Tom Fairfield's Hunting Trip: or, Lost in the Wilderness

“Hold on a minute!” Tom said, placing a hand on his chum’s shoulder. “What are you going to do?”

“Don’t go out,” advised Tom. “I don’t believe it’s the bear, to begin with, and, in the second place, if it is, you wouldn’t stand any chance of hitting him in this storm. And you might get lost. It’s a regular blizzard outside.”

“What makes you think it isn’t the bear?” asked Jack, ignoring Tom’s other reasons.

“Well, from the way the dog acts, for one thing,” was the answer. “He didn’t act that way before, when we had a plain sight of the trail, and Towser may even have come close to Bruin himself.”

“If it isn’t the bear – who is it – or – what is it?” demanded George.

“I don’t know,” was Tom’s frank reply.

“Let’s give a yell,” suggested Bert. “Maybe it’s Sam Wilson, or someone who could put us on the right road. I don’t fancy staying here all night if it can be helped. Let’s give a yell.”

“All right,” Tom agreed. “Here, Towser,” he went on to the dog, “come in here and behave yourself.”

But the animal did not seem so disposed. He remained in the doorway, looking out into the storm, now and then growling hoarsely in his throat, but showing no disposition to dash out. Certainly he was acting very strangely, but whether it was fear or anger the boys could not decide.

“Well, whoever it is, or whatever, we’ve got plenty of guns and ammunition,” remarked George. “We haven’t had a decent shot to-day.”

Which was very true. They had had great hopes, but that was all.

“Come on if we’re going to yell,” suggested Jack. “And if we don’t raise someone, we’ll prepare to stay here. It’s the best we can do, fellows.”

They united their voices in a shout, and the dog added to the din by barking. He seemed to feel better when the lads were making as much noise as they could.

But the echoes of the boys’ voices, blown back to them by the snow-laden wind, was all the answer they received. They waited, and called again, but no one replied to them. Nor, as at least George half-expected, did they hear the growls of a bear. The wind howled, the snow rattled on the sides and roof of the cabin, for the flakes were almost as hard as sleet. But that was all.

“Guess we’ll have to put up at this ‘hotel,’” said Bert, after a pause. The dog had quieted down now, as though whatever had aroused him had passed on.

“Let’s take a look around and see what we’ve drawn,” suggested Jack. “If there’s any wood, we can make a fire, and there must be some of that grub left.”

“There is,” announced Bert, who had constituted himself a sort of commissary department. “We’ve got some sandwiches, and I can make coffee.”

“That isn’t so bad,” remarked Tom. “Once we have a little feed, we’ll all feel better. And in the morning the storm may have stopped, so we can easily find our road. We’re on the right one, I’m sure, for that signboard said seven miles to Ramsen, and that’s in the direction of Camp No. 3.”

If Tom had only known about that changed signboard!

Each of the lads carried a powerful electric light, with a tungsten bulb. It was operated by a small, dry battery. It was intended only for a flashing light, of a second or so each time, but there was a switch arrangement so that the light could be held steady and permanent, though of course this used up the battery quickly.

“I’ll let my light burn,” proposed Tom. “It’s nearly burned out anyhow, and you fellows can save yours until later.”

“If we could have a fire, we wouldn’t need a light,” Bert said.

“That’s right,” agreed Tom. “Let’s look about a bit.”

There was a hearth in the main room of the deserted cabin, and on it were the ashes of a fire, long since dead and cold. But it seemed to show that the chimney would draw. Scattered about the room were pieces of old boxes and barrel staves, and a pile of these was soon set ablaze on the hearth.

“That looks better!” remarked Bert, with satisfaction, as he rubbed his hands in front of the blaze. “Now if we had a way of stopping up some of these broken windows, we wouldn’t be so cold.”

“Take some of those bags,” suggested Tom, indicating a pile in a corner. It looked like the bed of some chance tramp who had accepted the shelter the deserted shack offered.

The boys soon had the broken lights filled in, and when the tumble-down door had been propped up in the entrance, the cabin was not such a bad shelter, with a blazing fire going.

“Now for a look upstairs,” suggested Tom, for the cabin was of two stories, though the top one was very low.

“I’d rather eat,” suggested George.

“It won’t take long to investigate,” Tom said.

