The Outdoor Chums in the Big Woods: or, Rival Hunters of Lumber Run

“I think that would be a good plan to follow, Jerry, and you deserve great credit for thinking of it,” he remarked presently, which of course caused the other chum to feel more or less satisfaction.

“Who’ll do the cutting up; and who wants to make the sledge?” asked Bluff, after a little time had elapsed and they felt that something should be gotten under way looking to a move; for faster now was the snow falling, and it might be that the storm was about to break over their heads.

“I think you’re more experienced about carving and taking pelts off than I am,” Jerry expostulated. “To tell you the honest truth, I never removed a hide in all my life, though I’ve had sections of my own knocked off by a rattan at school many a time.”

Possibly Bluff had more than half expected that the decision would result that way. To tell the truth, he was not much bothered, for he rather liked the task of taking the moose’s tough hide off and severing his head so that it might be transported the easier to their far-distant lodge.

“Then that means, Jerry, you’ll start in making a sledge; not a fancy one, but just serviceable enough to carry what we want over the snow, no matter how deep it gets.”

The last part of what Bluff said was no doubt inspired by the fact that the snow was now falling heavily. There could hardly be any question but that the long-anticipated storm had now arrived, and seemed anxious to make up for lost time.

“I think I can manage, if only there happens to be some decent wood handy to make the runners out of,” Jerry told his comrade, with conviction in his manner.

“How would these young second-growth ash slips do?” asked the other. “You can split one down, and then bend it better. But I’m going to leave all that to you, Jerry. Do your best with your little hatchet. Remember, George Washington came by a lot of fame through his.”

Jerry turned to hurry over to the thicket of ash sprouts that had started up a year or so before, where a large tree had been cut down. He did not make three steps in that direction before he came to a sudden halt.

Bluff, who had drawn his hunting knife and with grim resolution was stooping over the moose, heard him give a low cry.

“Bluff! Look what’s bearing down on us!” Jerry said weakly, as though some fresh disaster were looming above the horizon.

It did not take Bluff long to discover what kind of trouble it was by which they were about to be faced. Moving figures could be seen. They were heading directly toward where the dead moose lay, as though the sound of their double shot had carried through the woods and drawn these others to the spot.

Although indistinctly seen, on account of the gathering gloom and the curtain of falling snow-flakes that swept past on the fierce wind, there was no mistaking the tall figure of Bill Nackerson and the more sturdy ones of his two companion sportsmen.

A sense of coming trouble immediately weighed on the minds of Bluff and Jerry, as they awaited the coming of the men.

CHAPTER XX – ROBBED OF THE SPOILS

“Had we better move along out of here?” asked Jerry, as he looked doubtfully toward the quarter whence the three sportsmen were hastily advancing.

“What for?” demanded Bluff truculently.

“You know what Bill Nackerson threatened to do if ever the chance came his way,” Jerry replied. “We’re outnumbered three to two.”

His words implied that had there been an even showing he might not have thought of leaving.

Bluff knew that their best policy under the circumstances would be to walk away and avoid any trouble with the men. He also remembered promising Frank not to take any unnecessary chances, no matter what came up.

At the same time, Bluff was a poor loser. By that it must not be understood that when fairly beaten he would try to find fault and call his defeat an accident, for Bluff was always the first to congratulate a victor, even though he might be one of the victims. But he hated to give anything up.

So he looked first at the three men, who were now drawing very near; then he allowed his gaze to rest upon the form of the dead moose. It was, as Bluff himself afterward expressed it, “like drawing his eyeteeth to let that bully moose slip out of his possession.”

“Don’t let’s hurry too much,” he told Jerry, as a sort of compromise decision. “Perhaps, after all, they’ll just give us a hauling over the coals, and move on, leaving the game to us.”

“I hope so,” muttered Jerry rather disconsolately.

Then his face suddenly lighted up, as with the coming of an idea. Jerry was always a great hand for conceiving plans on the spur of the moment. Sometimes they had a germ of good in them, and again they only aroused the laughter of his comrades.

“Oh, Bluff, I’ve just thought of something!” he exclaimed, lowering his voice a little, because he was afraid that one of the advancing sportsmen might overhear.

