CHAPTER XIV.
THE PURSUIT.
"Stolen!" burst out impulsive Steve, his face pale with rage.
Both boys felt keenly for their friend, Trapper Jim. He had lookedforward so long to capturing his rare prize; he had taken such greatpains to set his traps with that object in view; and now, after successhad come, and the black beauty was caught, it must be terriblyaggravating to discover that some one had happened on the spot, robbedthe trap, and was far away with the precious pelt.
Trapper Jim did not often give way to his feelings. He quickly got afresh grip on his emotions and could talk calmly again. But there was agleam in those piercing eyes of his, undimmed by age, that made Owen gladhe did not stand in the shoes of the pelt thief.
"When do you think he was here, Uncle Jim?" Max asked, as he examined theplain track of the thief's shoe.
"This morning, and not more than an hour ago," came the answer. "He washeading as straight as could be for our cabin, like he meant to drop inon me; but after this he turned back. The temptation was too much. Fewmen could let a chance pass by to pick up a silver fox when a common redwouldn't bother 'em the least bit."
"But, say, I hope you don't mean to let him get away with the skinaltogether, Uncle Jim," flashed Steve, with an angry look still on hisface.
"Well, that wouldn't be like me," returned the trapper, quietly; and Maxrealized that his was the determined, bulldog nature that never lets go,while with Steve it was a flash-in-the-pan, hasty action, without acareful laying out of plans.
"Then we'll pick up the trail and follow it?" asked the eager boy.
"As soon as we can have Ajax here, son."
"But why wait for the dog?" complained Steve. "It'll take all of an hourto get back here again."
"That and more," replied Trapper Jim.
"And that time will be wasted," Steve went on.
"Listen," remarked the trapper. "Long ago I learned that things like thisare done best when you go about them soberly. Once I start on this trailof the pelt thief, and I mean to keep on it if it takes me a hundredmiles! What does an hour count for in that case, Steve?"
"Mighty little, I guess," admitted the boy.
"There are other reasons for getting the dog," continued the trapper."This rascal will expect pursuit. And so every little while he'll dothings to cover up his trail. P'r'aps he'll wade along a stream, and comeout by way of rocks that would leave no mark. Then, again, he'd run alonga log and jump from stone to stone. All these things would delay me. Whattook ten minutes of _his_ time would consume an hour of mine. It's mucheasier to set a problem than to solve one."
"Sure thing. I understand now why you want the dog," Steve confessed.
"Ajax has a good scent. His nose is very keen. Here's a rag the thiefmust have dropped. Once I let the dog smell of this, and he'll followthat trail hour after hour, so long as it don't get too cold."
"Shall I go and get Ajax! I would run all the way," Steve suggested.
"Well, with that lame shoulder of yours, son, you'd have a hard time ofit holding a running dog in leash. So we'll have to get Max here toattend to that part of the business. Think you could return without anytrouble, my boy?"
"Well," replied the other, with a laugh, "all I'll have to do will be tolet Ajax have his head. He'll keep to our trail, all right."
"Just what I expected you to say," remarked the trapper. "And now be offwith you. We'll be nosing around here. Leave your gun with me, as you'llneed both hands to manage the dog."
"And what message will I carry to the other boys?" asked Max.
"Explain things in a few words, and tell Owen to take charge until weshow up again. It may be to-night, and again it might not come aboutuntil to-morrow. But they've got a-plenty to eat, and that satisfiesboys."
And so Max hastened off. Although not as impetuous by nature as Steve, heknew that every minute gained now would shorten the lead whichthe audacious pelt thief had upon them. And so Max sprinted more or lesswhenever he had the chance.
It was not over an hour when he once more made his appearance, with theexcited Ajax towing him. And evidently Max had had no easy job of it,trying to hold the eager hound in, for he looked relieved and rubbed hismuscles after Trapper Jim took the leash.
The boys were deeply interested in all that followed. They saw thetrapper hold the soiled rag upon which the thief had perhaps wiped hishands for the hound to sniff at for a minute or two.