They went up the rickety stairs, but the trip hardly paid for their pains, for there was less upstairs than there was down. Some few rags, bits of broken bottles, boxes and barrels were seen, and that was all.

“And now for grub!” cried George, when they were once more in the main room downstairs. “Let’s get that coffee going, and eat what there is.”

The boys carried a coffee-pot with them, and a supply of the ground berries. Some snow was scooped up in the pot, which was set on the coals to provide the necessary water by melting the white crystals. Then the packages of sandwiches, rather depleted, it is true, were set out. A little later the aroma of the boiling beverage filled the room.

“That smells fine!” murmured Jack.

“It surely does,” agreed Bert. “Now for a feed.”

They all felt better after they had eaten what food was left from lunch. And surely they needed the grateful and stimulating warmth of the coffee, even though it was rather muddy, and was drunk out of tin cups they carried with them. They even had condensed milk and sugar, for these were carried in a case, in which fitted the pot and the ground coffee. This was one of Tom’s up-to-date discoveries.

To Towser were tossed the odds and ends of the sandwiches, and he ate them greedily, drinking some snow water which George melted for him in a tin he found in one corner of the cabin.

Then the boys prepared to spend the night in the deserted cabin. They sat about the fire, on improvised seats made from broken boxes, and watched the fire, which certainly was cheerful. They expected to only doze through the night, and hoped to get on the proper road by morning.

Suddenly the dog, which had been peacefully lying in front of the hearth, sprang up with a growl and bark. He startled the boys.

“Quiet!” commanded Tom, but the animal continued to growl.

“That’s funny,” remarked Jack.

“What is?” asked Tom. “Just because he barks on account of hearing something, or scenting something, that’s beyond us?”

“No, not that so much, but it’s a funny feeling I have,” said Jack. “I feel just as if we were being spied upon.”

“Spied upon!” repeated Tom. “Say, you’re as nervous as a girl, old man!”

Before Jack could reply, the dog had leaped up and rushed out into the storm through a small opening where the old door was only propped against the frame.

CHAPTER XVIII

LOST AGAIN

“Now what’s up?” cried Tom, as he made a rush after the dog. But he was too late. Towser was out in the snow.

“It’s that bear again,” George said.

“You’ve got bear on the brain,” commented Bert.

The boys looked out and listened, but they could neither see nor hear anything, and soon the dog came back. But, even as he reached the door, he turned and sent a challenging bark toward someone – or something.

“This sure is queer,” murmured Bert.

“And it’s queer what Jack said,” went on Tom. “About being spied upon. What do you mean, old man?”

“Just what I said,” was the answer. “Just before the dog gave the alarm, I had a feeling as though someone outside was keeping watch over this shack.”

“That sure is a funny feeling,” commented George. “Who would it be? There aren’t any persons up around here except Sam Wilson, or maybe some of those Indian guides he knows.”

“It might be one of the Indians,” suggested Bert. “They might be sneaking around, to see what they could pick up.”

“A wild animal wouldn’t make a fellow feel as I felt,” decided Jack. “But maybe I’m only fussy, and – ”

“You are – worse than a girl,” said Tom, with a laugh that took the sharpness out of the words. “I guess it’s only the storm, and the effect of being in a strange place. Now let’s settle down and take it easy. There’s no one outside.”

Once more they disposed themselves before the cheerful blaze, the dog stretching out at full length to dry his shaggy coat that was wet with melting snow.

“I wonder what sort of a place this was?” spoke Jack, at length.

“Must have been a hunter’s cabin,” suggested Tom.

“It’s too big for that. This looks as though people had lived in it once,” declared Bert. “Besides, it’s too near the road for a hunter to want to use it. I guess the family died off, or moved away, and there isn’t enough population up here to make it so crowded that they have to use this shack.”

“Well, it comes in handy for us,” remarked George. “I could go another sandwich, but – ”

“All the going you’ll do will be to go without,” laughed Bert, grimly. “There isn’t a crumb left, but I could manage to squeeze out some more coffee.”

“Better save it for morning,” advised Tom. “We’ll need it worse by then.”

The storm still raged, but inside the deserted cabin the boys were fairly comfortable. They had on thick, warm garments, and these, with the glowing fire, made them feel little of the nipping cold that prevailed with the blizzard.