“Shucks! Is that so, Jerry,” remarked the other, who as a rule did not have a great deal of faith in anything Jerry conceived. “Then hurry up and let’s hear what it is.”

“They’re three, and we only count two, all told,” Jerry began.

“Tell me something new!” muttered the other impatiently.

“And maybe if Frank and Will were along they wouldn’t feel so bossy, because the tables would be turned then, four against three.”

“But our chums are a good many miles from here,” interposed Bluff, with fine scorn.

“Yes; but you see the men don’t know that!” said Jerry.

“Hey! Do you mean we might pull the wool over their eyes and make out we had backing near by? Is that what you’re aiming at?”

“No harm done in trying it, is there? It might work. Even if that fire-eating Bill didn’t show cold feet, his two friends would advise him not to go too far. How about it, Bluff; don’t you think it’s a good scheme?”

Bluff grinned.

“Well,” he hastened to say, “I don’t think it will cut much of a figure. Chances are we’re going to be cheated out of our prize; and that’ll make me sore, I tell you.”

“But, Bluff, please remember what we promised Frank,” urged Jerry, who had a streak of caution in his make-up, though no one had ever thought to term him timid.

“Oh, I don’t mean to stir him up so he’ll tackle us,” returned Bluff; “but there’s one thing I never will stand for.”

“Tell me what that is, won’t you, Bluff?”

“We mustn’t let him lay a hand on us,” said the other grimly; “and under no consideration, Jerry, allow them to take our guns away. Why, what would become of us if we found ourselves adrift in the Big Woods after a storm and without any way of defending ourselves or getting game?”

“You’re right, Bluff; but what if they make a move to do it?”

“Cover ’em right away, and threaten to let fly; when they see we mean business, I reckon they’ll hold Bill back. Now stop talking, because here they come!”

Jerry drew a long breath, and waited for further developments. They would not be long in coming, for the three sportsmen had by this time almost reached the spot where the boys stood, close to the fallen moose.

Already the men could be heard expressing in loud tones their astonishment at seeing what noble game had fallen to the guns of the outdoor chums. This in itself was positive proof that they had not up to then been aware that the big moose was anywhere in the vicinity. It proved to the boys the absurdity of the high-handed claim which later on Bill Nackerson chose to make.

“Hey, look there, Bill, what they’ve downed!” the man who went by the name of Whalen was heard to exclaim. “I’ll be hanged if it ain’t that giant moose you cut loose at both years we were up here before!”

Nackerson’s face was a study. He stared as though hardly able to believe his eyes. Besides the look of wonder, there crept across his evil face one of growing chagrin and anger. Bluff could understand how this might be, after hearing how Bill had on several occasions tried to down the wonderful moose, only to meet with dismal failure.

And no doubt while he continued to advance, staring, and breathing fast, the bold scheme was hatched in Bill Nackerson’s brain which he proceeded to put into execution.

It was not a new idea. The same claim has often led to conflicts over fallen game, where rival hunters disputed its possession.

“So, it’s just as we thought, fellows, and the old bull moose didn’t run many miles after I gave him that last shot! I told you if we kept on following his trail we’d run onto him sooner or later. But what do you kids want here, hanging over my game? Tell me that!”

Jerry had to put out a hand to steady himself against a neighboring pine, he was so staggered by the audacity of this remark. Why, the man was actually claiming that he had shot the big moose, after their following the animal so many miles through the snow forest! No wonder it took Jerry’s breath away. He could not have uttered a single word had his life depended on it.

Bluff, however, was not quite so taken aback. Possibly he may even have suspected that something like this would be attempted; because on no other grounds could the rival hunters claim the spoils of the hunt as their property. So Bluff allowed himself a little sneering laugh.

“Oh, it was you who shot this moose, was it, Mr. Nackerson?” he remarked.

The man did not like the way these words were spoken, but he was playing a bold game, of which any honest hunter would have been ashamed, and felt that he must carry it through to the end.

“That’s what it was, boy,” he declared, with a black scowl. “If you look, you can see where my bullet struck him in the body, just back of where I aimed. A deer or moose will always run a long distance after being hit between the ribs that way; ain’t that so, Whalen?”