Then Trapper Jim led Ajax to the footprints and made him catch the sameparticular odor,
When the intelligent hound gave a bay and led the way along the trail ofthe thief, his nose close to the ground and his tail in perpetual motion,Trapper Jim looked pleased.
"He's got the scent, all right, lads," he observed, "and after this he'llnever forget it. There are few hunting dogs that can be taught to followa human being as well as they do animals; but Ajax is an exception."
"Now we're off!" exclaimed the restless Steve, exultantly.
"Yes, and the rascal will have to hump himself if he hopes to escape us.I haven't given up all hopes of reclaiming that silver fox pelt yet," andthe trapper really seemed in a better humor than he had enjoyed since thefirst discovery of his great loss.
For quite some time they hurried on. Ajax was straining at his leash mostof the while, and seemed capable of picking up the scent even when therewas not the faintest trace of marks that Max could discover.
"It was a mighty good thing we thought of the dog," Steve admitted, andthen, seeing the trapper looking humorously at him, he gave a shortlaugh, as lie hastily added: "I mean it was a wise head that concluded tosend for Ajax, and not start off half-shot, like some foolish fellowswould have done."
"Yes," added Max, "in several places I've lost the trail. And three timesnow the fellow's run along a fallen tree, jumping off where he saw hardground or stones. That would have given us trouble and delayed us, butAjax followed the scent without looking for a trail.
"Here's a creek," interrupted the trapper, "and chances are the thiefwill use it to try and hoodwink us."
They waded through, regardless of the icy cold, for the water was not upto their knees.
"Don't see any tracks on this side, Uncle Jim," sang out Steve.
"No, and I guessed we wouldn't," replied the other.
"But he crossed over, didn't he!" demanded the boy.
"Chances are he did," answered Trapper Jim, "but before stepping out hewent either up or down the creek a ways. First of all we'll try up. Ifthat fails us after we've gone some distance, we'll come back here andtry the other way."
But it chanced that his first guess was the right one. They had gonealong the bank of the creek less than eighty feet when Ajax uttered asound and gave evidence of renewed excitement.
"The rascal found the water too cold and came out at the first chance,"remarked Trapper Jim. "You see, there's a shelf of rock here. No signleft for our eyes, because the warm sun has dried up any wet marks hemade. But Ajax has caught the same scent as there was on that rag."
"And we're off again. Hurrah!" cried Steve, delighted to know that theclever tactics of the pelt thief could not prevail against that keensense of smell possessed by the hound.
After that the fugitive did not seem to think it worth while to make anymore efforts to conceal his trail.
"That cold water was too much for him," suggested Steve.
"Or else he expects he's done enough, and that no one, not even TrapperJim, could follow him," Max had said; "but I rather think he knew a dogwould be put on his track. That water business is always the trick usedto throw a hound off the scent."
"Quite right, son," remarked the trapper; "but I allow this fellow hasgot me guessing good and hard, and that's a fact."
"You mean because he's quit trying to hide his trail?" asked Steve.
"Well, partly that, but there's another thing," Trapper Jim went on tosay.
"I think I'm on to it," observed Max.
"Well, I saw you look some surprised at
the time, son," declared thetrapper. "But Steve, here, saw nothing. Did you notice, Steve, which waywe headed at the time we first picked up the trail at the sprung trap?"
"Why, yes, it was almost due south, wasn't it?" asked Steve.
"Right, son, and look at the sun now," the trapper remarked.
"Gee, that's queer!" muttered the surprised Steve.
"What is?" asked Max, smiling.
"The sun--why, it's swung around on the right. Say, don't tell me time'spassed like that, and it's afternoon now. Why, we haven't felt hungryenough to tackle that bully lunch Max fetched along when he came backwith the dog."
Both of the others laughed at this.
"That's one on you, Steve," said Max. "See, my watch says justten-thirty. The sun didn't swing around at all, but the trail did."
"It's heading north now, is it?" demanded Steve.
"Straight as can be," replied Trapper Jim.
"But the cabin lies that way!" objected the puzzled boy.
