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 upona scene which might have stirred any sluggish blood--and they were notsluggards.
A fresh breath of frost was in the air to quicken circulation andhunger. Under a smiling sun an October breeze frolicked through leaveswith tints of fire and gold, humming, while it swiftly skimmed overtheir beauties, as if it was reading a wind's poem of autumn.
Katahdin looked as though it had suddenly taken on the white crown ofage, with age's stately calm. The weather had grown colder during thenight. Summer--the balmy Indian summer, with its late spells ofsultriness--had taken a weeping departure yesterday. To-day there was nothreatening of rain-storm or slide. The mountain's principal peaks hadfleecy wraps of snow.
"Ha! Old Katahdin has put on its nightcap," exclaimed Cyrus, when thetrio issued from their tent in the morning. "Listen, you fellows! Thisis the 21st of October. I propose that we start back to our home-campto-morrow. It will take us two days to reach Millinokett Lake. Thenwe'll set our faces towards civilization the first week in November, orthereabouts."
"Oh, bother it! So soon!" protested Dol.
"Now, Young Rattlebrain,"--Garst took the calm tone ofleadership,--"please consider that this is the first time you've campedout in Maine woods. You might find it fun to be snowed up in camp duringa first fall, and to tramp homewards through a thawing slush. But yourfather wouldn't relish its effects on your British constitution. And outhere--once we're well into November--there's no knowing when thetemperature may drop to zero with mighty short notice. I've oftenturned in at night, feeling as if I were on 'India's coral strands' andwoke up next morning thinking I had popped off in my sleep to'Greenland's icy mountains.' Herb Heal! you know what tricks athermometer, if we had one, might play in our camp from this out; talksense to these fellows."
Herb, who had risen an hour before his charges, had already fetchedfresh water, coaxed up the fire, and was busily mixing flapjacks forbreakfast. His ears, however, had caught the drift of the talk.
"Guess Cyrus is right," he said. "Seeing as it's the first time youBritishers have slept off your spring mattresses, I'd say, light out forthe city and steam-heat afore the snow comes. Oh! you needn't get yourmad 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 Greenvillewith you," exclaimed the guide a minute later. "I might get a chance topick up a bargain of a second-hand rifle there. And I guess you'd bemighty sick o' your luck, Dol, if you had to lug them moose-antlers parto' the way yerself. I ain't stuck on carrying 'em either, if we can geta jumper."
But there was a third reason, still more powerful than these two, whyhe should make a trip to the distant town, which stirred Herb's mindwhile he stirred his cakes. His sturdy sense told him that it would bewell he should put in an appearance when Cyrus made a statement beforethe 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 thesecond time their tin mugs of coffee. "There's sport before us--tearinggood sport. Whatever do you s'pose I come on this morning when I wascruising over the bog for water? Caribou-tracks! Caribou-tracks, as sureas there's a caribou in Maine!
"Who's for following 'em? We hain't got much provisions left; and Iguess a chunk of broiled caribou-steak about as big as a horse's upperlip 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 wouldbe pretty acceptable, and a good view of a herd of caribou would bestill more so--to me, at any rate. That would just about top off ourexploring to a T."
"We've got to be mighty spry, then," said the woodsman, lurching to hisfeet, muscles swelling, and nostrils spreading like a sleuth-hound's."If you want caribou, you've got to take 'em while they're around. Oldhunters have a saying: 'They're here to-day, to-morrow nowhere.' Andthat's about the size of it."
"Let's start off this minute!" Dol jerked out the words while he boltedthe last salt shreds of his pork. "Hurry up, you fellows! You're as slowas snails. I'd eat the jolliest meal that was ever cooked in threeminutes."
"No wonder you squirm and shout all night, then, until sane people withgood digestions feel ready to blow your head off," laughed Cyrus, whowas one of the laggards; but he disposed of the last mouthfuls of hisown meal with little regard for his digestive canal.
In rather less than twenty minutes the four were scanning with wide eyescertain fresh foot-marks, plainly printed on a patch of soft oozingclay, midway on the boggy tract.
