CHAPTER XI
ON GUARD
Everybody was awake in an instant. Even though the cry had thrilled Lubthrough and through somehow he did not seem to forget about the littlefellow who was under the covers with him; for his very first act was tolift him up, blanket and all, and struggle to get out of the shack.
They had all seen a light, though it had remained for the keen eyes ofX-Ray to discover what caused it. But as soon as they emerged from theshelter, Phil, Ethan and Lub found no difficulty in seeing that thealarm had not been a false one; for one side of the shack was all afire.
"Go for it, everybody!" cried Phil, as he started to throw all the snowhe was able to snatch up on the fiercely burning mass.
"Fire-fighters get busy!" echoed X-Ray, copying the other's example; norwas Lub long in finding a place where he could deposit his burden andjoin in the attack.
Thus beset on all sides the fire quickly died down as the snow meltedand drowned the ardor of the flames. Before many minutes had passed awaythey had it under control.
"We want to save a part of it for our regular fire, because we'll needit to get warm by!" observed long-headed Ethan.
"Warm!" gasped Lub. "Why, I'm fairly roasting right now."
"Well, you won't be in a jiffy, when that cold wind strikes down yourback," the other warned him; "how about the fire business, Phil?"
"It's a good idea," he was told; "but don't bother carrying any of whatis left of this stuff over; we have plenty of good wood handy, youremember. And I want to look a little closer into this brush-heap, yousee."
"Ginger popguns; that's so," cried X-Ray; "however did that stuff getthere, I'd like to know? We didn't bank it up that I remember."
"Never mind about that yet," Phil told him; "get the fire going, andthen we can talk it over. There's something about this affair that lookspretty suspicious to me, I want you to know."
All of them were thinking the same thing as they hurried to get theirown fire going in front of the shack.
When this had been accomplished they found time to look around. The boywas sitting up, and Lub had seen to it that he had the warm folds of theblanket about him, so he was in no danger of taking cold. He looked bothpuzzled and full of wonder, but Phil noticed that he did not appear tobe afraid.
"He's made of good stuff, most likely," he told himself; "and is a chipoff the old block all right, if he's Baylay's boy; because they admitthe poacher is a man without fear."
"Now," remarked Ethan, after they were all seated near the fire, "let'stry and get a little light on this mystery. How did that fire come to bestarted; and who put all that brush up against the back of our shack, Iwant to know?"
"That's so, who did?" echoed Lub, wagging his head with the words, andlooking unusually solemn.
"Notice in the first place," Phil continued, "that it was piled up onthe windward side; that was done so it would take hold in a hurry, oncethe match was struck. I even got a whiff of _kerosene_ when I wasworking at putting out the blaze; and it strikes me some of it was usedover the brush to make it burn more furiously."
"Whee!" gasped Lub; "then you mean to say, Phil--"
"I mean that this thing didn't come about by accident," the otherinterrupted Lub to say positively; "none of us put that stuff there, andwe have no kerosene to waste throwing it around. Besides, every one wassound asleep inside the shack when it happened."
"Somebody meant to burn us out, that's it, Phil!" declared X-Ray.
"Baylay?" cried Ethan, on a hazard.
"Not on your life," X-Ray told him; "Baylay doesn't know there are anysuch fellows as the Mountain Boys on earth. But there is one man whodoes, because he ran up against a couple of the same latterly, and hadto duck. I'm referring to the eminent capitalist and financiermillionaire, Mr. James Bodman."
"Whee!" breathed Lub again, as his emotions almost overpowered him; hedid not venture to interrupt, but just sat there and listened with allhis might to the exciting talk that was going on among his chums.
"Well," said Ethan, slowly, "from the description of that sportsman, andthe way he acted when he found he couldn't bulldoze the pair of you, Iwouldn't put a thing like this past him; but how would he know where wewere camped?"
"Oh! that is easy to answer," Phil told him; "don't you remember how welearned where they were settled by seeing smoke rising in the cold air,straight as a church pillar?"
