
+
+The moose was charging after them full tilt, gaining rapidly too, his
+long thin legs, enormous antlers, broad, upreared nose, and the green
+glare in his starting eyes, making him look like some strange animal of
+a former earth. Dol at last trembled with actual fear. He gave a
+shuddering leap, and forced his legs, which seemed threatened with
+paralysis, to wilder speed.
+
+"Climb up that hemlock! Get as high as you can!" shrieked Cyrus,
+stopping to give him an upward shove as they reached the first friendly
+trunk.
+
+Dol obeyed. Gasping and wild-eyed, he dug his nails into the bark,
+clambering up somehow until he reached a forked branch about eight feet
+from the ground. Here strength failed. He could only cling dizzily,
+feeling that he hung between life and death.
+
+The moose was now snorting like a war-horse beneath. The brute stood off
+for a minute, then charged the hemlock furiously, and butted it with
+his antlers till it shook to its roots, the sharp prongs of those
+terrible horns coming within half an inch of Dol's feet.
+
+With a gurgle of horror the boy tried to reach a higher limb, and
+succeeded; for at the same moment a timely shout encouraged him. Cyrus
+was bawling at the top of his voice from a tree ten feet distant:--
+
+"Are you all right, Dol? Don't be scared. Hold on like grim death, and
+we can laugh at the old termagant now."
+
+"I'm--I'm all right," sang out Dol, though his voice shook, as did every
+twig of his hemlock, which the moose was assaulting again. "But he's
+frantic to get at me."
+
+"Never mind. He can't do it, you know. Only don't you go turning dizzy
+or losing your balance. Ha! you old spindle-legged monster, stand off
+from that tree. Take a turn at mine now, for a change. You can't shake
+me down, if you butt till midnight."
+
+Garst's last sentences were hurled at the moose. The Bostonian, having
+reached a safe height, thrust his face out from his screen of branches,
+waving first an arm, and then a leg, at the besieging foe, hoping that
+the force of those battering antlers would be directed against his
+hemlock, so that his friend's nerves might get a chance to recover.
+
+The ruse succeeded. The moose, reminded that there was a second enemy,
+charged the other tree; stood off for a minute to get breath, then
+charged it again, snorting, bellowing, and knocking his jaws together
+with a crunching, chopping noise.
+
+"Ha! that's how he makes the row like a man with an axe--by hammering
+his jaws on each other. Well, well! but this is a regular picnic, Dol,"
+sang out Cyrus jubilantly, caring nothing for the shocks, and forgetting
+camp, water, peril, everything, in his joy at getting a chance to
+leisurely study the creature he had come so far to visit.
+
+"I owe you something for this, little man!" he carolled on in triumph,
+as he watched every wild movement of the moose. "This is a show we'll
+only see once in our lives. It's worth a hundred dollars a performance.
+Butt and snort till you're tired, you 'Awful Jabberwock!'"--this to the
+bull-moose. "We've come hundreds of miles to see you, and the more you
+carry on the better we'll be pleased."
+
+Indeed, the wrathful king of forests seemed in no hurry to cut short his
+pantomime. He ramped and raged, tearing from one tree to another,
+expending paroxysms of force in vain attempts to overturn one or the
+other of them. The ground seemed to shake under his thundering hoofs.
+His eyes were full of green fire; his nostrils twitched; the black
+tassel or "bell" hanging from his shaggy throat shook with every angry
+movement; his muffle, the big overhanging upper lip, was spotted with
+foam.
+
+As he gulped, grunted, snorted, and roared, his uncouth, guttural noises
+made him seem more than ever like a curious creature of earth's earliest
+ages.
+
+"We came pretty near to being goners, Dol, I tell you!" carolled Cyrus
+again from his high perch in the hemlock, carrying on a by-play with the
+enemy between each sentence. "How in the name of wonder did you manage
+such a call? It would have moved the heart-strings of any moose. I was
+lying flat, you know, peeping through a little gap in the bushes, and
+you had scarcely taken the horn from your mouth when I saw the old
+fellow come stamping out of the woods. My! wasn't he a sight? He stood
+for a minute looking about for the fancied cow; then he bellowed, and
+started towards the knoll. I knew we had better run for our lives. As
+soon as he saw us he gave chase."
+
+"And 'the fancied cow' should go tumbling down the knoll like a rolling
+jackass, and smash that grand horn to bits!" lamented Dol, who now sat
+serenely on his bough, with a firm clasp of the hemlock trunk, and a
+reckless enjoyment of the situation which far surpassed his companion's.
+
+Cyrus began to have an occasional twinge of uneasiness about the
+possible length of the siege, after his first exuberance subsided; but
+the younger boy, his short terror overcome, had no misgivings. He
+coquetted with the moose through a thick screen of foliage, shook the
+branches at him, gibed and taunted him, enjoying the extra fury he
+aroused.
+
+But suddenly the old bull, having kept up his wild movements for nearly
+an hour, resolved on a change of tactics. He stood stock-still and
+lowered his head.
+
+"Goodness! He has made up his mind to 'stick us out!'" gasped Cyrus.
+
+"What's that?" said Dol.
+
+"Don't you see? He's going to lay siege in good earnest--wait till we're
+forced to come down. Here's a state of things! We can't roost in these
+trees all night."
+
+The hemlocks were throwing ever-lengthening shadows on the grass. A slow
+eclipse was stealing over everything. The motionless moose became an
+uncouth black shape. Garst muttered uneasily. His fingers tingled for
+his rifle--a very unusual thing with him. His eyes peered through the
+creeping darkness in puzzled search for some suggestion, some
+possibility of escape.
+
+"If it were only myself!" he whispered, as if talking to his hemlock.
+"If it were only myself, I wouldn't care a pin. 'Twould do me no great
+harm to perch here for hours. But an English youngster, on his first
+camping-trip! Why, the chill of a forest night might ruin him. He
+wouldn't howl or make a fuss, for both those Farrar boys have lots of
+grit, but he'd never get over it. Dol!" he wound up, raising his voice
+to a sharp pitch. "Say, Dol, I'm going to try a shout for help. Herb
+must be getting anxious about us by this time. If we could once make him
+hear, he could try some trick to lure this old curmudgeon away, or creep
+up and shoot him. Something must be done."
+
+Fetching a deep breath, Cyrus sent a distance-piercing "Coo-hoo!"
+ringing through the night-air. He followed it with another.
+
+But, so far as he could hear, the hails fetched no answer, save from the
+moose-jailer. The brute was stirred into a fresh tantrum by the noise.
+He charged the hemlocks once more, butted and shook them like a
+veritable demon.
+
+When his paroxysm had subsided, and he stood off to get breath, Garst
+hailed again.
+
+Glad sound! An answer this time! First, a shrill, long "Coo-hoo!" Next,
+Herb's voice was heard pealing from far away in the bog: "What's up,
+boys? Where in the world are you?"
+
+"Here in the trees--treed by a bull-moose!" yelled Cyrus. "He's the
+maddest old monster you ever saw. Could you coax him off, or sneak up
+and shoot him? He means to keep us prisoners all night."
+
+There was no wordy answer. But presently the treed heroes heard an odd,
+bird-like whistle. Dol thought it came from a feathered creature; his
+more experienced companion guessed that the guide's lips gave it as a
+signal that he was coming, but that he didn't want to draw the moose's
+attention in his direction just yet.
+
+Such a quarter of an hour followed! With the fresh spurt of anger the
+bull-moose became more savage than ever. He grunted, tramped, and
+hooked the trees with his horns, so that the pair who were perched like
+night-birds on the branches had to hold on for dear life, lest a
+surprising shock should dislodge them. Whenever the creature stood off,
+to gather more fury, they could have counted their heart-beats while
+they listened, breathlessly anxious to, know what action the approaching
+woodsman would take.
+
+Once Cyrus spoke.
+
+"Dol Farrar," he said, "I guess this caps all the adventures that you or
+I have had up to date. No wonder you felt all day as if you were working
+up to something. I'll believe in presentiments in future."
+
+The words had scarcely passed his lips, when there was the sharp bang!
+bang! of a rifle not twenty yards distant. A bright sputter of fire cut
+the darkness beneath the hemlocks.
+
+The moose's blind rage threatened to be his own undoing. While he was
+fighting an imaginary danger, ears and nostrils half-choked by fury,
+through the calm night Herb Heal, Winchester in hand, had crept
+noiselessly on, till he reached the very trees which sheltered his
+friends.
+
+Once, twice, three times the rifle snapped. The first shot missed
+altogether. At the second, the moose rose upon his hind-legs, with a
+sharp sound of fright and pain, quite unlike his former noises. Then he
+gave a quick jump.
+
+"Great Governor's Ghost! he's gone;" yelled Cyrus, who had swung himself
+down a few feet, and was hanging by one arm, in his anxiety to see the
+result of the firing. "You needn't shoot again, Herb! He's off! Let him
+go!"
+
+"I guess that second shot cut some hair from him, and drew blood too,"
+answered Herb, his deep voice giving the pair a queer sensation as they
+heard it right beneath. "It was too dark to see plain, but I think he
+reared; and that's a sign that he was hurt, little or much. Don't drop
+down for a minute, boys, till we see whether he has bolted for good."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+TRIUMPH.
+
+
+He had bolted for good, vanished into the mysterious deeps of the
+primeval forest, whether hurt unto death, or merely "nipped" in a
+fore-leg, as Herb inclined to think, nobody knew.
+
+"It's too dark to see blood-marks, if there are any, so we can't trail
+him to-night. If he's hit bad--but I guess he ain't--we can track him in
+the morning," said the guide; as, after an interval of listening, the
+rescued pair dropped down from their perches. "Did he chase you, boys?
+Where on earth did you come on him?"
+
+Talking together, their words tumbling out like a torrent let loose,
+Cyrus Garst and Dol Farrar gave an account of the past two
+hours--strangest hours of their lives--filling up the picture of them
+bit by bit.
+
+"Whew! whew! You did have a narrow squeak, boys, and a scarey time; but
+I guess you had a lot of fun out of the old snorter," said Herb, his
+rare laugh jingling out, starting the forest echoes like a clang of
+bells. "You've won those antlers, Dol--won 'em like a man. Blest, but
+you have! I promised 'em to the first fellow who called up a moose; and
+nary a woodsman in Maine could have done it better. I'm powerful glad
+'twasn't your own death-call you gave. I'll keep my eye on you now till
+you leave these woods. Where's the horn?"
+
+"Smashed to bits," answered Dol regretfully.
+
+"And the camp-kettle?"
+
+"Lying by the spring, over there on the knoll, unless the moose kicked
+it to pieces," said Cyrus.
+
+"My senses! you're a healthy pair to send for water, ain't ye? Let's
+cruise off and find it. I guess you'll be wanting a drink of hot coffee,
+after roosting in them trees for so long."
+
+Garst led the way to the spring. Its pretty hum sounded like an angel's
+whisper through the night, after the tumult of the past scene. Herb
+fumbled in his leather wallet, brought out a match and a small piece of
+birch-bark, and kindled a light. With some groping, the kettle was
+found; it was filled, and the party started for camp.
