The Outdoor Chums After Big Game Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness

CHAPTER IX

FRANK HAS HIS TURN

“Oh, hum­bug! There are oth­er knives,” re­marked Frank cheer­ily.

“Not like that one,” said Bluff dis­mal­ly.

“No doubt Mr. Ma­bie will lend you a good one while you're here.”

“Yes, he's aw­ful­ly kind, but it wouldn't be that knife,” groaned the be­reaved Bluff.

“When do you re­mem­ber see­ing it last?” de­mand­ed Frank, as a sus­pi­cion dart­ed in­to his brain that was con­nect­ed with Jer­ry.

On one of their for­mer camp­ing trips Jer­ry had pro­fessed to en­ter­tain a de­cid­ed an­tipa­thy to­ward a re­peat­ing shot­gun of mod­ern make that Bluff had bought. He de­clared that it was a shame for one who called him­self a sports­man to han­dle so de­struc­tive a weapon. When a chance came, he hid the gun in a box that held some of their su­per­flu­ous things. Lat­er, up­on try­ing to find it, in or­der to give it back, he learned that it was miss­ing, and Bluff had to go with­out his gun un­til the hunt was near­ly over, when it was dis­cov­ered in the woods, where the thief had dropped it.

Frank won­dered if Jer­ry was con­cerned in the mys­te­ri­ous van­ish­ing of the won­der­ful hunt­ing-​knife. He had laughed at its tremen­dous pro­por­tions and or­nate han­dle. Still, it did not seem rea­son­able to be­lieve that Jer­ry would be guilty of a sec­ond trick along those same lines.

“I was try­ing to re­mem­ber. You know we were show­ing our things to the girls?”

“Yes, I be­lieve we were,” smiled Frank; for he could still see Bluff flour­ish­ing his pre­cious knife, sheath and all, for the en­ter­tain­ment of Nel­lie.

“Well, I can't re­mem­ber for the life of me see­ing it again af­ter that. You know we packed in a big hur­ry in the morn­ing. I may have laid it aside, in­tend­ing that it would go in on top, and then over­looked it. Such a fool play, too, when that was the prize of the whole col­lec­tion!” groaned Bluff.

“And you've looked over the whole out­fit here, have you?” Frank con­tin­ued, sur­vey­ing the piled-​up mess of stuff.

“Yes; three sep­arate times. Oh, there's no get­ting around it, I've made a goose of my­self, and you know how I want­ed to use that trusty blade so much. Of course, I won't think of mop­ing in my tent. I'll bor­row a knife, and per­haps it will do me good ser­vice; but noth­ing can ev­er take the place of that beau­ti­ful piece of steel.”

“Well, let's get these things in some­thing like or­der be­fore the boys come in. Sort out what be­longs to you, and chuck the bal­ance of your ex­tra clothes in your own bag, for I see that you've had most of them out”

“Yes. I even won­dered if I could have stuck that knife in among my oth­er shirts and un­der­clothes, but it isn't there. I'll have to stand it, but you fel­lows will nev­er know what a loss this is to me. Com­ing all this dis­tance, too, just to get a chance to use it on an elk, or some­thing worth while.”

Frank thought that if Bluff had his way his mates would at least nev­er have a chance to for­get about his great loss, for he was apt to re­mind them of it ev­ery lit­tle while.

Will now came bustling in, anx­ious to as­cer­tain if his lit­tle de­vel­op­ing out­fit came through safe­ly, to­geth­er with his pack­ages of hy­po and oth­er ne­ces­si­ties.

It was de­cid­ed to put in that day around the ranch see­ing how Mr. Ma­bie ran his busi­ness. Then on the fol­low­ing morn­ing a par­ty of them in­tend­ed to set out for a camp in the moun­tains, where game would like­ly be found.

“We'll oc­cu­py three camps I have in view. From the first we can go to the sec­ond by tak­ing sev­er­al bull­boats that will be wait­ing for us, and shoot­ing the rapids in the riv­er. That would be an ex­pe­ri­ence you boys might en­joy,” re­marked the stock­man as they rode around the val­ley to get a com­pre­hen­sive grasp up­on the way in which this en­ter­pris­ing set­tler car­ried on a big cat­tle ranch.

Red­dy seemed to have been picked out by the own­er to keep with them. Frank was glad of this, for some­how he had come to en­ter­tain a fan­cy for the smil­ing young cow­boy.