"I reckon they could see the same if they happened to look this way,"admitted Ethan, "because Lub uses all kinds of wood, and some of itmakes a black smudge. Well, I'll admit for the sake of argument thatthey could easy enough learn where our camp lay; but do you believe thatstout sportsman would go to the trouble to sneak all the way over here,several miles it must be, just to try and make us some nasty meantrouble?"
"No, I don't," replied Phil, instantly.
"Then what follows?" demanded the other, desperately.
"He knows the power of money, because he uses it right along to furthersome of his big schemes," Phil exclaimed.
"You mean he could bribe a couple of his guides to come over here and dothe burning racket; is that what you have in mind, Phil?" asked Ethan.
"Yes, there's no doubt of it in my mind," he was told.
"But we'd always have to just guess at it, because we could never knowfor sure," X-Ray went on to say, in a dubious tone that told ofdisappointment.
"Perhaps not," Phil remarked; "come over with me, and let's take a look;for I've got a notion we can settle that thing in our minds, even ifnothing might ever be done to punish the sneaks who did the job."
He picked up a burning brand from the fire that promised to serve fairlywell as a torch; and with this swinging from his hand led the others tothe back of the scorched shack.
"Close by we've all trodden things into a mass," he explained; "butlet's look further away. Here's a place where it happens we find only acouple of inches of snow, and you can see footprints plainly marked.Look again, and tell me if any of us made those tracks coming andgoing?"
"They carried the brush along here, too, Phil, because you can seelittle twigs lying on the surface of the snow!" announced Ethan.
"But examine the footprints, because they will tell the story," saidPhil.
"Why, they are not like our tracks at all," said X-Ray, immediately.
"None of them show any sign of heels, Phil!" exclaimed Ethan; "does thatmean they can be moccasins made of tough hide, and not hunting-bootslike ours?"
"Now you're getting close to the heart of it," the leader assured him;"for most of the guides up here in this region wear such foot coverings,as the Indians did before them. I believe there were two men concernedin this outrage, and that they were paid by Mr. James Bodman to comeover here and burn us out."
"The coward!" muttered Lub, indignantly, as his pent-up feelings brokebounds; "why, they might have smothered us while we slept."
"Oh! I don't suppose the millionaire believed it would be as bad asthat, for I hardly think he's got to the point where he'd commit murderoutright; but he meant to give us all the bother he could. That was hisway of trying to get even because we refused to knuckle down to him, andlet him claim our caribou."
"Huh! guess then he's been crazy to shoot game like that for a longtime; and was a whole heap disappointed when he found it was our shotsthat had downed the young buck," and X-Ray chuckled as though he feltthat after all the score was still decidedly in their favor.
"What surprises me, and makes me feel small," continued Phil, "is how Icould sleep through it all and never know that they were creeping up,fetching that brush along with them, and piling it against the back ofthe shack."
"Oh! we're all in the same boat," said Ethan, "because I was hundreds ofmiles away from here, and going to singing school with Sally Andrewswhen X-Ray let out that yawp!"
"And I own up that it was just by a lucky chance I happened to wake up,"X-Ray Tyson admitted; "you know smoke always makes me choke, and that'swhy I try to sit on the windward side of fires. It m
ust have got in mythroat as I slept, because I suddenly sat upright to get my breath.Course I knew right away something was on the boards that ought to beattended to, and so I woke the rest up gently."
"Gently!" echoed Lub; "say, it seemed to me as if an electric currentheavy enough to execute a criminal had been shot through my system. Ibet you I've lost as much as five pounds in weight just through thenervous excitement."
"Poor chap!" said X-Ray; "it's a pity then it doesn't happen oftener. Ithink I'll take to giving you a regular shock like that every fewnights. You could drop forty pounds and be all the better for it."
"Who's running my heft, me or you, I want to know?" demanded Lub; "itsuits me just as it is. When I get a notion that I want to start to joinyour Living Skeleton class I'll give you due notice. And until that timecomes please let me sleep in peace."
"Well, what can we do about this outrage?" asked Ethan.
"Nothing much," admitted Phil.