"Whew! Bless me! Those caribou-tracks?" Cyrus caught his breath withamazement while he crouched to examine them. "Why, they're bigger thanany moose-tracks we've seen!"
"Isn't that great?" gasped Dol.
"Well, come to think of it, it is," answered the guide, in the stealthytones of an expectant hunter; "for a full-grown bull-caribou don't standso high as a full-sized moose by two or three feet, and he don't weighmore'n half as much. Still, for all that, caribou deer beat every otheranimal 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 scudalong on them big hoofs. I'd back 'em in a race against the smartest ofyour 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 unbelievingmirth, prepared to dispute this. There might have ensued a wordysparring about caribou versus bicycle, had not the guide been impressedwith the necessity for prompt action at the expense of speech.
"We must quit our talk and get a move on," he whispered, and led theforward march across the bog, his eyes every now and again narrowinginto two gleaming slits, as if he were debating within himself, while hestudied the ground or some bush which showed signs of being nibbled ortrampled. 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 meadowysweep of open ground, bounded at a distance by an irregular line ofhills, 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, whenthe hunters reached the rising ground, glancing at Dol, who steppedlightly beside him.
The boy's lips parted to breathe out compressed disappointment; but hisanswer was lost in a sharp whirr! whirr! and a sudden flutter of wingsabove his head. His eyes went aloft towards a bough about eight feetfrom the ground. So did Herb's, and lit with a new, whimsical hope.
"A spruce partridge!" hissed the guide, his voice thrilling even in itsstealthy whisper. "That's luck--dead sure! The Injuns say, 'The red eyenever tells a lie;'" and the woodsman pointed out the strip of bare redskin above the beady eyes of the bird, which cuddled itself on itsbranch, and looked down at them unfrighted.
Dol Farrar, who in this region of moose-birds and moose-calls couldbelieve in anything, felt both his spirits and credulity rise together.He managed to keep abreast of the trained hunter, as the latter, withswift, stretching, silent steps climbed the hill. And he heard thehunter's sudden cluck of triumph as he reached the top, and looked downupon the valley at the other side, the inarticulate sound being followedby one softly rung word,--
"Caribou!"
"Caribou? They look awfully like quiet Alderney cows, except for the bigantlers!" The amazed exclamation stirred the English boy's tongue, buthe did not make it audible.
Following Herb's example, he stretched himself flat upon his stomachunder a spruce, and stared over the brow of the hill at a forestpantomime which was being acted in the valley.
C
autiously slipping from tree to tree, Cyrus and Neal, who had lagged afew steps behind, joined the leaders, and lay low, eagerly gazing too.
On its farther side the hill was yet more sparsely covered, thescattered spruces showing gaps between them where the lumberman's axehad made havoc. Through these openings, which were as shafts of lightamid the evergreen's waving play, the hunters saw the sun silver a brownpool in the valley. A few maples and birches waved their shrivellingsplendors of scarlet and buff at irregular distances from the water. Andin and out among these trees moved in graceful woodland frolic four orfive large animals,--perhaps more,--their doings being plainly seen bythe watchers on the hill.
Their coats, like those of the smaller deer, were of a brown whichseemed to have caught its dye from the autumnal tints surrounding them.In shape they justified Dol's criticism; for they certainly were notunlike 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, andcharged each other in a real or sham fight, the battle-clang of theirmeeting horns sounding far away to the hill-top.
"Them two bulls are having a big time of it. Look at 'em now, with thesmall one. That's a stranger in the herd," hummed Herb into the ear ofthe boy next to him, his voice so light and even that it might have beenbut the murmur of a falling leaf. "It's an all-fired pity that we'rejest too far off for a shot."
The "stranger," which the woodsman's long-range eye had singled out, wasof a smaller size and paler color than the other caribou; and Herb--whocould interpret the forest pantomime far better than he would haveexplained the acting of human beings on a stage--told his companions inwhispers and signs that it was in distressed dread of its company.
The attentions which the rest paid to it seemed at first only friendlyand facetious. The two big bulls, after trying their mettle against eachother for a minute, separated, and moved towards it, prodded it lightlywith their horns, and playfully bit its sides, a sport in which theother members of the herd joined.