"Just what it does," admitted Jim. "When the thief sat down to rest backthere he must have been thinking it over. And he made up his mind to dosomething on the spot, for when he started again he cut out a new coursedirect."
"Whew, the nerve of him!" exclaimed Steve.
"What makes you say that, Steve?"
"Why, don't you see, he's got the fever bad. Thinks p'r'aps Uncle Jimhere might have another silver fox pelt laid away, and while he's aboutit he reckons he'd better double up."
But Trapper Jim shook his head. He knew no pelt thief would ever displaysuch boldness as Steve suggested. There must be another reason for thesudden change of plans on the part of the fugitive.
"Have we gained on him?" asked Max, presently.
"Considerable," replied the trapper.
"How d'ye know that?" demanded Steve,
"There are plenty of signs to tell me," came the answer. "Anyone used tofollowing a trail would have seen them. And I reckon, now, Max hasn'tbeen blind all this while."
"No," replied the one spoken of. "I saw water still oozing into a deeptrack when we passed that boggy ground, and right then and there Iconcluded we must be less than half an hour behind the thief."
"Good!" ejaculated the trapper; "anything else. Max?"
"Why, yes," returned the boy, calmly. "There was a little twig thatrighted itself even as I looked at it. His foot had bent it down. Now, Ishouldn't think it could have stayed that way more'n half an hour atbest."
"I saw it, too," added the trapper; "and it pleases me more than I cansay to find that you keep your eyes about you, son. It ought to be alesson to Steve here. Queer, how one person can see so much and anothernothing."
"Well," ventured Steve, "I have noticed one thing, anyhow."
"Glad to hear it, son. Tell us what it is, now."
"The dog," remarked Steve.
"Yes, what of Ajax?" questioned Jim.
"He acts different now."
"And from that you conclude what?" queried the trapper.
"Why, we're closing in on our game," Steve went on. "I've hunted enoughto know how dogs show that."
"Fine! We'll give you credit for that point, Steve, because it's a fact,"laughed the trapper, in a half-hushed way.
"Aw! I ain't quite such a silly as I look," remarked Steve.
"I should think not," said Max, and Steve hardly knew whether to take theobservation as a compliment or the reverse.
"And, now, lads, we'd better stop talking," said Trapper Jim. "I reckonwe're close enough on our man for him to hear us if we're noisy. And,perhaps, if he learned we'd nigh overtaken him, he might start off on therun."
So for some time they kept on in abject silence. Not a word was spoken,and save for the panting of the eager hound and the labored breathing ofthe trackers, all was still.
The country had become quite rough, and Max knew they must be passingover the hills he had seen from the cabin, lying to the south. They hadhad to climb them when on the way from the distant town, and Max evenhoped some day to circulate among them with his rifle. But he had hardlyexpected that when he did, it would be while on the track of a humanbeing.
"He slipped here--you can see the marks his shoes made in the shale,"said Trapper Jim, pointing to the ground in front, which sloped downwardrapidly.
"Oh, my land!" ejaculated Steve, "look where the marks lead, right to thebrink of that precipice or the bank of a deep ravine. Honest, now, Ibelieve the feller must 'a' gone over there."
"Just what he did," added Trapper Jim, solemnly; "and it'd make an uglyfall for a body, too."
They crept to the edge and looked down. The bottom of the ravine was manyyards below, and there were cruel rocks, partly hidden by densevegetation, now brown from the touch of Jack Frost's fingers.
"Listen, that sounded like a groan!" exclaimed the awe-struck Steve.
"I think I can see something among the weeds," remarked Max; and hardlyhad he spoken than a hand was raised to wave toward them and a voice fullof pain called out:
"Help! Oh, help!"
Led by Trapper Jim the boys made their way down the steep rocky bank ofthe ravine. The first object they saw was the pelt of the silver fox, forthe thief had removed it during his various stops so as to lighten hisload. Then they came upon the doubled-up figure of a comparatively youngman, at sight of whom Trapper Jim frowned and seemed strangely moved.