"It would be silly to think of going over and entering a complaint tothat red-faced grunter," declared X-Ray; "because we'd only be insultedto our faces. Why I wouldn't put it past him to threaten to have uskicked out of his camp, though of course James would have too much senseto try the job himself."
"We'll have to pocket the insult, and try to guard against having ithappen again, that's all," was Phil's conclusion. "And let me tell youwe have to be thankful it turned out no worse than it did. The damageisn't worth mentioning, and it's opened our eyes to the fact that wehave dangerous neighbors who will bear watching from this time out."
"But, Phil, we don't mean to let them chase us away from here, do we?"interposed Lub, who came of good Revolutionary stock, and was a sticker.
"Well, I guess not, if we have to keep on the watch every single night,"retorted X-Ray, belligerently.
"Are we going to sit here till it's time to get breakfast?" asked Lub,casting a solicitous glance over toward the spot where the boy waswrapped in his blanket--it would be hard to say whether Lub wereconcerned about the welfare of the little fellow, or coveted the warmthof the said blanket; perhaps he might have been influenced by bothmotives, for his heart was warm, even when he shivered with the coldbreeze on his back.
"No use of that, when it's hardly an hour after midnight right now!"declared Phil, with a look aloft to where the star-studded sky gave himthe information. "The rest of you toddle back to the shack and let mesit here a while," Ethan told them, as he gathered his blanket closerabout him, after picking up his gun, as Phil noticed.
"I was just going to say the same thing myself, Ethan," remarked theleader.
"But first come, first served, that's the rule we go by, remember,Phil."
"I'll agree, on one condition," he was told.
"Name it then, Phil."
"There's Jupiter away up yonder; in just about two hours he'll besetting below the horizon. Promise to call me before he disappears fromsight, will you, Ethan."
"Agreed, though I wouldn't mind sticking out the watch till daylight,"said the other, and his manner told that he certainly meant every wordof it.
"But how about me?" complained X-Ray; "there's another star up yonderthat will set by five o'clock; you've got to promise to let me standguard from then on to daylight. I refuse to be left out in the cold inany deal."
"And don't I have any show at all?" whined Lub, though rather faintly,as though he knew very well they would not consent; for he had a failingwith respect to going to sleep on his post, having been tested onnumerous occasions and found wanting.
It was presently arranged then that Phil would arouse X-Ray when thesecond star was about to disappear. He smiled faintly when making thisconcession, but X-Ray did not appear to notice it. The fact of thematter was Phil knew very well that there had been a seriousmiscalculation on the part of the ambitious sentinel, because thatsecond star would still be half an hour from the horizon when the sunwas due to send his flaming banners athwart the eastern sky to heraldhis approach.
The fire had scorched the back of their shelter but no serious damagehad been accomplished. That was owing to the fact of smoke affecting thesensitive throat of X-Ray Tyson; a thing that may have caused him moreor less discomfort in times past, but which certainly stood them all ingood stead on this particular night.
On this account they could sleep just as well as before, granting ofcourse that their nerves had not been too much disturbed by the suddenperil, and the fight they had had to put up in order to save theirpossessions.
The fire was now to be kept up without intermission, day and night.Should any of those unprincipled men come over again from the othercamp, bent on doing them an injury, they might well pause and abandonthe attempt when they discovered how the boys maintained a constantwatch, with arms in their hands, and sufficient light to discover acreeping figure, which they would be justified in firing at.
True to his promise Ethan aroused Phil when Jupiter was about to dipbehind the horizon.
"All well, and getting colder right along, so that the fire feelsbully!" was all the report the late sentry thought fit to make, after hehad seen Phil take his place on the log, gun in hand, and blanket abouthis shoulders.
"Then crawl in, and go to sleep," advised the new guard, as he watchedEthan trying to smother a huge yawn.
"Guess I will, because it's quite some time to daylight, and there'slittle use for a pair of us to stand sentry duty."
So Ethan vanished inside the shack, and Phil was left to insure theirsafety, as the brilliant heavenly bodies kept up their steady westernmarch, and the night breeze sang mysterious chants through thesnow-covered branches of the firs.