"They're playing it, like a cat with a mouse; but I guess they'll murderit in the long run if it's sickly or weak. Caribou are the biggestbullies in these woods--to each other," whispered Herb.
"By the great horn spoon! they're doing for it now," he gasped, a minutelater. "Sho!... if I only had my old Winchester here, I'd soon stoptheir lynching. Try it, you, Cyrus! You're a sure shot, an' you cancreep within a hundred yards of 'em without being scented. Try it, man!"
The guide's flashing eyes and quick signs conveyed half his meaning; hisexcited sentences were so low that Garst only caught fag-ends of them.But they were emphasized unexpectedly by a faint bleating sound risingfrom 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 planof descent; then he lifted the rifle beside him, and jammed some freshcartridges into the magazine.
Ere a dozen long breaths had been drawn, he was stealthily movingtowards 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 fellowsabove 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 drawingbead. Bravo!... he's floored the biggest!"
Herb's gusty breath blew the sentences through his nostrils, while thesudden, 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 otherbull was a buster too! You might ha' dropped him, if you'd been in thehumor!" bellowed the guide, springing to his legs, and letting out hispent-up wind in a full-blast roar of triumph.
He well knew that Cyrus, "being a queer specimen sportsman," and theright sort after all, would be satisfied with the one inevitable deed ofdeath.
As their leader fell, the caribou raised their heads, stared instiffened wonder for a few seconds, offering a steady mark for thesmoking rifle if it had been in the grasp of a butcher. Then, as thoughpropelled 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 astorm-wind.
The half-killed weakling sought shelter more slowly in anotherdirection.
"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 ofhis English friends, as they reached his side, and stooped with him toexamine the fallen forest beauty.
"No; I guess we can manage to haul the head back to camp, with as muchmeat as we need. You'll have your 'chunk of caribou-steak as big as ahorse's upper lip,' to-night, Herb, and bigger if you want it. I'mtickled at getting the antlers, especially as I didn't shoot this beautyfor the sake of them. I'll hook them on my shoulders when we start backto Millinokett to-morrow."
So answered the successful hunter, tingling with some pride in the skillwhich, because of his reverence for all life, he generally kept out ofsight.
And he stuck to his purpose about the antlers.
* * * * *
Cheered and invigorated by a sumptuous supper and breakfast of broiledcaribou-steaks, supplemented by Herb's lightest cakes, and carrying someof the meat with them as provision for the way, the campers accomplishedtheir backward tramp to the log camp on Millinokett Lake in fulness ofstrength and spirits.
Once or twice during the journey, when the guide was stalking ahead, andthought himself unnoticed, the city fellows saw him lift his right handand look at it for a full minute. Then it swung heavily back to hisside.
"He's missing his rifle, the partner that never went back on him," saidCyrus. "Say, boys! I've got an idea!"
"Out with it if it's worth anything," grunted Dol. "I never have ideasthese days. Too much doing. I don't feel as if there was a steady peg inme to hang one on."
"Oh! quit your nonsense, Chick, and listen. Herb will wait for us in afew minutes," was the Boston man's impatient rejoinder.
Then followed a low-toned consultation, in the course of which such talkas 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 thousanddollars, 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 standbeing paid by an outsider for a plucky act, done in the best hour of hislife."
"Oh, I say! wouldn't it be decenter to manage the thing ourselves,without letting anybody who doesn't know him meddle in it?" Thissuggestion was in Dol's voice. "Neal and I could draw our allowances forthree months in advance; the Pater will be willing enough. We'll beprecious hard up without them, but we'll rub through somehow. Then youcan chip in an even third, Cy, and we'll order an A I rifle,--the bestever invented, from the best company in America,--silver plate, with hisname,--and all the rest of it. I'd swamp my allowance for a year to seeHerb's face when he gets it."
"That's the plan! You do have occasional moments of wisdom, Dol; I'llsay that much for you," commented the leader. "Well, Herb has taken aspecial sort of liking to you. You may tip him a hint to wait inGreenville for a few days, and not to go looking for second-hand riflestill 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 harebrainedminute, or give it away in your sleep."
"Blow me if I do
!" answered Dol solemnly.