+
+"I heard the distant challenge of a bull-moose a couple of hours ago,"
+said the guide, as they went along. "I never suspicioned he was
+attacking you; but after the camp was a' ready, and you hadn't turned
+up, I got kind o' scared. I left Neal to tend the fire and toast the
+pork, and started out to search. I s'pose I took the wrong direction;
+for I hollered, and got no answer. Afterwards, when I was travelling
+about the bog, I heard a 'Coo-hoo!' and the noises of an angry moose.
+Then I guessed there was trouble."
+
+"Won't Neal look blue when he hears that he was toasting pork while we
+were perched in those trees, with the moose waltzing below!" exclaimed
+Dol. "Well, Cy, I've won the antlers, and I've got my ripping story for
+the Manchester fellows. I don't care how soon we turn home now."
+
+"You don't, don't ye?" said the guide. "Well, I should s'pose you'd want
+to trail up that moose to-morrow, and see what has become of him."
+
+"Of course I do! I forgot that."
+
+And Dol Farrar, who had thought his record of adventure and triumph so
+full that it could hold no more, realized that there is always for
+ambition a farther point.
+
+Neal did feel a little blue over the thought of what he had missed. But,
+being a generous-hearted fellow, he tasted his young brother's joy, when
+the latter cuddled close to him upon the evergreen boughs that night,
+muttering, as if the whole earth lay conquered at his feet:--
+
+"My legs are as stiff as ramrods, but who'd think of his legs after such
+a night as we've had?
+
+"I say, Neal, this is life; the little humbugging scrapes we used to
+call adventures at home are only play for girls. It's something to talk
+about for a lifetime, when a fellow comes to close quarters with a
+creature like that moose. I said I'd get the better of his ears, and I
+did it. Pinch me, old boy, if I begin a moose-call in my sleep."
+
+Several times during the night Neal found it necessary to obey this
+injunction, else had there been no peace in the camp. But, in spite of
+Dol's ravings and riotings in his excited dreams, the party enjoyed a
+needed ten hours' slumber, all save Herb, who, as usual, was astir the
+next morning while his comrades were yet snoring.
+
+He got his fire going well, and baked a great flat loaf of bread in his
+frying-pan, setting the pan amid hot ashes and covering it over.
+Previous to this, he had made a pilgrimage to the distant spring, to
+fill his kettle for coffee and bread-making, and had carefully examined
+the ground about the clump of hemlocks.
+
+The result of his investigation was given to the boys as they ate their
+breakfast under the shade of a cedar, with a sky above them whose
+morning glories were here and there overshot by leaden tints.
+
+"I guess we've got a pretty fair chance of trailing that moose," he
+said. "I found both hair and blood on the spot where he was wounded. I'm
+for following up his tracks, though I guess they'll take us a bit up the
+mountain. If he's hurt bad, 'twould be kind o' merciful to end his
+sufferings. If he ain't, we can let him get off."
+
+"Right, as you always are, Herb," answered Cyrus. "But what on earth
+made the creature bolt so suddenly? If you had seen him five minutes
+before he was shot, you'd have said he had as much fight in him as a
+lion."
+
+"That's the way with moose a'most always. Their courage ain't that o'
+flesh-eating animals. It's only a spurt; though it's a pretty big spurt
+sometimes, as you boys know now. It'll fail 'em in a minute, when you
+least expect it. And, you see, that one last night didn't know where his
+wound came from. I guess he thought he was struck by lightning or a
+thunder-ball, so he skipped. Talking of thunder-balls, boys," wound up
+Herb, "I shouldn't be surprised if the old Mountain Spirit, who lives up
+a-top there, gave us a rattling welcome with his thunders to-day. The
+air is awful heavy for this time of year. Perhaps we'd better give up
+the trailing after all."
+
+"Nonsense!" exclaimed Dol indignantly. "Do you think a shower will melt
+us? Or that we'll squeal like girls at a few flashes of lightning?
+'Twould be jolly good fun to see old Pamolah sending off his artillery."
+
+"Well, there'd be no special danger, I guess, if we were past the heavy
+timber growth before the storm began. There's lots of rocky dens on the
+mountain side where we could shelter under a granite ledge, and be safer
+than we'd be here in tent. Or we might come a-near our old log camp. I
+guess, if that's standing yet, you'd like to see it. Say! we'll leave it
+to Cyrus. He's boss, ain't he?"
+
+Cyrus, desperately anxious to know whether it would be life or death for
+the wounded moose, and regarding the signs of bad weather as by no means
+certain, decided in favor of the expedition. The campers hurriedly
+swallowed the remainder of their breakfast, and made ready for an
+immediate start.
+
+"In trailing a moose the first rule is: go as light as you can; that is,
+don't carry an ounce more stuff than is necessary. Even a man's rifle is
+apt to get in his way when he has to scramble over windfalls, or slump
+between big bowlders of rock, which a'most tear the clothes off his
+back. And we may have to do some pretty tall climbing. So leave all your
+traps in the tent, boys; I'll fasten it down tight. There won't be any
+human robbers prowling around, you bet! Bears and coons are the only
+burglars of these woods, and they don't do much mischief in daytime."
+
+The guide rapidly gave these directions, his breezy voice setting a
+current of energy astir, like a wind-gust cutting through a quiet grove,
+while he rolled his indispensable axe, some bread that was left from the
+meal, and a lump of pork into a little bundle, which he strapped on his
+back.
+
+"Now," he said, "if that trail should give us a long tramp, or if you
+boys should take a notion to go a good ways up Katahdin, or anything
+turns up to hinder our getting back to camp till nightfall, I've our
+snack right here. I can light a fire in two minutes, to toast our pork;
+and we'll wash it down with mountain water, the best drink for climbers.
+I could rig you up a snug shelter, too, in case of accidents. A woodsman
+ain't in it without his axe."
+
+To what strange work that axe would be put ere night again closed its
+shutters over granite peaks and evergreen forest, Herb Heal little knew;
+nor could he have guessed that the coming hours would make the most
+heart-stirring day of his stirring life. If he could, would he have
+started out this morning with a happy-go-lucky whistle, softly modulated
+on his lips, and no more sober burden on his mind than the trail of that
+moose?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+ON KATAHDIN.
+
+
+"See there, boys, I told you so," said Herb, as the party reached the
+ever-to-be-remembered clump of hemlocks, the beginning of the trail
+which they were ready to follow up like sleuth-hounds. "There's plenty
+of hair; I guess I singed him in two places."
+
+He pointed to some shaggy clotted locks on the grass at his feet, and
+then to a small maroon-colored stain beside them.
+
+"Is that blood?" asked Neal.
+
+"Blood, sure enough, though there ain't much of it. But I'll tell you
+what! I'd as soon there wasn't any. I wish it had been light enough last
+night for me to act barber, and only cut some hair from that moose,
+instead of wounding him. It might have answered the purpose as well, and
+sent him walking."
+
+"I don't believe it would have done anything of the kind," exclaimed
+Dol. "He was far too red-hot an old customer to bolt because a bullet
+shaved him."
+
+"Well, I don't set up to be soft-hearted like Cyrus here; and I'm ready
+enough to bag my meat when I want it," said the woodsman. "But sure's
+you live, boys, I never wounded a free game creature yet, and seed it
+get away to pull a hurt limb and a cruel pain with it through the woods,
+that I could feel chipper afterwards. It's only your delicate city
+fellows who come out here for a shot once a year, who can chuckle over
+the pools of blood a wounded moose leaves behind him. Sho! it's not
+manly."
+
+A start was now made on the trail, Herb leading, and showing such
+wonderful skill as a trailer that the English boys began to believe his
+long residence in the woods had developed in him supernatural senses.
+
+"That moose was shot through the right fore-leg," he whispered, as the
+trackers reached the edge of the forest.
+
+"How do you know?" gasped the Farrars.
+
+The woodsman answered by kneeling, bending his face close to the ground,
+and drawing his brown finger successively round three prints on a soft
+patch of earth, which the unpractised eyes could scarcely discern.
+
+"There's no mark of the right fore-hoof," he whispered again presently;
+"nothing but _that_," pointing to another dark red blotch, which the
+boys would have mistaken for maroon-tinted moss.
+
+A breathless, wordless, toiling hour followed. Through the dense woods,
+which sloped steadily upward, clothing Katahdin's highlands, Herb Heal
+travelled on, now and again halting when the trail, because of freshly
+fallen pine-needles or leaves, became quite invisible. Again he would
+crouch close to the ground, make a circle with his finger round the last
+visible print, and work out from that, trying various directions, until
+he knew that he was again on the track which the limping moose had
+travelled before him.
+
+His comrades followed in single file, carrying their rifles in front of
+their bodies instead of on their shoulders, so that there might be no
+danger of a sudden clang or rattle from the barrels striking the trees.
+Following the example of their guide, each one carefully avoided
+stepping on crackling twigs or dry branches, or rustling against bushes
+or boughs. The latter they would take gingerly in their hands as they
+approached them, bend them out of the way, and gently release them as
+they passed. Heroically they forebore to growl when their legs were
+scraped by jagged bowlders or prickly shrubs, giving thanks inwardly to
+the manufacturers of their stout tweeds that their clothes held
+together, instead of hanging on them like streamers on a rag-bush.
+
+It was a good, practical lesson in moose-trailing; but, save for the
+knowledge gained by the three who had never stalked a moose before, it
+was a failure.
+
+The air beneath the dense foliage grew depressing--suffocating. Each one
+longed breathlessly for the minute when he should emerge from this heavy
+timber-growth, even to do more rugged climbing. Distant rumbles were
+heard. Herb's prophecy was being fulfilled. Pamolah was grumbling at the
+trailers, and sending out his Thunder Sons to bid them back.
+
+But it was too late for retreat. If they gave up their purpose, turned
+and fled to camp, the storm, which was surely coming, would catch them
+under the interlacing trees, a danger which the guide was especially
+anxious to avoid. He pressed on with quickened steps, stooping no more
+to make circles round the moose's prints. Old Pamolah's threatenings
+grew increasingly sullen. At last the desired break in the woods was
+reached; the trackers found themselves on the open side of Katahdin,
+surrounded by a tangled growth of alders and white birches struggling up
+between granite rocks; then the mountain artillery broke forth with
+terrifying clatter.
+
+A loud, long thunder-roll was echoed from crag, slide, forest, spur, and
+basin. The "home of storms" was a fort of noise.
+
+"Ha! there'll be a big cannonading this time, I guess. Pamolah is going
+to let fly at us with big shot, little shot, fire and water--all the
+forces the old scoundrel has," said Herb Heal, at last breaking the
+silence which had been kept on the trail, and looking aloft towards the
+five peaks guarding that mysterious basin, from which heavy, lurid
+clouds drifted down.
+
+At the same time a blustering, mighty wind-gust half swept the four
+climbers from their feet. A great flash of globe lightning cut the air
+like a dazzling fire-ball.
+
+"We'll have to quit our trailing, and scoot for shelter, I'm thinking!"
+exclaimed Cyrus.
+
+"Good land, I should say so!" agreed the guide. "The bull-moose likes
+thunder. He's away in some thick hole in the forest now, recovering
+himself. We couldn't have come up with him anyhow, boys, for them
+blood-spots had stopped. I guess his leg wasn't smashed; and he'll soon
+be as big a bully as ever. Follow me now, quick! Mind yer steps, though!