Whalen made no reply. Perhaps he was so astonished by the audacity of Bill’s claim that he could not catch his breath.

“Well, now, that’s queer,” Bluff went on, determined to have some say in the matter, even if finally cheated out of his just rights; “here my chum and I have been thinking we were following that moose’s trail all the way from our camp, a matter of as much as eight miles, more or less. And, say, we even believed we fired a double shot just now at him, while he was standing here browsing on that branch. Jerry, we sure must have been dreaming all that!”

“I guess you were, kid,” the man continued, without allowing a flicker of a smile to cross his face, although both of his companions wore wide grins. “You may have got up just in time to set eyes on my moose before he keeled over; but don’t let me catch you trying to claim a hand in landing him; hear that?”

“If, as you say, Mr. Nackerson,” Bluff went on doggedly, “you shot him a long ways back and he’s just dropped here through exhaustion, why, of course you can show us marks of blood all along his trail.”

“What’s that you say, you young cub?” demanded the other angrily.

“When a deer’s badly wounded, he leaves a trail of red on the snow that even a half-blind man could see,” Bluff told him boldly. “If you can show us even one mark twenty feet away from here we’ll never put in any claim for the killing.”

It was a fair challenge; but of course, as Bill Nackerson’s claim was founded on sand, he would never dream of accepting it. Bluff knew as much when he said what he did, for he had sized the other up long ago for just what he was – a bully and an unfair sportsman, who did not care how he secured his game so long as he got it.

“What do you take me for, to be forced to prove my word against a couple of impudent kids?” he roared; for when men realize that they are in the wrong they often like to whip themselves into a passion.

“But if you look, you’ll find there are two bullets in that moose; and they’ll turn out to be of the same pattern we use in our guns,” Bluff continued, meaning to rub it in as hard as he could before being compelled to retreat, as he fully expected would be the ultimate outcome of the encounter.

“That’ll do for you, youngster,” said the man, with a snarl. “I tell you this moose belongs to me. I shot it, and we’ve been on the trail of the wounded animal for a long time. That goes, mind you! Not another word, now, or I may take a notion to kick you out of here, minus your precious guns!”

He even advanced a step in a threatening manner. Instantly Bluff half-raised his gun, and the way he looked at Nackerson caused the other to hesitate. At the same instant the two men who were with him laid hands on his arms.

“Hold on, Bill, leave the kids alone!” Whalen said soothingly, as though startled at the possibility of a tragedy following this piratical act on the part of their companion.

“Let ’em clear out, then, and in a big hurry!” growled Nackerson, making what seemed a violent effort to wrest his arms free, but which did not deceive Bluff, who knew that the other was not so anxious to shake off the grip of his companions as he pretended.

For one moment Bluff was even tempted to carry things to the point of demanding the departure of the three sportsmen, and thus leaving the moose to its lawful owners.

Before his mental vision came a glimpse of Frank’s face, and he remembered the promise he had made not to be rash. The chances were the three men would positively refuse to relinquish the moose, and it might even come to a free-for-all fight, in which the boys were apt to get the worst of it.

So Bluff, though much against his will, made up his mind he would have to bow to conditions, however unwelcome they might seem. It was a shame to have to yield those splendid horns to their rivals when the latter had no right, other than that of might, to carry them off.

“Don’t go to any bother about us, Mr. Nackerson,” Bluff went on to say, with as much sarcasm in his tones as he could summon. “We might feel like disputing your silly claim, only that would mean all sorts of trouble. But please change your mind about thinking of taking our guns away, because no matter what we had to do we never would stand for that, you know.”

The man twisted in the grip of his friends again. He acted as though wild to break away and fling himself on the boys, no matter if both guns were half raised and covering him. But somehow he did not succeed in freeing himself; Bluff considered that it was simply wonderful how those two wise friends managed to hold on to him.

“You’d better go, youngsters,” said Whalen; “we mightn’t be able to hold him back much longer, you see, he’s getting that crazy. And the sight of you aggravates him considerable.”

“Oh, is that so?” said Bluff jeeringly, though at the same time he took one backward step. “Well, I hope for his sake you can hold on a little while longer. I’d sure dislike to cripple any man, away up here so far away from a doctor; but if he jumps at us he’ll get his medicine right fast. And that’s straight goods, I’m telling you.”