“Rapids, did you say?” ex­claimed Jer­ry, his face light­ing up with rap­ture. “Why, that would tick­le us from the ground up. I've al­ways want­ed to run through some lit­tle Ni­agara. Frank, here, has done it up in Maine, so he tells us. I hope what you have will beat his ex­pe­ri­ence all hol­low.”

“Well, they are some rapids, I un­der­stand,” replied the oth­er, smil­ing.

“And if I could on­ly be on the shore, to see you shoot down, it would af­ford me the great­est plea­sure in the world. Not that I don't want to go through, too, but my first du­ty is to­ward se­cur­ing all these won­der­ful events in an im­per­ish­able way by tak­ing a pic­ture. Some scoffers may doubt a sto­ry, but pic­tures nev­er lie.”

“That shows your in­no­cence, Will,” re­marked Jer­ry. “Why, I've seen fel­lows stand­ing be­side the fish they caught, which I knew my­self to be on­ly ten inch­es long, and yet the cun­ning pho­tog­ra­pher had ar­ranged it so that it looked all of two feet.”

“I'm sur­prised that you, with all your ex­pe­ri­ence, shouldn't know that,” said Frank, pre­tend­ing to frown.

“You mis­took my mean­ing, that's all. What I in­tend­ed to say was that _my_ pic­tures would nev­er lie,” af­firmed Will stur­di­ly.

“Hear! hear! Some­body rub him on the back, please! But jok­ing aside, Will, I'm ready to back you up on that score. The on­ly fault I find with you is your am­bi­tion to take a fel­low in ev­ery pick­le he hap­pens to drop in­to,” and Jer­ry made a wry face as he re­mem­bered a num­ber of scenes in which he had fig­ured, that were wont to ex­cite his chums to up­roar­ious laugh­ter at such times as they looked at the faith­ful re­pro­duc­tions in their al­bum at the club­house.

In this pleas­ant way the day passed, and evening found them ea­ger to com­plete their prepa­ra­tions for the mor­row. Mr. Ma­bie an­swered ev­ery ques­tion fired at him by the anx­ious young sports­men, es­pe­cial­ly Bluff, who want­ed to know ev­ery­thing con­nect­ed with the game they ex­pect­ed to hunt.

“He's try­ing to for­get his great dis­ap­point­ment,” said Frank as he and Jer­ry watched the oth­er ply­ing Mr. Ma­bie with these queries; for Bluff was the son of a lawyer, and would nev­er take things for grant­ed.

“What's that?” asked Jer­ry, for no one had been told about the loss that had come to Bluff.

“Can't find that knife of his any­where, it seems, and be­lieves he must have left it be­hind. He was look­ing mighty blue when I found him in the room, with all our stuff tum­bled, pell-​mell, out of the trunk.”

Frank eyed his chum as he spoke. Jer­ry turned a lit­tle red.

“Not guilty, Frank! I give you my word I nev­er touched the measly old knife. I'm sor­ry for him, too, for he seemed so bent on do­ing great stunts with it. I'll take a look my­self,” he said hasti­ly, and yet meet­ing his chum's gaze in such a straight­for­ward fash­ion that Frank nev­er doubt­ed his word for an in­stant.

“No use do­ing that. He root­ed the whole out­fit over. The knife is gone, and that's sure! I've been think­ing some about it.”

“And had a bright idea, I war­rant. What's your so­lu­tion of the mys­tery?”

“Why, you see, Jer­ry, I can clear­ly rec­ol­lect Nel­lie's star­tled look when Bluff showed her that ter­ri­bly large knife. She's afraid of such things. I'm sure she must have wor­ried some about it, and I was think­ing--”

“What?”

“That per­haps she may have con­sid­ered it pru­dent to hide it away so that he couldn't find it again. I be­lieve she would in my case, any­how. It would be just like Nel­lie.”

“Oh, well, it doesn't mat­ter much, on­ly Bluff is such a fel­low to hang on a thing he'll nev­er give us any peace about it. Have you asked Will?” said Jer­ry.

“No. I will, though; but I don't think he would both­er his head about a dozen knives. If it were a cam­era, now, or a rapid-​ac­tion rec­ti­lin­ear lens, you could de­pend on him to take no­tice.”

Frank was as good as his word. Will de­nied hav­ing touched the ar­ti­cle in ques­tion, and said he was sor­ry to hear Bluff would be de­prived of a plea­sure.

And so for the time be­ing the mys­tery re­mained such, with Bluff oc­ca­sion­al­ly dig­ging in­to that trunk in a vain search, and al­ways sigh­ing mourn­ful­ly be­cause he failed to bring the lost trea­sure to light.