+Them bushes are awful catchy!"
+
+Undazzled by the lightning's frequent flare, unstaggered by the
+down-rushing wind, as if the mountain thunders were only the roll of an
+organ about his ears, Herb Heal sprang onward and upward, tugging his
+comrades one by one up many a precipitous ledge, and pulling them to
+their feet again when the tripping bushes brought their noses to the
+ground and their heels into the air.
+
+"Hitch on to me, Dol!" he cried, suddenly turning on that youngster, who
+was trying to get his second breath. "Tie on to me tight. I'll tow you
+up! I wish we could ha' reached that old log camp, boys. 'Twould be a
+stunning shelter, for it has a wall of rock to the back. But it's higher
+up, and off to the right. There! I see the den I'm aiming for."
+
+A few energetic bounds brought Herb, with Dol in tow, to a platform of
+rock, which rose above a bed of blueberry bushes. It narrowed into a
+sort of cave, roofed by an overhanging bowlder.
+
+"We'll be snug enough under this rock!" he exclaimed, pointing to the
+canopy. "Creep in, boys. We'll have tubs of rain, and a pelting of hail.
+The rumpus is only beginning."
+
+So it was. The storm had been creeping from its cradle. Now it swept
+down with an awful whirl and commingling of elements.
+
+The boys, peering out from their rocky nest, saw a magnificent panorama
+beneath them. The regiments of the air were at war. Lightning chains
+encircled the heavens, lighting up the forests below. Winds charged down
+the mountain-side, sweeping stones and bushes before them. Hail-bullets
+rattled in volleys. Thunder-artillery boomed until the very rocks seemed
+'to shake.
+
+"It's fine!" exclaimed Cyrus. "It's super-fine!"
+
+Then a curtain of thick rain partly hid the warfare, the lightning still
+rioting through it like a beacon of battle.
+
+"The stones up above will have to be pretty firmly fixed to keep their
+places," said Herb. "Boys, I hope there ain't a-going to be slides on
+the mountain after this."
+
+"Slides?" echoed Dol questioningly.
+
+"Landslides, kid. Say! if you want to be scared until your bones feel
+limp, you've got to hear a great big block of granite come ploughing
+down from the top 'o the mountain, bringing earth and bushes along with
+it, and smashing even the rocks to splinters as it pounds along."
+
+"I guess that's a sensation we'd rather be spared," said Cyrus gravely.
+
+And under the quieting spell of the airy warfare there was silence for a
+while.
+
+"Do you think it's lightening up, Herb?" asked Neal, after the storm had
+raged for three-quarters of an hour.
+
+"I guess it is. The rain is stopping too. But we'll have an awful slushy
+time of it getting back to camp. To plough through them soaked forests
+below would be enough to give you city fellows a shaking ague."
+
+"Couldn't we climb on to your old log camp?" suggested Garst. "If we
+have the luck to find the old shanty holding together, we can light a
+fire there after things dry out a bit, and eat our snack. Then we
+needn't be in a hurry to get down. We'll risk it, anyhow."
+
+"I reckon that's about the only thing to be done," assented the guide.
+
+And in twenty minutes' time the four were again straining up Katahdin,
+clutching slippery rocks, sinking in sodden earth, shivering as they
+were besprinkled by every bush and dwarfed tree, and dreadfully hampered
+with their rifles.
+
+"Never mind, boys; we'll get there! Clinch yer teeth, and don't squirm!
+Once we're past this tangle, the bit of climbing that's left will be as
+easy as rolling off a log!"
+
+So shouted Herb cheerfully, as he tore a way with hand and foot through
+the stunted growth of alders and birch, which, beaten down by the winds,
+was now an almost impassable, sopping tangle.
+
+"Keep in my tracks!" he bellowed again. "Gracious! but this sort o' work
+is as slow as molasses crawling up-hill in winter."
+
+But ten minutes later, when the dripping jungle was behind, he dropped
+his jesting tone.
+
+He came to a full stop, catching his breath with a big gulp.
+
+"Boys," he cried, "it's standing yet! I see it--the old home-camp! There
+it is above us on that bit of a platform, with the big rock behind it.
+And I've kep' saying to myself for the last quarter of an hour that we
+wouldn't find it--that we'd find nary a thing but mildewed logs!"
+
+A wealth of memories was in the woodsman's eyes as he gazed up at the
+timber nest, the log camp which his own hands had put up, standing on a
+narrow plateau, and built against a protecting wall of rock that rose in
+jagged might to a height of thirty or forty feet.
+
+An earth bank or ridge, covered with hardy mosses and mountain creepers,
+sloped gently up to the sheltered platform. To climb this was, indeed,
+"as easy as rolling off a log."
+
+"We used to have a good beaten path here, but I guess it's all growed
+over," said Herb in a thick voice, as if certain cords in his throat
+were swelling. "Many's the time I've blessed the sight of that old
+home-camp, boys, after a hard week's trapping. Hundert's o' night's I've
+slept snug inside them log walls when blasts was a-sweeping and
+bellowing around, like as if they'd rip the mountain open, and tear its
+very rocks out."
+
+While the guide spoke he was leaping up the ridge. A few minutes, and he
+stood, a towering figure, on the platform above, waving his battered hat
+in salute to the old camp.
+
+"I guess some traveller has been sheltering here lately!" he cried to
+Neal Farrar, as the latter overtook him. "There's a litter around,"
+pointing to dry sticks and withered bushes strewn upon the
+camping-ground. "And the door's standing open. I wonder who found the
+old shanty?"
+
+Neal remembered, hours afterwards, that at the moment he felt an odd
+awakening stir in him, a stir which, shooting from head to foot, seemed
+to warn him that he was nearing a sensation, the biggest sensation of
+this wilderness trip.
+
+He heard the voices of Cyrus and Dol hallooing behind; but they sounded
+away back and indistinct, for his ears were bent towards the deserted
+camp, listening with breathless expectation for something, he didn't
+know what.
+
+One minute the vague suspense lasted, while he followed Herb towards the
+hut. Then heaven and earth and his own heart seemed to stand still.
+
+Through the wide-open door of the shanty came random, crooning snatches
+of sound. Was the guttural voice which made them human? The English boy
+scarcely knew. But as the noise swelled, like the moaning of a dry wind
+among trees, he began, as it were, to disentangle it. Words shaped
+themselves, Indian words which he had heard before on the guide's
+tongue.
+
+  "_N'loan pes-saus, mok glint ont-aven,
+  Glint ont-aven, nosh morgun_."
+
+These lines from the "Star Song," the song which Herb had learned from
+his traitor chum, floated out to him upon Katahdin's breeze. They struck
+young Farrar's ears in staggering tones, like a knell, the sadness of
+which he could not at the moment understand. But he had a vague
+impression that the mysterious singer in the deserted camp attached no
+meaning to what he chanted.
+
+"Look out, I say! I don't want to come a cropper here."
+
+It was Dol's young voice which rang out shrilly among the mountain
+echoes. Side by side with Cyrus, the boy had just gained the top of the
+ridge when the guide suddenly backed upon him, Herb's great
+shoulder-blade knocking him in the face, so that he had to plant his
+feet firmly to avoid spinning back.
+
+But Herb had heard that guttural crooning. Just now he could hear
+nothing else.
+
+Twice he made a heaving effort to speak, and the voice cracked in his
+throat.
+
+Then, as he sprang for the camp-door, four words stumbled from his
+lips:--
+
+"By thunder! it's Chris."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+THE OLD HOME-CAMP.
+
+
+The silence which followed that ejaculation was like the hush of earth
+before a thunder-storm.
+
+Not a syllable passed the lips of the boys as they followed Herb into
+the log hut, but feeling seemed wagging a startled tongue in each
+finger-tip which convulsively pressed the rifles.
+
+And not another articulate sentence came from the guide; only his throat
+swelled with a deep, amazed gurgle as he reached the interior of the
+shanty, and dropped his eyes upon the individual who raised that queer
+chanting.
+
+On a bed of withered spruce boughs, strewn higgledy-piggledy upon the
+camp-floor--mother earth--lay the form of a man. Thin wisps of
+blue-black hair, long untrimmed, trailed over his face and neck, which
+looked as if they were carved out of yellow bone. His figure was
+skeleton-like. His lips--the lips which at the entrance of the strangers
+never ceased their wild crooning--were swollen and fever-scorched. His
+black eyes, disfigured by a hideous squint, rolled with the sick fancies
+of delirium.
+
+Cyrus and the Farrars, while they looked upon him, felt that, even if
+they had never heard Herb's exclamation, they would have had no
+difficulty in identifying the creature, remembering that story which had
+thrilled them by the camp-fire at Millinokett. It was Herb Heal's
+traitor chum--the half-breed, Cross-eyed Chris.
+
+And Herb, backing off from the withered couch as far as the limited
+space of the cabin would allow, stood with his shoulders against the
+mouldy logs of the wall, his eyes like peep-holes to a volcano, gulping
+and gurgling, while he swallowed back a fire of amazed excitement and
+defeated anger, for which his backwoods vocabulary was too cheap.
+
+A flame seemed scorching and hissing about his heart while he
+remembered that during some hour of every day for five years, since last
+he had seen the "hound" who robbed him, he had sworn that, if ever he
+caught the thief, he would pounce upon him with a woodsman's vengeance.
+
+"I couldn't touch him now--the scum! But I'll be switched if I'll do a
+thing to help him!" he hissed, the flame leaping to his lips.
+
+Yet he had a strange sensation, as if that vow was broken like an
+egg-shell even while he made it. He knew that "the two creatures which
+had fought inside of him, tooth and claw," about the fate of his enemy,
+were pinching his heart by turns in a last hot conflict.
+
+His eyes shot flinty sparks; he drew his breath in hard puffs; his
+knotted throat twitched and swelled, while they (the man and the brute)
+strove within him; and all the time he stood staring in grisly silence
+at the half-breed.
+
+The latter still continued his Indian croon; though from the crazy roll
+of his malformed eyes it was plain that he knew not whether he chanted
+about the stars, his old friends and guides, or about anything else in
+heaven or earth.
+
+But one thing quickly became clear to Cyrus, and then to the Farrar
+boys,--less accustomed to tragedy than their comrade,--that this strange
+personage, in whose veins the blood of white men and red men met,
+carrying in its turbid flow the weaknesses of two races, was singing his
+swan-song, the last chant he would ever raise on earth.
+
+At their first entrance, as their bodies interfered with the broad light
+streaming through the cabin-door, Chris had lifted towards them a
+scared, shrinking stare. But, apparently, he took them for the shadows
+which walked in the dreams of his delirium. Not a ray of recognition
+lightened the blankness of that stare as Herb's big figure passed before
+him. Letting his eyes wander aimlessly again from log wall to log wall,
+from withered bed to mouldy rafters, his lips continued their crooning,
+which sank with his weakening breath, then rose again to sink once more,
+like the last wind-gusts when the storm is over.
+
+Suddenly his shrunken body shivered in every limb. The humming ceased.
+His yellow teeth tapped upon each other in trouble and fear. He raised
+himself to a squatting posture, with his knee-bones to his chin, the
+wisps of hair tumbling upon his naked chest.