“Come on, Bluff,” Jerry was saying, anxious to avoid trouble, yet not afraid; “perhaps we’d better be going, though I’ll always say that was our moose, and tell everybody what a thief did to us in the Big Woods.”

“Get away with you,” shouted Nackerson, “before I do you harm! I’d hate to lay a hand on a boy in anger; but you don’t want to rile me too much!”

“You didn’t hold back when you struck that poor relation of yours, Teddy, in the face, did you, Mr. Nackerson?” said Bluff boldly. “But we’re not afraid that you’ll bother trying the same on us. It makes considerable difference when a boy’s got a gun. If you ever laid a hand on me like you did Teddy, you’d live to be sorry for it.”

“Go – go!” snapped the man, now furiously angry, so that the others had to cling to him more tenaciously than ever for fear that he might break away, regardless of consequences.

“And as a last word,” added Bluff, “I want to tell you I’ve a hunch we’ll get that pair of moose horns yet, in spite of you,” with which he backed away from the scene of their triumph and defeat.

CHAPTER XXI – A CAMP IN THE SNOW

“I never hated to do anything so much in my life as break away from there and give up our moose!” Bluff told his comrade.

They had gone far enough back to lose sight of the three men in the swiftly driven snow that was now falling heavily.

“Me, too,” returned Jerry; “but that’s the way it happens sometimes. I only hope they find out they haven’t got a single match among ’em. Perhaps, then, if it keeps on getting colder, and the storm blows heavier and heavier, they’ll wish they hadn’t made us clear out.”

“Why, what are you talking about, Jerry?”

“Didn’t you hear what they started to say while we were backing away?” demanded the other. “Whalen asked the other man for a match, so they could start up a fire and get warm. Then I heard the second fellow say he didn’t know where he’d dropped the box, but it didn’t seem to be in his pockets. They turned to Nackerson, and I reckon asked him for a light, because I heard him growl that he’d used his last match when he smoked a cigar.”

“Oh, well, they’ll find some stray ones stowed away in a pocket, like as not!” Bluff remarked, and in that fashion allowed the incident to pass from his mind.

“But tell me what you’re aiming to do next, Bluff?” asked Jerry. “I’d also like to know which way you mean to play the game so’s to get back the horns of our big moose?”

Bluff chuckled on hearing that.

“Oh, I only said that to impress Bill, that’s all!” he observed carelessly. “I had to be true to my name, you know. I only wish I could see some way to beat that crowd out in the end. I’d sure go to a heap of trouble to get there.”

“Are we heading right to get back home?” asked Jerry, a few minutes later.

“My stars! I hope you don’t think I’m silly enough to want to try and cover all the miles between here and the cabin, and with this storm starting in, too.”

“Well, I’ll do whatever you say, Bluff, because I always did own up you knew more about the woods in a day than I could in a week; but all the same I’d be right glad to hear you mean to make a camp, and spend the night resting up.”

“I’m afraid it isn’t going to be much of a camp, though; you don’t want to expect too much.”

“Some sort of brush shelter ought to help out, I should think,” the other returned, as he bent his head lower in order to fight against the driving wind.

Night was coming on unusually early, on account of the clouds above and the falling snow. Any one who knew what these signs foretold could understand that there was a wild time ahead for those caught away from shelter and exposed to the fury of a growing blizzard.

“We might be able to do some better than that,” Bluff went on to say, as he kept turning his head from side to side, as though constantly on the lookout for something he had in mind.

Five, ten minutes passed, until they must have gone nearly half a mile away from the scene of their meeting with Nackerson and his cronies.

“Whew! Let me tell you this is going to be a screecher!” Jerry declared, while he rubbed his ears to make them burn, for the cold wind nipped them.

“You’re wondering why I don’t call a halt, Jerry, so I’ll explain,” Bluff told him. “I remembered seeing a place when we were moving along the trail of the moose where some trees had been uprooted in a storm years ago.”

“Yes, I noticed it, Bluff!” cried the other eagerly. “Is it on account of the firewood you want to get to those fallen trees?”