The boys bunked in one big room. It was very much like a pic­nic for them, and would of­ten bring back pleas­ant mem­ories when­ev­er they looked at the rather clever view Will man­aged to get of the in­te­ri­or, with his chums and him­self lolling there.

In the morn­ing there was pret­ty much of a bus­tle around the ranch house.

“Ready, boys?” called Mr. Ma­bie, as he ap­peared with his gun strapped across his back, as the eas­iest way of car­ry­ing it.

A cho­rus of af­fir­ma­tives greet­ed his ques­tion.

“Then mount, and we'll be off. They've gone on ahead last night with the tents and food­stuff, so that we'll find things in pret­ty much ship­shape when we get on the ground.”

“Say, they do things right out in this big coun­try, eh?” said Bluff to Frank as the two of them gal­loped off in com­pa­ny.

The morn­ing was fair and the air sharp enough to be brac­ing.

“Nev­er saw any­thing to equal the at­mo­sphere here,” re­marked Frank as their host came along­side. “There seems to be a ton­ic in it that even we do not have up in Maine or the Adiron­dacks. It makes you feel like shout­ing all the time.”

“Ev­ery­body says the same when they first come. Present­ly you will grow ac­cus­tomed to its in­vig­orat­ing tone, and qui­et down. It is caused by the dry air. We are a long way from the At­lantic, and these mighty moun­tains to the west act as a buffer to the mois­ture-​laden air from the Pa­cif­ic.”

Cross­ing the val­ley, they were soon pen­etrat­ing among the foothills at the base of the great up­lifts, the tops of which bore eter­nal snow.

Wilder grew the scenery as they pen­etrat­ed deep­er in­to the wilder­ness. Frank and his chums were al­most awed by the grandeur of their sur­round­ings. At the same time, Jer­ry kept an ea­ger eye on the watch for signs of game. The sports­man spir­it was strong in his na­ture, and gen­er­al­ly forged to the front.

It was Frank, how­ev­er, who first chanced to spy some­thing that ex­cit­ed his at­ten­tion.

“What is that mov­ing up yon­der, Mr. Ma­bie? There! Look! I de­clare if it didn't jump straight across from that high rock to the oth­er! Is that a Rocky Moun­tain sheep, sir?” he asked.

“Just what it is, my lad; and if you feel in­clined, there is a chance for you to get a shot at it,” came the quick re­ply.

“I would like it, first rate,” de­clared Frank, im­me­di­ate­ly chang­ing his ri­fle from his back to his hands.

“All right, then. Lis­ten, and I'll tell you how it may be done. We'll rest our hors­es right here, for the last climb over this rough ridge to the bank of the swift riv­er ly­ing be­tween. You drop down here and make your way along un­til you can get a chance to shoot. It will be a long shot, re­mem­ber, so make al­lowances; and the wind is with you, not against you.”

“I'll try my best, sir,” said Frank, slip­ping off his horse.

“Be very care­ful as you crawl along, for a slip might cost you your life,” were the last words he heard the stock­man say as he be­gan to de­scend the lit­tle de­cliv­ity in or­der to make his way along its base, so as to re­main con­cealed from the quar­ry.

Frank was care­ful as well as quick in his move­ments. Again and again he peeped out to see what the moun­tain sheep was do­ing. So far as he could learn, the an­imal seemed to be cen­ter­ing its at­ten­tion on the car­avan that had halt­ed. Three times it moved its po­si­tion, and once he was just in time to see it make a most daz­zling leap, which he hoped Will might have caught with his quick-​ac­tion lens.

Fi­nal­ly, hav­ing gained a place where he had a fine view of the an­imal stand­ing there across the gorge, Frank sank down so as to get a good aim. Not quite sat­is­fied, he crawled for­ward a lit­tle fur­ther, and then pro­ceed­ed to put his for­tune to the test.

Nev­er had he cal­cu­lat­ed more ex­act­ly just how he should aim in or­der to bring the suc­cess he craved. When he pressed the trig­ger he was thrilled to see the moun­tain sheep give a wild spring in­to the air and then fall over the edge of the plat­form. This time its spring lacked the buoy­an­cy of life, and Frank knew that his bul­let had reached its bil­let.

But he had no time to ex­ult, for as he moved he felt the ground slip­ping from un­der him, and re­al­ized that noth­ing could in­ter­pose to pre­vent his falling in­to the deep gorge!