+
+"It's dark--heap dark!" he whimpered, between long gasps. "Can't strike
+the trail--can't find the home-camp. Herb--Herb Heal--ole pard--'twas I
+took 'em--the skins. 'Twas--a dog's trick. Take it out--o' my hide--if
+yer wants to--yah! Heap sick!"
+
+Not a ray of sense was yet in the half-breed's eyes. An imaginary,
+vengeance-dealing Herb was before him; but he never turned a glance
+towards the real, and now forgiving, old chum, who leaned against the
+wall not ten feet away. His voice dropped to a guttural rumble, in which
+Indian sounds mingled with English.
+
+But the flame at Herb's heart was quenched at the first whimpered word.
+His stiffened muscles and lips relaxed. With a gurgle of sorrow, he
+crossed the camp-floor, and dropped into a crawling position on the
+faded spruces.
+
+"Chris!" he cried thickly. "Chris,--poor old pard,--don't ye know me?
+Look, man! Herb is right here--Herb Heal, yer old chum. You're 'heap
+sick' for sure; but we'll haul you off to a settlement or to our camp,
+and I'll bring Doc along in two days. He'll"--
+
+But Cross-eyed Chris became past hearing, his flicker of strength had
+failed; he keeled over, and lay, with his limp legs curled up, faint and
+speechless, upon the dead evergreens.
+
+"You ain't a-going to die!" gasped Herb defiantly. "I'll be jiggered if
+you be, jest as I've found you! Say, boys! Cyrus! Neal! rub him a bit,
+will ye? We ain't got no brandy, I'll build a fire, and warm some
+coffee."
+
+It was strange work for the hands of the Bostonian, and stranger yet for
+those of young Farrar,--son of an English merchant-prince,--this
+straightening and rubbing of a dying half-Indian, a "scum," as Herb
+called him, drunkard, and thief. Yet there was no flash of hesitation on
+Farrar's part, as they brought their warm friction to bear upon the
+chill yellow skin, piebald from dirt and the stains of travel, as if it
+were the very mission which had brought them to Katahdin.
+
+They had grave thoughts meanwhile that the old mountain was decidedly
+gloomy in its omens, first a thunder-storm and then a tragedy; for, rub
+as they might with brotherly hands, they could not pass their own
+warmth into the body of the half-breed, though he still lived.
+
+But the mountain had not ended its terrors yet.
+
+Its mumbling lips began to speak, with a threatening, low at first like
+muttered curses, but swelling into a nameless noise--a rumbling,
+pounding, creeping, crashing.
+
+"Great Governor's Ghost! what's that?" gasped Cyrus, stopping his
+rubbing. "Pamolah or some other fiend seems to be bombarding us from the
+top now."
+
+"It's more thunder rolling over us," said Neal; but as he spoke his
+tongue turned stiff with fear.
+
+"Sounds as if the whole mountain was tumbling to pieces. Perhaps it's
+the end of the world," suggested Dol, as a succession of booming shocks
+from above seemed to shake the camping-ground under his feet.
+
+There was one second of awful indecision. The boys looked at each other,
+at the dying man, at the roof above them, in the stiffness of uncertain
+terror.
+
+Then a figure leaped into their midst, with an armful of dry sticks,
+which he dashed from him. It was Herb, with the fuel for a fire. And,
+for the first and last time in his history, so far as these friends of
+his knew it, there was that big fear in his face which is most terrible
+when it looks out of the eyes of a naturally brave man.
+
+"Boys, where's yer senses?" he yelled cuttingly. "Out, for your lives!
+Run! There's a slide above us on the mountain!"
+
+"Him?" questioned Cyrus's stiff lips, as he pointed to the breathing
+wreck on the spruce boughs. "He's not dead yet."
+
+"D'ye think I'd leave him? Clear out of this camp--you, or we'll be
+buried in less'n two minutes! To the right! Off this ridge! Got yer
+rifles? I'm coming!"
+
+The woodsman flung out the words while his brawny arms hoisted the body
+of his old chum. His comrades had already disappeared when he turned and
+sprang for the camp-door with his limp burden, but his moccasined foot
+kicked against something.
+
+A great hiccough which was almost a sob rose from Herb's throat. It was
+his one valuable possession, his 45-90 Winchester rifle, his second
+self, which he had rested against the log wall.
+
+"Good-by, Old Blazes!" he grunted. "You never went back on me, but I
+can't lug him and you! My stars! but that was a narrow squeak."
+
+For, as he cleared the camping-ground with a blind dash, with head bent
+and tongue caught between his clenched teeth, with a boom like a Gatling
+gun, a great block of granite from the summit of Katahdin struck the
+rock which sheltered the old camp, breaking a big piece off it, and shot
+on with mighty impetus down the mountain.
+
+An avalanche of loose earth, stones, and bushes, brought down by this
+battering-ram of the landslide, piled themselves upon the log hut,
+smashing to kindling-wood its walls, which had stood many a hard storm,
+burying them out of sight, and flinging wide showers of dust and small
+missiles.
+
+A scattered rain of clay caught Herb upon the head, and lodged, some of
+it, on the little pack containing axe and lunch which was strapped upon
+his shoulders.
+
+He shook. His grip loosened. The limp, dragging body in his arms sank
+until the feet touched the earth.
+
+But with the supreme effort, moral and physical, of his life, the forest
+guide gathered it tight again.
+
+"I'll be blowed if I'll drop him now," he gasped. "He ain't nothing but
+a bag o' bones, anyhow."
+
+Only a strong man in the hour of his best strength could have done it.
+With a defiant snort Herb charged through the choking dust-clouds,
+pelted by flying pebbles, sods, and fragments of sticks.
+
+"This way, boys!" he roared, after five straining, staggering minutes,
+as he caught a glimpse of his comrades ahead, tearing off to the right,
+as he had bidden them. "You may let up now. We're safe enough."
+
+They faced back, and saw him make a few reeling, descending steps, then
+lay what now seemed to be an out-and-out lifeless man on a bed of moss
+beneath a dwarfed spruce.
+
+The nerves of the three were in a jumping condition, their brains felt
+befuddled, and their hearts sinking and melting in the midst of their
+bones, from the astounding shock and terror of the land-slide. But, as
+they beheld the guide deposit his burden, with its helplessly trailing
+head and limbs, a cheer in unsteady tones rang above the slackening
+rattle of earth and stones, and the far-away boom of the granite-block
+as it buried itself in the forest beneath.
+
+"Hurrah! for you, Herb, old boy," yelled Cyrus triumphantly. "That was
+the grittiest thing I ever saw done' Hurrah! Hurrah! Hoo-ray!"
+
+The English boys, open-throated, swelled the peal.
+
+But their cheering broke off as they came near, and saw the mask-like
+face over which Herb bent.
+
+"Is he gone, poor fellow?" asked Garst. "What do you suppose caused
+it--the slide?"
+
+"Why, it was a thundering big lump of granite from the top o' the
+mountain," answered Herb, replying to the second question. "That plaguy
+heavy rain must ha' loosened the earth around it the clay and bushes
+that kep' it in place. So it got kind o' top-heavy, and came slumping
+and pitching down, slow at first, and then a'most as quick as a
+cannon-ball, bringing all that pile along with it. I've seen the like
+before; but, sho! I never came so near being buried by it."
+
+He pointed as he spoke to the late camping-ground, with its lodgment of
+clay, sods, pygmy trees, and pieces of rock, big and little.
+
+[Illustration: "HERB CHARGED THROUGH THE CHOKING DUST-CLOUDS.]
+
+"The old camp's clean wiped out, boys," he said; "and I guess one of the
+men that built it is gone, or a'most gone, too. Stick your arm under
+his head, Cyrus, while I hunt for some water."
+
+Garst did as he was bidden, but his help was not needed long. The guide
+went off like a racer, covering the ground at a stretching gallop. He
+remembered well the clear Katahdin spring, which had supplied the
+home-camp during that long-past trapping winter. He returned with his
+tin mug full.
+
+When the ice-cold drops touched Chris's forehead, and lay on his parted
+lips, gem-like drops which he was past swallowing, his malformed eyes
+slowly opened. There was intelligence in them, shining through the
+gathering death-film, like a sinking light in a lantern.
+
+He was groping in the dim border-land now, and in it he recognized his
+old partner with shadowy wonder; for delirium was past, with the other
+storms of a storm-beaten life.
+
+"Herb," he gurgled in snatches, the words being half heard, half guessed
+at, "'twas I--took 'em--the skins--an' the antlers. I wanted--to get--to
+the ole camp--an' let you--take it out o' me--afore I--keeled over."
+
+Herb had taken Cyrus's place, and was upholding him with a tenderness
+which showed that the guide's heart was in this hour melted to a jelly.
+Two tears were dammed up inside his eyelids, which were so unused to
+tears that they held them in. He neither wiped nor winked them away
+before he answered:--
+
+"Don't you fret about that--poor kid. We'll chuck that old business
+clean out o' mind. You've jest got to suck this water and try to chipper
+up, and--we'll make camp together again."
+
+But Herb knew as well as he knew anything that the man who had robbed
+him was long past "chippering up," and was starting alone to the unseen
+camping-grounds.
+
+"How long since you got back here?" he' asked, close to the dulling ear.
+
+"Couldn't--keep--track--o' days. Got--turned--round--in woods.
+Lost--trail--heap--long--getting--to--th' old--camp."
+
+The words seemed freezing on the lips which uttered them. Herb asked no
+more questions. Silence was broken only by the rolling voice of the
+land-slide, which had not yet ceased. Occasional volleys of loose earth
+and stones, dislodged or shaken by the down-plunging granite, still
+kept falling at intervals on the buried camp.
+
+At one unusually loud rattle, Chris's lips moved again. In those strange
+gutturals which the boys had heard in the hut, he rumbled an Indian
+sentence, repeating it in English with scared, breaking breaths.
+
+It was a prayer of her tribe which his mother had taught him to say at
+morning and eve:--
+
+"God--I--am--weak--Pity--me!"
+
+"Heap--noise! Heap--dark!" he gasped. "Can't--find--th' old--camp."
+
+"You're near it now, old chum," said Herb, trying to soothe him. "It's
+the home-camp."
+
+"We'll--camp--to-ge-ther?"
+
+"We will again, sure."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The last stone pounded down on the heap above the old camp; and Herb
+gently laid flat the body of the man he had sworn to shoot, closed the
+malformed eyes, and turned away, that the fellows he was guiding might
+not see his face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+BROTHERS' WORK.
+
+
+They buried Chris upon Katahdin's breast. It was a good cemetery for
+woodsmen, so Herb said, granite above and forest beneath.
+
+But, good or bad, this was the one thing to be done. An attempt to
+transfer the body to a distant settlement would be objectless labor;
+for, as far as the guide knew, the half-breed had not a friend to be
+interested in his fate, father and mother having died before Herb found
+him in the snow-heaped forest.
+
+There were three reliable witnesses, besides the man who was known to
+have a grudge against him, to testify as to the cause and manner of his
+death when the party returned to Greenville; so no suspicious finger
+could point at Herb Heal, with a hint that he had carried out his old
+threat.