The wind howled down the chimney, scattering the light ashes now and then, and filling the room with the pungent odor of smoke. Around some of the windows, where the rags were stuffed in the broken panes, little piles of sifted snow gathered.

At times the whole frail structure shook with the force of the blast, and at such times the boys would look at each other with a trace of fear on their faces. For the ramshackle structure might fall down on them.

But as it did not, after each recurrent windy outburst, they felt more confident. Perhaps the cabin was built stronger than they thought. The dog showed no uneasiness at these manifestations of Nature. He did not even open his eyes when the wind howled its loudest and blew its strongest. And, too, he seemed to have gotten over the strange fear that caused him to act so oddly.

The other boys had rather laughed at Jack’s “notion” of being “spied upon,” but had they been able to see through the white veil of snow that was falling all about the cabin, they would have realized that there is sometimes something like telepathy, or second sight. For, in reality, the boys were being observed by a pair of evil eyes.

And the evil eyes were set in an evil face, which, in turn belonged to the body of a man who had constructed for himself a rude shelter against the storm.

It was such a shelter as would be hastily built by a hunter caught in the open for the night – a sort of “lean-to,” with the open side away from the direction in which the wind blew. But it could not have been made in this storm, and, consequently, must have been put up before the blizzard began.

The lean-to showed signs of a practiced hand, for it was fairly comfortable, and the man in it chuckled to himself now and then as he looked over toward the deserted cabin.

The man was on the watch, and he had prepared for just this emergency. At times, when he heard the barking of the dog, a frown could have been seen on his face, had there been a light by which to observe it. But the lean-to was in absolute darkness, save what light was reflected by the white snow.

“I thought they’d end up here,” was the man’s muttered remark to himself, for he was all alone. “Yes, I thought they would. It’s the nearest shelter after they left the doctored signboard. Naturally they turned in here. That changed sign did the trick all right. Lucky I thought of it. Now I wonder what the next move will be?”

He did not answer himself for a few seconds, but crouched down, looking in the direction of the cabin, through the chinks of which shone the light of the fire.

“They’ll stay there until morning, I reckon,” communed the man to himself. “Then they’ll light out and try to find Ramsen. But they won’t locate it by going the way that sign pointed,” and he chuckled. “They’ll only get deeper in the woods, and then, if we can cut out that Fairfield from among the others, we’ll have him where we want him. If we can’t, we’ll manage to take him anyhow.”

He paused, as though to go over in his mind the details of the evil scheme he was plotting, and resumed:

“Yes, they’ll light out in the morning. I’ll have to follow ’em until I make sure which trail they take. Then the rest will be easy. It isn’t going to be any fun to stay here all night, but it will be worth the money, I guess.

“That is, if Skeel ponies up as he says he will. And if Skeel tries to cut up any funny tricks, and cheat me and Whalen, he’ll wish he never had. He’ll never try it twice!”

With another look out at the dimly lighted cabin, as if to make sure that none of those he was spying on had left, the man composed himself to pass the night in his somewhat uncomfortable shelter. He curled up in a big blanket and went to sleep. For he was a woodsman born and bred, and he thought nothing of staying out in the open, with only a little shelter, through a long, cold night. He was even comfortable, after his own fashion.

And slowly the night passed for our four friends in the deserted cabin.

They had managed to construct a rude sort of bed by placing old inside doors on some boxes. Their heavy mackinaws were covers, and the nearness of the fire on the hearth kept them warm. Occasionally, through the night, as one or another awoke from a doze, he would toss on more wood, to keep the blaze from going out.

The dog whined uneasily once or twice during the night, but he did not bark or growl. Perhaps he knew that the man in the lean-to was asleep also, and would not walk abroad to plot harm.

“Well, it’s still snowing,” remarked Tom, as he arose and stretched his cramped muscles.

“How do you know? Is it morning?” asked George, yawning.

“It’s an imitation of it,” Tom announced. “I looked out. It’s still snowing to beat the band.”

“Oh, for our cozy camp – any one of them!” sighed Jack. “Let’s have what’s left of that coffee, Bert, and then we’ll hike out and see what we can find.”

The coffee was rather weak, but it was hot, and that meant a great deal to the boys who had to venture out in the cold. Every drop was disposed of, and then, looking well to their guns, for though they hardly admitted it to each other, they had faint hopes of game, the boys set out.