“Partly that,” admitted the other; “but p’raps you didn’t notice that one of the trees had been a regular whopper, for when it went down in the cyclone it yanked up a heap of earth nearly as big as a cabin.”

“Oh, now I see what you mean, Bluff: the hole in the ground where the roots came out of might make us a first-rate camp!”

“For a good many reasons,” pursued Bluff, who managed to speak after a fashion in spite of the wind whistling into his teeth and at times almost taking his breath away. “First of all, the roots stand up in the right way to protect us from the worst of this northwest storm.”

“Couldn’t be better, for a fact,” said Jerry, feeling his courage returning as the plan unfolded.

“Then, as you say, we’d have plenty of firewood handy for that little camp hatchet to get busy on. And unless I miss my guess we ought to be able to cover the gap more or less with stuff, so as to form a rough roof.”

“Then all I hope is,” Jerry told him rather plaintively, “that we don’t get off our base, and miss connections with that windrow of fallen trees.”

“I’ve kept my bearings right along,” Bluff returned, “and if you look sharp over there on the left I reckon you’ll see the open place where the trees are down.”

“Bluff, you did take us straight there, for a fact. I don’t think Frank or anybody else could have done better!” was Jerry’s exultant outbreak, after he discovered that they had arrived at their goal.

A minute afterward the two chums were looking down into the hole that had once contained the roots of the big tree, now lying where the violence of the hurricane had thrown it.

“Just the thing for us!” Jerry exclaimed, as he jumped into the cavity and mentally pictured it roofed over so that the snow might be almost wholly kept out.

“Then the first thing we want to do is to get a fire started,” Bluff advised him. “Before we know where we’re at, we’ll be in the dark; so let’s drag a bunch of this wood where we’ll need it before we do anything else.”

They laid their guns aside, leaning them against a tree that had weathered the gale so fatal to the giant of the woods. For some little time both boys labored steadily, until a heaping pile of fairly good wood had been brought close to the hole.

“Where’d we better start the fire?” asked Jerry, for he knew that a number of things must be considered when settling this question.

There was the direction of the wind to be remembered, for it would be very disagreeable to have the pungent wood smoke blown constantly in their faces, making their eyes smart. As the upturned roots stood between them and the storm, this compelled them to start the blaze on the opposite side of the excavation.

Once Jerry had the site pointed out to him, he busied himself in getting a blaze going. Things began to take on a more cheerful air as soon as the fire started crackling and throwing out both light and heat.

This was only a beginning. The boys knew that in order to shelter themselves from the blizzard they must get some sort of roof above their heads. This would keep off the falling snow that might otherwise almost fill the hole before morning came.

The hatchet proved to be worth its weight in silver, as Jerry declared.

“What would we have done without it?” he remarked several times, as he continued to hack away, handing the brush over to Bluff, who was engaged in trying to weave it after a certain fashion, securing it to the poles they had laid across the top of the hole.

“Don’t ask me,” Bluff told him; “thank Frank for telling us to bring it along, when like as not neither of us would have thought it worth while.”

“No,” continued Jerry, “because a fellow as a rule doesn’t expect to use a hatchet when he’s tracking a moose or a deer. All the same, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s best to have such a tool along whenever you even take a walk up here in these Maine woods. You never know when you may need it.”

“The roof’s half done,” announced Bluff. “Take a look, and tell me how you like it.”

“Seems like a good job, so far as I know,” the other commented. “I should say you’ve made a brush shelter that way more’n a few times before now.”

“Maybe I have,” was the reply, as Bluff once more set to work to finish the roof, leaving untouched the end through which they could pass in and out and receive the benefit of their fire.

“And when we’ve got all through building our house,” remarked Jerry, “it’ll be time to think of having a bite.”

“Huh! That’s another thing we’ve got to thank Frank for,” was the rejoinder. “It looks as though he might have seen what trouble we had in store for us, and fixed things to meet the need.”

“That’s Frank’s way,” commented Jerry, feeling very grateful to know that even though compelled to spend the night in such a crude camp he and Bluff need not lie and shiver for want of warmth or go hungry because of lack of food.

“It strikes me the storm keeps getting worse right along,” Bluff announced, as he was forced to push up to the fire in order to warm his stiff fingers.