+
+How long Chris, in lonely, crazed repentance, had sheltered in the camp
+on the mountain-side could only be a matter of guess. Herb inclined to
+think that he had been there for weeks,--months, perhaps,--judging from
+the withered spruce bed and the dry boughs and sticks upon the
+camping-ground, which had evidently been gathered and broken for fuel.
+His ravings made it clear that, on returning to the old haunts after
+years of absence, he had missed the trail he used to know, and wandered
+wearily in the dense woods about the foot of Katahdin before he escaped
+from the prison of trees, and climbed to the hut he sought.
+
+Such wanderings, Herb declared, generally ended in "a man having wheels
+in his head," being half or wholly insane, though he might keep
+sufficient wits to provide himself with food and warmth, as Chris had
+done while his strength held out. This was not long; for the
+half-breed's words suggested that he felt near to the great change he
+roughly called "keeling over," when he started to find his cheated
+partner.
+
+But Cyrus, while he watched the guide making preparations for the
+mountain burial, pictured the poor weakling tramping for hundreds of
+miles through rugged forest-land, doubtless with aching knee-joints and
+feet, that he might make upon his own skin justice for the skins which
+he had stolen, and so, in the only way he knew, square things with his
+wronged chum. And the city man thought, with a tear of pity, that even
+that poor drink-fuddled mind must have been lit by some ray of longing
+for goodness.
+
+It was a strange funeral.
+
+The guide chose a spot where the earth had been much softened by the
+recent rain; and, with the ingenuity of a man accustomed to wilderness
+shifts, he broke up the drenched ground with the axe which he took from
+his shoulders.
+
+That axe, which had so often made camp, had never before made a grave;
+the Farrars doubted that it ever would. But Herb worked away upon his
+knees, moisture dripping from his skin, putting sorrow for years of
+anger into every blow of his arms. Then, stopping a while, he went off
+down the mountain to the nearest belt of trees, and cut a limb from one,
+out of which, with his hunting-knife, he fashioned a rude wooden
+implement, a cross between a spade and shovel.
+
+With this he scooped out the broken earth until a grave appeared over
+three feet deep. He lined it with fragrant spruce-boughs from the
+wind-beaten tangle below.
+
+These Cyrus and Dol had busied themselves in cutting. Neal thought of
+other work for his fingers. Getting hold of Herb's axe when the owner
+was not using it, he felled one of the dwarf white birches. Out of its
+light, delicate wood, with the help of his big pocket-knife and a ball
+of twine that was hidden somewhere about him, he made a very presentable
+cross, to point out to future hunters on Katahdin the otherwise unmarked
+grave.
+
+He was a bit of a genius at wood-carving, and surveyed his work with
+satisfaction when he considered it finished, having neatly cut upon it
+the name, "Chris Kemp," with the date, "October 20th, 1891."
+
+"Couldn't you add a text or motto of some kind?" suggested Dol, glancing
+over his shoulder. "Twould make it more like the things one sees in
+cemeteries. You're such a dab at that sort of work."
+
+"Can't think of anything," answered the elder brother.
+
+Then, with a sudden lighting of his face, he seized the knife again, and
+worked in, in fine lettering, the frightened prayer he had heard on the
+half-breed's lips:--
+
+"God, I am weak; pity me!"
+
+Herb and Cyrus lowered the body into its resting-place, and covered it
+with the green spruces.
+
+The four campers knelt bare-headed by the grave.
+
+"Couldn't one of you boys say a bit of a prayer?" asked Herb in a thick
+voice. "I ain't used to spouting."
+
+All former help had been easily given. This was a harder matter, yet not
+so difficult as it would have been amid a city congregation.
+
+Garst tried to recall some suitable prayer from a funeral service; so
+did Neal. Both failed.
+
+But here upon Katahdin's side, where, in the large forces of storm and
+slide, in forest and granite, through every wind-swept bush, waving
+blade, and tinted lichen, breathed a whisper from God, it seemed no
+unnatural thing for a man or a boy to speak to his Father.
+
+"Can't one of you fellers say a prayer?" asked Herb again.
+
+Then the river of feeling in Cyrus broke the dam of reserve, and flowed
+over his lips in a prayer such as he had never before uttered.
+
+It was the prayer of a son who was for the minute absorbed in his
+Father.
+
+It left the five, those who were camping here and one who had gone to
+unseen camping-grounds, with son-like trust to the Father's dealings.
+
+Herb and the Farrars responded to it with heart-eager "Amens!" the
+fervor of which was new to their lips.
+
+"I thank you as if he were my own brother, boys," said the woodsman,
+while he filled in the grave, and planted Neal's cross at its head.
+"Sho! when it comes to a time like we've been through to-day, a man, if
+he has anything but a gizzard in him, must feel as how we're all
+brothers,--every man-jack of us,--white men, red men, half-and-half men,
+whatever we are or wherever we sprung."
+
+"A fellow is always hearing that sort of thing," said Neal Farrar to
+Cyrus. "But I'm blessed if I ever felt it stick in me before! that we're
+all of the one stuff, you know--we and that poor beggar. Some of us
+seem to get such precious long odds over the others."
+
+"All the more reason why we should do our level best to pull the
+backward ones up to us," answered the American.
+
+The words struck into the ears of Dol--that youngster listening with a
+soberness of attention seldom seen in his flash-light eyes.
+
+A few years afterwards, when Neal Farrar was a newly blown lieutenant in
+his Queen's Twelfth Lancers, as full of heroic impulses and enthusiasms
+as a modern young officer may be,--while his half-fledged ambitions were
+hanging on the chances of active service, and the golden, remote
+possibility of his one day being a V.C.,--there was a peaceful honor
+which clung to him unsought.
+
+During his first year of army life, he became the paragon of every poor
+private and raw recruit struggling with the miseries of goose-step, with
+whom he came even into momentary contact. For sometimes through a word
+or act, sometimes through a flash of the eye, or a look about the mouth,
+during the brief interchange of a military salute, these "backward ones"
+saw that the progressive young officer looked on them, not as
+men-machines, but as brothers, as important in the great schemes of the
+nation and the world as he was himself; that he was proud to serve with
+them, and would be prouder still to help them if he could.
+
+It was an understanding which inspired many a tempted or newly joined
+fellow to drill himself morally as his sergeant drilled him physically,
+with a determination to become as fine a soldier and forward a man as
+his paragon.
+
+But only one American friend of Lieutenant Farrar's, who has let out the
+secret to the writer, knows that the binding truth of human brotherhood
+was first born into him when, on Katahdin's side, he helped to bury a
+thieving half-Indian.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+"KEEPING THINGS EVEN."
+
+
+"Now, you musn't be moping, boys, because of this day's work that you
+took a hand in, and that wasn't in your play-bill when you come to these
+woods. We'll have to try and even things up to-morrow with some big
+sport. You look kind o' wilted."
+
+So said Herb when the tired party were half-way back to camp, doing the
+descent of the mountain in a silence clouded by the scene which they had
+been through.
+
+The woodsman seemed troubled with a rasping in his throat. He cleared it
+twice and spat before he could open a passage for a decently cheerful
+voice in which to suggest a rise of spirits. But Herb was too faithful
+a guide to bear the thought that his employers' trip should end in any
+gloom because the one painful chapter in his own life had closed
+forever. Moreover, although more than once, as he fought his way through
+a jungle or jumped a windfall, something nipped his heart, pinching him
+up inside, and making his eyes leak, he felt that the thing had ended
+well for him--and for Chris.
+
+Herb, in his simple faith, scarcely doubted that the old chum, whom he
+had forgiven, had reached a Home-Camp where his broken will and stunted
+life might be repaired, and grow as they had poor chance to grow here.
+
+"Say, boys!" he burst forth, a few minutes after his protest against
+"moping," and when the band were within sight of the spring whence they
+had started, an age back, as it seemed, on the trail of the moose. "Say,
+boys! I've been all these years raging at Chris. Seems to me now as if
+he was a poor sort of overgrowed baby, and not so bad a thief as the
+chump who gave him that whiskey, and stole his senses. It's a thundering
+big pity that man hadn't the burying of him to-day.
+
+"He was always the under dog,--was Chris," he went on slowly, as if he
+was seeking from his own heart an excuse for those unforeseen impulses
+which had worked it and his body during the past five hours. "Whites and
+Injuns jumped on him. They said he was criss-cross all through, same as
+his eyes. But he warn't. Never seed a half-breed that had less gall and
+more grit, except when the hanker for whiskey would creep up in him, and
+boss him. He could no more stand agen it, and the things it made him do,
+than a jack-rabbit."
+
+"Another reason why we Americans ought to feel our responsibility
+towards every man in whose veins runs Indian blood, a thousand times
+more hotly than we do!" burst out Cyrus. "It maddens a fellow to think
+that we made them the under dogs, and as much by giving them a 'boss,'
+as you say, in fire-water, as by anything else."
+
+"I kind o' think that way myself sometimes," said Herb.
+
+And there was silence until the guide cried:--
+
+"Here's our camp, boys. I'll bet you're glad to see it. I must get the
+kettle, and cruise off for water. 'Tain't likely I'll trust one of you
+fellers after last night. But you can hustle round and build the
+camp-fire while I'm gone."
+
+Herb had a shrewd motive in this. He knew that there is nothing which
+will cure the blues in a camper, if he is touched by that affliction,
+rare in forest life, like the building of his fire, watching the little
+flames creep from the dull, dead wood, to roar and soar aloft in
+gold-red pennons of good cheer.
+
+The result proved his wisdom. When he returned in a very short time from
+that ever-to-be-famous spring, with his brimming kettle, he found a
+glorious fire, and three tired but cheerful fellows watching it, its
+reflection playing like a jack-o'-lantern in each pair of eyes.
+
+"Now I'll have supper ready in a jiffy," he said. "I guess you boys feel
+like eating one another. Jerusha! we never touched our snack--nary a
+crumb of it."
+
+In the strange happenings and chaotic feelings of the day, hunger,
+together with the bread and pork for satisfying it which Herb had
+carried up the mountain, were forgotten until now.
+
+"Never mind! We'll make up for it. Only hurry up!" pleaded Dol. "We're
+like bears, we're so hungry."
+
+"Like bears! You're a sight more like calves with their mouths open,
+waiting for something to swallow," answered Herb, his eyes flashing
+impudence, while, with an energy apparently no less brisk than when he
+started out in the morning, he rushed his preparations for supper.
+
+"Say I'm like a Sukey, and I'll go for you!" roared Dol, a gurgling
+laugh breaking from him, the first which had been heard since the four
+struggled through that tangle on Katahdin to a sight of the old camp.
+
+Once or twice during supper the mirth, which had been frozen in each
+camper's breast by a sight of the drifted wreck of a human life, warmed
+again spasmodically. Herb did his manly best to fan its flame, though
+his heart was still pinched by a feeling of double loss.
+
+Later in the evening, when the party were huddling close to the
+camp-fire, he lifted his right hand and looked at it blankly.
+
+"My!" he gasped, "but it will feel awful queer and empty without Old
+Blazes. That rifle was a reg'lar corker, boys. I was saving up for three
+years to buy it. An' it never went back on me. Times when I've gone far
+off hunting, and had nary a chance to speak to a human for weeks, I'd
+get to talking to it like as if 'twas a living thing. When I wasn't
+afeard of scaring game, I'd fire a round to make it answer back and
+drive away lonesomeness. Folks might ha' thought I was loony, only there
+was none to see. Well, it's smashed to chips now, 'long with the old
+camp."