As they emerged from the cabin, they were not aware of a pair of sharp, ferret-like eyes watching them from the hidden shelter of the lean-to. As the wind was blowing toward that shack, and not away from it, the dog was not this time apprised by scent of the closeness of an enemy, whatever had happened the night before.

“Well, let’s start,” proposed Tom. “This is the road to Ramsen,” and he pointed to the almost snow-obliterated highway that ran in front of the deserted cabin they were leaving.

Their hearts were lighter with the coming of the new day, though their stomachs were almost empty. But they hoped soon to be at one of their camping cabins, where, they knew, a good supply of food awaited them.

On they tramped through the snow. It was very deep, and the fall seemed to have increased in rapidity, rather than to have diminished. It had snowed all night, and was still keeping up with unabated vigor. In some places there were deep drifts across the road.

“This sure is heavy going,” observed Jack, as he plunged tiresomely along.

“That’s right,” agreed Bert.

“I don’t see how Towser keeps it up,” spoke George, for the dog was having hard work to get through the drifts.

“He seems to enjoy it,” commented Tom. “But it is deep. I think – ”

He did not complete the sentence, for, at that moment, he stepped into some unseen hole and went down in a snow pile to his waist.

“Have a hand!” invited Jack, extending a helping arm to his chum, to pull him up. “What were you trying to do, anyhow?”

“I don’t know,” answered Tom, looking at the hole into which he had fallen. “But I think we’re off the road, fellows.”

“I do, too,” came from Bert. “It seems as though we were going over a field. Yes,” he went on, “there’s a stump sticking up out of the snow. We’re in some sort of a clearing. We’re clean off the road!”

It took only a moment for the others to be also convinced of this.

“We’d better go back,” George said. “We’ve probably come the wrong way. I don’t believe this is the road to Ramsen at all.”

“The signboard said it was,” Bert reminded him.

“I can’t help that. I believe we’re wrong again – lost!”

“Lost – again!” echoed Jack. “Lost in this wilderness!”

“It does begin to look so,” admitted Tom slowly. “Where’s that dog?”

CHAPTER XIX

THE CAPTURE

Towser had run off again, on one of his attempts to wiggle through a drift. A shrill whistle from Tom brought him back again, however, sneezing because some snow had gotten up his nose and into his mouth.

“Towser, you old rascal!” Tom exclaimed. “Why don’t you lead us back to camp?”

“Or to Sam Wilson’s,” added Bert. “That would be good enough on a pinch, until we get straightened out. Home, old fellow! Wilson’s farm! Lead the way!”

The dog barked and leaped about, but he did not show any inclination to take any particular direction through the snow-covered wilderness. He seemed to want to follow, rather than lead.

“I don’t believe he knows where Sam Wilson’s place is,” was Tom’s opinion, after watching the animal for a while.

“I guess he’s as badly lost as we are,” said Bert.

For a few seconds the boys stood there rather at a loss what to do. They had done their best, but they did not seem to be on the way to success. The storm was worse than when it first started. It still snowed hard, and the wind, while not as strong as it had been during the night, was still cold and cutting.

The boys turned their backs to it as they stood there huddled together, hardly knowing what to do next. Towser, finding he was not wanted immediately, to trail a bear or some other game, devoted his energies to burrowing in a snowbank.

“Well, I would like to know where we are,” said Tom at length.

“Wouldn’t it be a good idea to go back to the deserted cabin?” asked Jack.

“It might not be so bad, if we knew where it was,” agreed Tom.

“We could at least take that for a starting point, and try to head for Camp No. 2,” Jack went on. “I’d be satisfied with that, as long as we can’t locate No. 3.”

“Oh, I side with you there, all right, old man,” Tom said, “but where does the old cabin lie?”

“Off there!” said Bert, pointing to the right.

“No, it’s over there,” was the opinion of George, and he indicated the left.

“It’s right behind you,” insisted Jack.

“And I should say it was in front of us,” spoke Tom. “So you see we each have a different opinion, and, as long as we can’t agree, what are we going to do about it?”

“That’s so,” admitted Jack. “But we can’t stay here doing nothing. We’ve got to get somewhere.”

“Somewhere is very indefinite,” was the remark George made. “It’s very easy to say it, but hard to find it. If we could only get back on the road, we could head in either direction, and some time or other we would get somewhere. But now we are in the woods and we may be heading right toward the middle of the forest instead of toward the edge. And these forests are no little picnic groves, either.”

“I should say not!” Tom exclaimed. “But where is the road? That’s the question.”

It was a question no one could answer, and they did not try. Eagerly and anxiously they scanned the expanse of snow for some indication that a road existed – even a rough, lumberman’s highway.

But all they could see, here and there, were little mounds of snow that indicated where stumps existed under the white covering. They were in a clearing, with woods all around them. If they advanced, they might be going toward the deeper forest instead of toward the place where civilization, in the shape of man, had begun to cut down the trees to make a town or village.

“Well, we sure have got to do something,” Tom said, and it was not the first time, either. “We’ll try each direction, fellows, and see where we come out. We may have to go the limit, and tramp a bit in each of four directions, and, again, it may be our luck to do it the first shot. But let’s get into action. It’s cold standing still.”

They had given up all hope of game now. Indeed, the snow was falling so thickly that they could not have seen a deer or bear until they were very close to it – too close it would be, in the case of the bear.

As for smaller game – rabbits, squirrels and partridges, none of those were to be seen. The snow had driven the smaller animals and the birds to cover.

“Bur-r-r-r-r! But this is no fun, on an empty stomach,” grumbled George, as he followed the others. The dog, having seen his friends start off, was following them. He seemed to have no sense of responsibility that he was expected to lead his friends in the right direction. “I sure am hungry!” George went on.

“Quit talking about it,” urged Tom. “That doesn’t do any good, and it makes all of us feel badly. Have a snow sandwich!”

“It makes you too thirsty,” interposed Jack. “If you want to drink, we’ll stop, make a fire of some fir branches, and melt snow in our tin coffee cups. If you start chewing flakes, you’ll get a sore mouth, and other things will happen to you. That’s what a fellow wrote in a book on Arctic travel.”

“If only we hadn’t eaten all the grub!” sighed Bert.

“Too late to think of that now,” Tom spoke. “Come on – let’s hike!”

Off they started. They decided to make an effort in each of the four cardinal points, first selecting that which one of the boys declared led back to Camp No. 2.

“If we go on for a mile or two, and find we’re wrong again, back we come and try the other side,” Tom explained. “But I can’t see why that sign says seven miles to Ramsen, when the road is so easy to lose yourself on.”

“It will take us the rest of the day to do that experimenting,” grumbled George.

“Well, suggest a better plan,” spoke Tom, quickly. “We’re lost, and if we don’t find the proper road soon, we’ll be more than all day in this pickle.”

George had no more to say.

The boys were now a little alarmed at their plight, for they were cold and hungry, and that is no condition in which to fight the wintry blast. But there was nothing they could do except keep moving. In a way, that was their only hope, for the exercise kept them warm, though it made them all the more hungry.

“Keep a lookout for game – even small kinds,” advised Tom, as they went on. “A rabbit or a squirrel wouldn’t come amiss now. We could manage to broil it over the coals of a fire, though it probably won’t be very nice looking.”

“Who cares for looks when you’re hungry?” demanded Bert.

But game did not show itself as the boys tramped on through the snow. They went on for some distance in the direction first decided on, but could see no familiar landmarks. Nor did they reach anything that looked like a road.

“Better go back,” Tom decided, and they did manage to find the little clearing again.

“Say!” cried Bert, as they stood irresolute as to which of the three remaining directions to select next, “aren’t we silly, though?”

“Why?” asked Tom.

“Why, because all we had to do was to follow our trail back in the snow. That would have led us to the old cabin.”

Tom shook his head.

“What’s the matter?” asked Bert.

“Our footprints are blown or drifted over three minutes after we make them, in this wind and shifting snow,” Tom said. “Look!”

He pointed over the route they had just come. Their earlier footprints were altogether gone. The expanse of snow was white and unbroken.

“Well, we go this way next,” said Jack. “I remember because I saw that broken white birch tree. Head straight for that.”

They did so, but again were doomed to disappointment. That way led to a low, swampy place, though there was no water in it at present, it having been frozen and covered with snow.