+
+"What awfully selfish jackasses we were, to skip off with our own
+rifles, and never think of yours, or that you couldn't save it, carrying
+that poor fellow! I feel like kicking myself," said Cyrus, sharp
+vexation in his voice. "But that slide business sprang on us so quickly.
+The sudden rumbling, rattling, and pounding jumbled a fellow's wits. I
+scarcely understood what was up, even when we were scooting for our
+lives."
+
+"I felt a bit white-livered myself, I tell ye; and I'm more hardened to
+slides than you are," was the woodsman's answer.
+
+The confession, taken in the light of his conduct, made him doubly a
+hero to his city friends.
+
+They thought of him staggering along the mountain, blinded, bewildered,
+pelted by clay, with that dragging burden in his arms, a heart tossed by
+danger's keenest realization in his breast. And they were silent before
+the high courage which can recognize fear, yet refuse to it the mastery.
+
+Neal, whose secret musings were generally crossed by a military thread,
+seeing that he had chosen the career of a cavalry-soldier, and hoped
+soon to enter Sandhurst College, stared into the heart of the camp-fire,
+glowering at fate, because she had not ordained that Herb should serve
+the queen with him, and wear upon his resolute heart--as it might
+reasonably be expected he would--the Victoria Cross.
+
+Young Farrar's feeling was so strong that it swept his lips at last.
+
+"Blow it all! Herb," he cried. "It's a tearing pity that you can't come
+into the English Lancers with me. I don't suppose I'll ever be a V.C.,
+but you would sooner or later as sure as gun's iron."
+
+"A 'V.C.!' What's that?" asked Herb.
+
+"A Vigorous Christian, to be sure!" put in Cyrus, who was progressive
+and peaceful, teasingly.
+
+But the English boy, full of the dignity of the subject to him, summoned
+his best eloquence to describe to the American backwoodsman that little
+cross of iron, Victoria's guerdon, which entitles its possessor to
+write those two notable letters after his name, and which only
+hero-hearts may wear.
+
+But a vision of himself, stripped of "sweater" and moccasins, in cavalry
+rig, becrossed and beribboned, serving under another flag than the Stars
+and Stripes, was too much for Herb's gravity and for the grim regrets
+which wrung him to-night.
+
+"Oh, sugar!" he gasped; and his laughter was like a rocket shooting up
+from his mighty throat, and exploding in a hundred sparkles of
+merriment.
+
+He laughed long. He laughed insistently. His comrades were won to join
+in.
+
+When the fun had subsided, Garst said:--
+
+"Herb Heal, old man, there's something in you to-night which reminds me
+of a line I'm rather stuck on."
+
+"Let's have it!" cried Herb.
+
+And Cyrus quoted:--
+
+  "As for this here earth,
+  It takes lots of laffin' to keep things even!"
+
+"Now you've hit it! The man that wrote that had a pile o' sense. Come,
+boys, it's been an awful full day. Let's turn in!"
+
+As he spoke, Herb began to replenish the fire, and make things snug in
+the camp for the night.
+
+But shortly after, when he threw himself on the spuce-boughs near them,
+the boys heard him murmur, deep in his throat, as if he took strength
+from the words:--
+
+  "It takes lots of laffin' to keep things even!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+A LITTLE CARIBOU QUARREL.
+
+
+But things on this old planet seemed even enough the next day, when,
+after a dozen hours of much needed sleep, the campers' eyes opened upon
+a scene which might have stirred any sluggish blood--and they were not
+sluggards.
+
+A fresh breath of frost was in the air to quicken circulation and
+hunger. Under a smiling sun an October breeze frolicked through leaves
+with tints of fire and gold, humming, while it swiftly skimmed over
+their beauties, as if it was reading a wind's poem of autumn.
+
+Katahdin looked as though it had suddenly taken on the white crown of
+age, with age's stately calm. The weather had grown colder during the
+night. Summer--the balmy Indian summer, with its late spells of
+sultriness--had taken a weeping departure yesterday. To-day there was no
+threatening of rain-storm or slide. The mountain's principal peaks had
+fleecy wraps of snow.
+
+"Ha! Old Katahdin has put on its nightcap," exclaimed Cyrus, when the
+trio issued from their tent in the morning. "Listen, you fellows! This
+is the 21st of October. I propose that we start back to our home-camp
+to-morrow. It will take us two days to reach Millinokett Lake. Then
+we'll set our faces towards civilization the first week in November, or
+thereabouts."
+
+"Oh, bother it! So soon!" protested Dol.
+
+"Now, Young Rattlebrain,"--Garst took the calm tone of
+leadership,--"please consider that this is the first time you've camped
+out in Maine woods. You might find it fun to be snowed up in camp during
+a first fall, and to tramp homewards through a thawing slush. But your
+father wouldn't relish its effects on your British constitution. And out
+here--once we're well into November--there's no knowing when the
+temperature may drop to zero with mighty short notice. I've often
+turned in at night, feeling as if I were on 'India's coral strands' and
+woke up next morning thinking I had popped off in my sleep to
+'Greenland's icy mountains.' Herb Heal! you know what tricks a
+thermometer, if we had one, might play in our camp from this out; talk
+sense to these fellows."
+
+Herb, who had risen an hour before his charges, had already fetched
+fresh water, coaxed up the fire, and was busily mixing flapjacks for
+breakfast. His ears, however, had caught the drift of the talk.
+
+"Guess Cyrus is right," he said. "Seeing as it's the first time you
+Britishers have slept off your spring mattresses, I'd say, light out for
+the city and steam-heat afore the snow comes. Oh! you needn't get your
+mad up. I ain't thinking you'd growl at being snowed in. I know better.
+
+"By the great horn spoon! I b'lieve I'll go right along to Greenville
+with you," exclaimed the guide a minute later. "I might get a chance to
+pick up a bargain of a second-hand rifle there. And I guess you'd be
+mighty sick o' your luck, Dol, if you had to lug them moose-antlers part
+o' the way yerself. I ain't stuck on carrying 'em either, if we can get
+a jumper."
+
+But there was a third reason, still more powerful than these two, why
+he should make a trip to the distant town, which stirred Herb's mind
+while he stirred his cakes. His sturdy sense told him that it would be
+well he should put in an appearance when Cyrus made a statement before
+the Greenville coroner as to the cause and manner of Chris's death.
+
+"Now, you boys, we don't want no fooling this blessed day," he said,
+when breakfast was in order, and the campers were emptying for the
+second time their tin mugs of coffee. "There's sport before us--tearing
+good sport. Whatever do you s'pose I come on this morning when I was
+cruising over the bog for water? Caribou-tracks! Caribou-tracks, as sure
+as there's a caribou in Maine!
+
+"Who's for following 'em? We hain't got much provisions left; and I
+guess a chunk of broiled caribou-steak about as big as a horse's upper
+lip would cheer each of us up, and make us feel first-rate. What say,
+boys?"
+
+"By all that's glorious!" ejaculated Cyrus, his eyes striking light.
+"Caribou-signs! Of course we'll follow them. A bit of fresh meat would
+be pretty acceptable, and a good view of a herd of caribou would be
+still more so--to me, at any rate. That would just about top off our
+exploring to a T."
+
+"We've got to be mighty spry, then," said the woodsman, lurching to his
+feet, muscles swelling, and nostrils spreading like a sleuth-hound's.
+"If you want caribou, you've got to take 'em while they're around. Old
+hunters have a saying: 'They're here to-day, to-morrow nowhere.' And
+that's about the size of it."
+
+"Let's start off this minute!" Dol jerked out the words while he bolted
+the last salt shreds of his pork. "Hurry up, you fellows! You're as slow
+as snails. I'd eat the jolliest meal that was ever cooked in three
+minutes."
+
+"No wonder you squirm and shout all night, then, until sane people with
+good digestions feel ready to blow your head off," laughed Cyrus, who
+was one of the laggards; but he disposed of the last mouthfuls of his
+own meal with little regard for his digestive canal.
+
+In rather less than twenty minutes the four were scanning with wide eyes
+certain fresh foot-marks, plainly printed on a patch of soft oozing
+clay, midway on the boggy tract.
+
+"Whew! Bless me! Those caribou-tracks?" Cyrus caught his breath with
+amazement while he crouched to examine them. "Why, they're bigger than
+any moose-tracks we've seen!"
+
+"Isn't that great?" gasped Dol.
+
+"Well, come to think of it, it is," answered the guide, in the stealthy
+tones of an expectant hunter; "for a full-grown bull-caribou don't stand
+so high as a full-sized moose by two or three feet, and he don't weigh
+more'n half as much. Still, for all that, caribou deer beat every other
+animal of the deer tribe, so far's I know, in the size of their hoofs,
+as you'll see bime-by if luck's with us! And my stars! how they scud
+along on them big hoofs. I'd back 'em in a race against the smartest of
+your city chaps that ever spun through Maine on his new-fangled 'wheel,'
+that he's so sot on."
+
+Garst, who was an enthusiastic cyclist, with a gurgle of unbelieving
+mirth, prepared to dispute this. There might have ensued a wordy
+sparring about caribou versus bicycle, had not the guide been impressed
+with the necessity for prompt action at the expense of speech.
+
+"We must quit our talk and get a move on," he whispered, and led the
+forward march across the bog, his eyes every now and again narrowing
+into two gleaming slits, as if he were debating within himself, while he
+studied the ground or some bush which showed signs of being nibbled or
+trampled. Then he would sweep the horizon with long-range vision.
+
+But not a tuft of hair or glancing horn hove in sight.
+
+The marsh was left behind. The hoof-marks were lost in a wide meadowy
+sweep of open ground, bounded at a distance by an irregular line of
+hills, sparsely covered with spruce-trees.
+
+Towards these Herb headed, leaving Katahdin away back in the rear.
+
+"'Shaw! I'm afeard they're 'nowhere' by this time," he whispered, when
+the hunters reached the rising ground, glancing at Dol, who stepped
+lightly beside him.
+
+The boy's lips parted to breathe out compressed disappointment; but his
+answer was lost in a sharp whirr! whirr! and a sudden flutter of wings
+above his head. His eyes went aloft towards a bough about eight feet
+from the ground. So did Herb's, and lit with a new, whimsical hope.
+
+"A spruce partridge!" hissed the guide, his voice thrilling even in its
+stealthy whisper. "That's luck--dead sure! The Injuns say, 'The red eye
+never tells a lie;'" and the woodsman pointed out the strip of bare red
+skin above the beady eyes of the bird, which cuddled itself on its
+branch, and looked down at them unfrighted.
+
+Dol Farrar, who in this region of moose-birds and moose-calls could
+believe in anything, felt both his spirits and credulity rise together.
+He managed to keep abreast of the trained hunter, as the latter, with
+swift, stretching, silent steps climbed the hill. And he heard the
+hunter's sudden cluck of triumph as he reached the top, and looked down
+upon the valley at the other side, the inarticulate sound being followed
+by one softly rung word,--
+
+"Caribou!"
+
+"Caribou? They look awfully like quiet Alderney cows, except for the big
+antlers!" The amazed exclamation stirred the English boy's tongue, but
+he did not make it audible.
+
+Following Herb's example, he stretched himself flat upon his stomach
+under a spruce, and stared over the brow of the hill at a forest
+pantomime which was being acted in the valley.
+
+Cautiously slipping from tree to tree, Cyrus and Neal, who had lagged a
+few steps behind, joined the leaders, and lay low, eagerly gazing too.
+
+On its farther side the hill was yet more sparsely covered, the
+scattered spruces showing gaps between them where the lumberman's axe
+had made havoc. Through these openings, which were as shafts of light
+amid the evergreen's waving play, the hunters saw the sun silver a brown
+pool in the valley. A few maples and birches waved their shrivelling
+splendors of scarlet and buff at irregular distances from the water. And
+in and out among these trees moved in graceful woodland frolic four or
+five large animals,--perhaps more,--their doings being plainly seen by
+the watchers on the hill.
+
+Their coats, like those of the smaller deer, were of a brown which
+seemed to have caught its dye from the autumnal tints surrounding them.
+In shape they justified Dol's criticism; for they certainly were not
+unlike cows of the Alderney breed, save for the widely branching horns.
+
+Of the strength of these antlers the hidden spectators got sudden,
+startling proof, as the two largest caribou drew off from the rest, and
+charged each other in a real or sham fight, the battle-clang of their
+meeting horns sounding far away to the hill-top.
+
+"Them two bulls are having a big time of it. Look at 'em now, with the
+small one. That's a stranger in the herd," hummed Herb into the ear of
+the boy next to him, his voice so light and even that it might have been
+but the murmur of a falling leaf. "It's an all-fired pity that we're
+jest too far off for a shot."
+
+The "stranger," which the woodsman's long-range eye had singled out, was
+of a smaller size and paler color than the other caribou; and Herb--who
+could interpret the forest pantomime far better than he would have
+explained the acting of human beings on a stage--told his companions in
+whispers and signs that it was in distressed dread of its company.
+
+The attentions which the rest paid to it seemed at first only friendly
+and facetious. The two big bulls, after trying their mettle against each
+other for a minute, separated, and moved towards it, prodded it lightly
+with their horns, and playfully bit its sides, a sport in which the
+other members of the herd joined.
+
+"They're playing it, like a cat with a mouse; but I guess they'll murder
+it in the long run if it's sickly or weak. Caribou are the biggest
+bullies in these woods--to each other," whispered Herb.
+
+"By the great horn spoon! they're doing for it now," he gasped, a minute
+later. "Sho!... if I only had my old Winchester here, I'd soon stop
+their lynching. Try it, you, Cyrus! You're a sure shot, an' you can
+creep within a hundred yards of 'em without being scented. Try it, man!"
+
+The guide's flashing eyes and quick signs conveyed half his meaning; his
+excited sentences were so low that Garst only caught fag-ends of them.
+But they were emphasized unexpectedly by a faint bleating sound rising
+from the valley,--the helpless bleat of a buffeted creature.
+
+"We want meat, and I'm going to spring a surprise on those bullies,"
+muttered Cyrus, setting his teeth.
+
+Still lying flat, he shot his eyes down the hill-slope, forming a plan
+of descent; then he lifted the rifle beside him, and jammed some fresh
+cartridges into the magazine.
+
+Ere a dozen long breaths had been drawn, he was stealthily moving
+towards the valley, slipping from spruce to spruce--an arrowlike,
+unnoticeable figure in his dark gray tweeds.
+
+He was close to the foot of the hill when the three breathless fellows
+above saw him raise his rifle, just as the unfortunate little caribou,
+after many efforts to escape, had been beaten to its knees.
+
+"He'll drop one, sure! He's a crack shot--is Cyrus! There! he's drawing
+bead. Bravo!... he's floored the biggest!"
+
+Herb's gusty breath blew the sentences through his nostrils, while the
+sudden, explosive bang of the Winchester cut through all other sounds,
+and set the air a-quiver.
+
+Twice Cyrus fired.
+
+The largest bull-caribou leaped three feet upward, wheeled about,
+staggered to his knees. A third shot stopped his bullying forever.
+
+"Hurrah! I guess you've got the leader--the best of the herd. That other
+bull was a buster too! You might ha' dropped him, if you'd been in the
+humor!" bellowed the guide, springing to his legs, and letting out his
+pent-up wind in a full-blast roar of triumph.
+
+He well knew that Cyrus, "being a queer specimen sportsman," and the
+right sort after all, would be satisfied with the one inevitable deed of
+death.
+
+As their leader fell, the caribou raised their heads, stared in
+stiffened wonder for a few seconds, offering a steady mark for the
+smoking rifle if it had been in the grasp of a butcher. Then, as though
+propelled by one shock, they cut for the wood at dazzling speed.
+
+A minute--and they were in the distance as tufts of hair blown before a
+storm-wind.
+
+The half-killed weakling sought shelter more slowly in another
+direction.
+
+"Well done, Cy!"
+
+"Congratulations, old man!"
+
+"You've got a trophy now. You'll never leave this splendid head behind.
+My eye, what antlers!"
+
+Such were the exclamations blown to Garst's ears by the hot breath of
+his English friends, as they reached his side, and stooped with him to
+examine the fallen forest beauty.
+
+"No; I guess we can manage to haul the head back to camp, with as much
+meat as we need. You'll have your 'chunk of caribou-steak as big as a
+horse's upper lip,' to-night, Herb, and bigger if you want it. I'm
+tickled at getting the antlers, especially as I didn't shoot this beauty
+for the sake of them. I'll hook them on my shoulders when we start back
+to Millinokett to-morrow."
+
+So answered the successful hunter, tingling with some pride in the skill
+which, because of his reverence for all life, he generally kept out of
+sight.
+
+And he stuck to his purpose about the antlers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Cheered and invigorated by a sumptuous supper and breakfast of broiled
+caribou-steaks, supplemented by Herb's lightest cakes, and carrying some
+of the meat with them as provision for the way, the campers accomplished
+their backward tramp to the log camp on Millinokett Lake in fulness of
+strength and spirits.
+
+Once or twice during the journey, when the guide was stalking ahead, and
+thought himself unnoticed, the city fellows saw him lift his right hand
+and look at it for a full minute. Then it swung heavily back to his
+side.
+
+"He's missing his rifle, the partner that never went back on him," said
+Cyrus. "Say, boys! I've got an idea!"
+
+"Out with it if it's worth anything," grunted Dol. "I never have ideas
+these days. Too much doing. I don't feel as if there was a steady peg in
+me to hang one on."
+
+"Oh! quit your nonsense, Chick, and listen. Herb will wait for us in a
+few minutes," was the Boston man's impatient rejoinder.
+
+Then followed a low-toned consultation, in the course of which such talk
+as this was heard:--
+
+"Our Pater will want to shell out when he hears about Chris."
+
+"So will mine. He'll be for sending Herb a cool five hundred or thousand
+dollars, right away. And, as likely as not, Herb would feel flaring mad,
+and ready to chuck it in his face. He's not the sort of fellow to stand
+being paid by an outsider for a plucky act, done in the best hour of his
+life."
+
+"Oh, I say! wouldn't it be decenter to manage the thing ourselves,
+without letting anybody who doesn't know him meddle in it?" This
+suggestion was in Dol's voice. "Neal and I could draw our allowances for
+three months in advance; the Pater will be willing enough. We'll be
+precious hard up without them, but we'll rub through somehow. Then you
+can chip in an even third, Cy, and we'll order an A I rifle,--the best
+ever invented, from the best company in America,--silver plate, with his
+name,--and all the rest of it. I'd swamp my allowance for a year to see
+Herb's face when he gets it."
+
+"That's the plan! You do have occasional moments of wisdom, Dol; I'll
+say that much for you," commented the leader. "Well, Herb has taken a
+special sort of liking to you. You may tip him a hint to wait in
+Greenville for a few days, and not to go looking for second-hand rifles
+till he hears from us. Better not say anything until we're just parting.
+Ten to one, though, you'll blurt the whole thing out in some harebrained
+minute, or give it away in your sleep."
+
+"Blow me if I do!" answered Dol solemnly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+DOC AGAIN.
+
+
+Herb, turning back at that minute to wait for his party, experienced a
+shock of curiosity which was new to him, at seeing the three in close
+counsel, shouldering each other upon a trail a couple of feet wide.
+
+But the sensation passed. Dol for once was not guilty of an
+indiscretion, waking or sleeping. The woodsman got no hint of what
+matter had been discussed until more than two weeks later, when he stood
+in the main street of Greenville, beside a tanned, muscular, newly
+shaven trio, waiting for their departure for Boston.
+
+A few pleasant days, marked by no particular excitements, had been spent
+at the log camp on Millinokett after that wonderful trip into the
+forests of Katahdin. Then the weather turned suddenly blustering and
+cold; and Cyrus, as captain, ordered an immediate forced march to
+Greenville.
+
+Under Herb's guidance that march was made with singularly few hardships.
+He managed to hire a "jumper" from a new settler who had a farm a couple
+of miles from their camp. This contrivance was a rough sort of sled,
+formed of two stout ash saplings, and hitched to a courageous horse. The
+"jumper's" one merit was that it could travel along many a rough trail
+where wheels would be splintered at the outset. But since, as Herb said,
+it went at "a succession of dead jumps," no camper was willing to trust
+his bones to its tender mercies. However, it answered admirably for
+carrying the tent, knapsacks, and trophies of the party, tightly
+strapped in place, including Neal's bear-skin, which was duly called
+for, and the moose-antlers, more precious in Dol's sight than if they
+had been made of beaten gold.
+
+Thus the campers journeyed homeward with their backs as light as their
+spirits, caring little for the chills of a couple of nights spent under
+canvas and rubber coverings.
+
+Two gala evenings they had,--one with Uncle Eb in his bark hut near
+Squaw Pond, where they were regaled with a sumptuous supper, for "coons
+war in eatin' order now;" and the second with Doctor Phil Buck at his
+little frame house near Moosehead Lake.
+
+Dear old Doc was as ever a power,--a power to welcome, uplift,
+entertain.
+
+The campers sought him immediately on their arrival at Greenville; and
+he stood by them while Cyrus made a full statement before the local
+coroner about the death and burial of the half-breed, Chris Kemp, the
+Farrars and Herb confirming what was said with due dignity.
+
+But dignity was blown to the four winds by the very unprofessional and
+very woodsman-like cheer that Doc raised, and that was echoed
+thunderously by Joe Flint and a few other guides and loungers who had
+collected to hear the story, when Cyrus described the splendid rush
+which Herb made, with the dying man in his arms, and the clay of the
+landslide half smothering him.
+
+"I'm sorry I wasn't near to try and do something for the poor fellow,"
+said the doctor, later on, when his friends were gathered round a
+blazing wood-fire in his own snug house. "But I doubt if I could have
+helped him. I guess he was born with the hankering for whiskey, and when
+that is in the mongrel blood of a half-breed it is pretty sure to wreck
+him some time. We must leave him to God, boys, and to changes larger
+than we know."
+
+"I've a letter for you, Neal," added the host presently in a lighter
+tone. "It was directed to my care. It is from Philadelphia, from Royal
+Sinclair, I think."
+
+Neal slit the envelope which was handed to him, and read the few lines
+it contained aloud, with a longing burst of laughter.
+
+Royal was as short with his pen as he was dash-away with his tongue. The
+letter was a brief but pressing invitation to Cyrus and the Farrars to
+visit their camping acquaintances of the Maine wilds at the Sinclairs'
+home in Philadelphia before the English boys recrossed the Atlantic.
+
+"Come you must!" wrote Roy. "We've promised to give a big spread, and
+invite all the crowd we train with to meet you. We'll have a great old
+time, and bring out our best yarns. Don't let me catch you refusing!"
+
+[Illustration: GREENVILLE,--"FAREWELL TO THE WOODS."]
+
+"We won't if we can help it," commented Neal; "if only we can coax the
+Pater to give us another week in jolly America."
+
+The campers slept upon mattresses that night for the first time in many
+weeks.
+
+The following morning saw them grouped in the main street of Greenville,
+with Doc and Herb on hand for a final farewell, waiting for the
+departure of the coach which was to bear them a little part of the way
+towards Boston civilization.
+
+Dol was turning over in his jostled thoughts the delicate wording of the
+hint which he was to convey to Herb about the rifle, when he became
+aware that Doctor Phil was pinching his shoulder, and saying, while he
+drew Neal's attention in the same way:--
+
+"Well, you fellows! I'm glad to have known you. If you ever come to
+Maine again, remember that there's one old forest fogy who'll have a
+delightful welcome for you in his house or camp, not to speak of the
+thing he calls his heart. And I hope you'll keep a pleasant corner in
+your memories for our Pine Tree State, and for American States
+generally, so far as you've seen them."
+
+Dol tried to answer; but recalling the evening when, wrecked at heart,
+with stinging feet, he had stumbled at last into the trail to Doc's
+camp, he could only mutter, "Dash it all!" and rub his leaking eyes.
+
+"Of course I'll think in an hour from now of all the things I want to
+say," began Neal helplessly, and stopped. "But I'll tell you how I feel,
+Doc," he added, with a sudden rush of breath: "I think I can never see
+your Stars and Stripes again without taking off my hat to them, and
+feeling that they're about equal to my own flag."
+
+"Neatly put, Neal! I couldn't have done it better," laughed Cyrus.
+
+"Shake!" and Doc offered his hand in a heart-grip, while the hairs on it
+bristled. "Boy! long life to that feeling. You men who are now being
+hatched will show us one day what Young England and Young America, as a
+grand brotherhood under comrade flags, can do to give this old earth a
+lift which she has never had yet towards peace and prosperity. We're
+looking to you for it!"
+
+"Hur-r-r-rup!" cheered Herb, subduing his shout to the requirements of a
+settlement, but sending his battered hat some ten feet into the air, and
+recovering it with a dexterous shoot of his long arm, by way of giving
+his friends an inspiring send-off.
+
+"Tell you what it is!" he said suddenly, turning upon the Farrars, "I
+never guided Britishers till now; but, wherever you sprung from, you're
+clean grit. If a man is that, it don't matter a whistle to me what
+country riz him."
+
+A few minutes afterwards, with a jingle, jangle, lurch, and rattle, the
+stage-coach was swaying its way out of Greenville. Dol, stooping from
+his seat upon it, gripped the guide's hand in a wringing good-by.
+
+"Herb," he said, "we three fellows want you to stay here for a few days,
+and not to do anything about a second-hand rifle until you hear from us.
+Mind!"
+
+And so it happened that, ten days or so later, while the three were
+enjoying the hospitalities of the Sinclairs and "their crowd" in the
+Quaker City, Herb, who was still in Greenville, waiting for a fresh
+engagement as guide, was accosted by the driver of the coach from
+Bangor.
+
+"Herb Heal, here's a bully parcel for you," said the Jehu, with a
+knowing grin. "Came from Boston, I guess. I war booked to take
+pertik'lar care of it."
+
+And Herb, feeling his strong fingers tingle, undid many wrappers, and
+hauled out, before the eyes of Greenville loungers, a rifle such as it
+is the desire of every Maine woodsman's heart to possess.
+
+A best grade, 45-90, half-magazine Winchester it was, fitted with
+shot-gun stock and Lyman sights, and bearing a gleaming silver plate, on
+which was prettily lettered:--
+
+  HERB HEAL
+  IN MEMORY OF OCTOBER, 1891.
+
+Underneath was engraved a miniature pine, its trunk bearing three sets
+of initials.
+
+Herb stalked straight off a distance of one mile to Doctor Buck's house,
+pushed the door open as if it had been the door of a wilderness camp,
+and shot himself into Doc's little study.
+
+"Look what those three gamy fellows have sent me," he said; and his eyes
+were now like Millinokett Lake under a full sun-burst. "I thought the
+old one was a corker, but this"--
+
+Here the woodsman's dictionary gave out.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+CHRISTMAS ON THE OTHER SIDE.
+
+
+"'Christmas, 1893.' Those last two figures are a bit crooked; aren't
+they, Dol?" said a tall, soldierly fellow, who was no longer a boy, yet
+could scarcely in his own country call himself a man.
+
+He read the date critically, having fixed it as the centre-piece in a
+festive arch of holly and bunting, which spanned the hall of a mansion
+in Victoria Park, Manchester.
+
+"I believe that's better," he added, straightening a tipsy "93," and
+bounding from a chair-back on which he was perched, to step quickly
+backward, with a something in gait and bearing that suggested a cavalry
+swing.
+
+"'Christmas, 1893,'" he read musingly again. "Goodness! to think it's
+two years since we laid eyes on old Cyrus, and that he has landed on
+English soil before this, may be here any minute--and Sinclair too. I
+guess"--these two words were brought out with a smile, as if the speaker
+was putting himself in touch with the happiness of a by-gone time--"I
+guess that 'Star-Spangled Banner' will look home-like to them."
+
+And Neal Farrar, just back for a short vacation from Sandhurst Military
+College, twice gravely saluted the gay bunting with which his Christmas
+arch was draped, where the Union Jack of old England kissed the American
+Stars and Stripes.
+
+"I say!" he exclaimed, turning to a tall youth, who had been inspecting
+his operations, "that Liverpool train must be beastly late, Dol. Those
+fellows ought to be here before this. The Mater will be in a stew. She
+ordered dinner at five, as the youngsters dine with us, of course,
+to-day, and it's past that now."
+
+"Hush! will you? I'll vow that cab is stopping! Yes! By all that's
+splendid, there they are!" and Dol Farrar's joy-whoop rang through the
+English oaken hall with scarcely less vehemence than it had rung in
+former days through the dim aisles of the Maine forests.
+
+A sound of spinning cab-wheels abruptly stopping, a noise of men's feet
+on the steps outside, and the hall-door was flung wide by two pairs of
+welcoming hands.
+
+"Cyrus! Royal! Got here at last? Oh! but this is jolly."
+
+"Neal, dear old boy, how goes it? Dol, you're a giant. I wouldn't have
+known you."
+
+Such were the most coherent of the greetings which followed, as two
+visitors, in travelling rig, their faces reddened by eight days at sea
+in midwinter, crossed the threshold.
+
+There could be no difficulty in recognizing Cyrus Garst's well-knit
+figure and speculative eyes, though a sprouting beard changed somewhat
+the lower part of his face. And if Royal Sinclair's tall shoulders and
+brand-new mustache were at all unfamiliar, anybody who had once heard
+the click and hum of his hasty tongue would scarcely question his
+identity.
+
+The Americans had steamed over the Atlantic amid bluster of elements,
+purposing a tour through southern France and Italy. And they were to
+take part, before proceeding to the Continent, in the festivities of an
+English Christmas at the Farrars' home in Manchester.
+
+"Oh, but this is jolly!" cried Neal again, his voice so thickened by the
+joy of welcome that--embryo cavalry man though he was--he could bring
+out nothing more forceful than the one boyish exclamation.
+
+Dol's throat was freer. Sinclair and he raised a regular tornado in the
+handsome hall. Questions and answers, only half distinguishable, blew
+between them, with explosions of laughter, and a thunder of claps on
+each other's shoulders. When their gale was at its noisiest, Royal's
+part of it abruptly sank to a dead calm, stopped by "an angel unawares."
+
+A girl of sixteen, with hair like the brown and gold of a pheasant's
+breast, opened a drawing-room door, stepped to Neal's side, and
+whispered,--
+
+"Introduce me!"
+
+"My sister," said Neal, recovering self-possession. "Myrtle, I believe
+I'll let you guess for yourself which is Garst and which is Sinclair."
+
+"Well, I've heard so much about you for the past two years that I know
+you already, all but your looks. So I'm sure to guess right," said
+Myrtle Farrar, scrutinizing the Americans with a pretty welcoming
+glance, then giving to each a glad hand-shake.
+
+Royal's tongue grew for once less active than his eyes, which were so
+caught by the golden shades on the pheasant-like head that for a minute
+he could see nothing else. Even Cyrus, who was accustomed to look upon
+himself as the cool-blooded senior among his band of intimates, tingled
+a little.
+
+"You're just in time for dinner--I'm so glad," laughed Miss Myrtle. "A
+Christmas dinner with a whole tribe of Farrars, big and little."
+
+"But our baggage hasn't come on yet," answered Garst ruefully. "Will
+Mrs. Farrar excuse our appearing in travelling rig?"
+
+"Indeed she will!" answered for herself a fair, motherly-looking English
+woman, as pretty as Myrtle save for the gold-brown hair, while she came
+a few steps into the hall to welcome her sons' friends.
+
+Five minutes afterwards the Americans found themselves seated at a table
+garlanded with red-berried holly, trailing ivy, and pearl-eyed
+mistletoe, and surrounded by a round dozen of Farrars, including several
+youngsters whose general place was in schoolroom or nursery, but who,
+even to a tot of three, were promoted to dine in splendor on Christmas
+Day.
+
+"Well, this is festive!" remarked Cyrus to Myrtle, who sat next to him,
+when, after much preparatory feasting, an English plum-pudding,
+wreathed, decorated, and steaming, came upon the scene. Fluttering amid
+the almonds which studded its top were two wee pink-stemmed flags. And
+here again, in compliment to the newly arrived guests, the
+"Star-Spangled Banner" kissed the English Union Jack.
+
+"Say, Neal!" exclaimed Cyrus, his eyes keenly bright as he looked at the
+toy standards, "wouldn't this sort of thing delight our friend Doc? By
+the way, that reminds me, I have a package for you from him, and a
+message from Herb Heal too. Herb wants to know 'when those gamy
+Britishers are coming out to hunt moose again?' And Doc has sent you a
+little bundle of beaver-clippings. They are from an ash-tree two feet in
+circumference, felled by that beaver colony which we came across near
+the _brulee_ where you shot your bear and covered yourself with glory.
+Doc asked you to put the wood in sight on Christmas Night, and to think
+of the Maine woods."
+
+"Think of them!" Neal ejaculated. "Bless the dear old brick! does he
+think we could ever forget them and the stunning times we had in camp
+and on trail?"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Camp and Trail, by Isabel Hornibrook
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