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

CHAPTER XI

THE ELK AND THE YOUNG HUNTER

“Hey! Hold on, there! That isn't in the game!”

The elk did not seem to care whether it were so or not, but came rush­ing straight on. Like many an­oth­er, more ex­pe­ri­enced in the ways of the woods than him­self, Bluff al­most for­got that he had oth­er charges in his gun. He was so amazed to see the an­imal he had ful­ly be­lieved to be dead show such sur­pris­ing signs of life, that he stood there for a few pre­cious sec­onds, gap­ing as if in a dream.

Then he made a wild spring to one side and gained the shel­ter of a tree.

“Oh! What a sock­er!” he ex­claimed, as the en­raged and bleed­ing an­imal came full tilt against the trunk of the tree.

Be­fore he could say more, or try to form any plan of ac­tion, he found him­self obliged to spin around that same trunk with all the ra­pid­ity he could com­mand, for the elk was ap­par­ent­ly de­ter­mined to over­take him, and those tow­er­ing antlers seemed point­ed with spikes, in the eyes of the star­tled lad as he strained ev­ery ef­fort to keep be­yond their reach.

Bluff was re­al­ly alarmed by this time. He knew that any un­for­tu­nate slip on his part would pre­cip­itate a tragedy.

“I laughed at Jer­ry and the wild dogs that chased him around and around, but nev­er again for me!” he gasped, as he kept up the weary cir­cle, hug­ging the trunk as close­ly as pos­si­ble.

This, how­ev­er, caused him to re­mem­ber that on the oth­er oc­ca­sion his chum had fi­nal­ly man­aged to gain the vic­to­ry through his own gun, and Bluff sud­den­ly came to a knowl­edge of the fact that he did have a gun gripped in his hand, and which al­so con­tained five more shots.

“Hold on! Give me a breath­ing spell, hang you! I'll fix you yet!” he man­aged to ex­claim, though he would bet­ter have hus­band­ed his breath to bet­ter pur­pose.

The elk was not a bit ac­com­mo­dat­ing. Per­haps the an­imal un­der­stood that so long as it kept Bluff in rapid mo­tion the hu­man en­emy could not find a chance to use that fire-​stick again, that shot out such burn­ing mis­siles. At any rate, it per­se­vered, and poor Bluff's tongue fair­ly hung out with fa­tigue.

In des­per­ation, he was about to turn around, trust­ing to luck to get in a shot that would put an end to this aw­ful chase in a cir­cle, when the elk tripped and fell.

“Now!” gasped Bluff.

You would have thought he must have lev­eled his gun and fired. Jer­ry or Frank would, in all prob­abil­ity, have done that very thing. But Bluff seemed to go back to the first law of Na­ture, which is self-​preser­va­tion.

He dropped his gun, and seiz­ing a limb that hap­pened to be with­in reach, climbed in­to the tree with the agili­ty of a mon­key. Fear spurred him on to do his best work just then.

“Don't you wish you could?” he shout­ed de­ri­sive­ly down at the elk, which was jump­ing up, and mak­ing all man­ner of threat­en­ing move­ments with its antlered head, much af­ter the fash­ion of an en­raged goat, Bluff thought.

He was safe enough, but some­how Bluff did not like the idea of hav­ing to wait in the tree un­til his chums, drawn by his calls, came to the res­cue. Why, he would nev­er hear the end of the thing! It was too hor­ri­ble to con­tem­plate, and in some fash­ion he must se­cure pos­ses­sion of his gun to end the ca­reer of that pug­na­cious old bull elk.

[Il­lus­tra­tion: “DON'T YOU WISH YOU COULD?” HE SHOUT­ED DE­RI­SIVE­LY DOWN AT THE ELK.--_Page 98_. _The Out­door Chums Af­ter Big Game_.]

Bluff had read more or less about the strange ad­ven­tures that be­fall hunters of big game. He al­so re­mem­bered how one man had fished for his gun, and suc­cess­ful­ly, un­der sim­ilar con­di­tions.

Hav­ing no cord in his pock­et, he de­lib­er­ate­ly tore his hand­ker­chief in­to strips and knot­ted them to­geth­er. When this failed to reach the ground, he fas­tened it to the end of a long and stout “suck­er,” or sprout, which he cut from the body of the tree.

A run­ning loop was made at the oth­er end, for he could see that his gun lay in such a po­si­tion that the bar­rel was tilt­ed.

Bluff then be­gan to an­gle. Many times he came near ac­com­plish­ing his pur­pose, when some­thing oc­curred to break up his plans.

“I'll nev­er give up,” he de­clared, when the elk moved for­ward, as if sus­pect­ing some­thing, and en­deav­ored to catch the dan­gling noose in its antlers, which Bluff would not have hap­pen for any­thing.

“If I was try­ing to catch you, I'd want some­thing stronger than this rag. Now please wan­der away again, and let me have an­oth­er try,” he said; and then, as the an­imal did walk off a dozen paces, as if en­cour­ag­ing him to de­scend, he cour­te­ous­ly added, “Thank you.”

A minute lat­er he was thrilled to find that his er­rat­ic loop had ac­tu­al­ly dropped over the end of the gun bar­rel. A quick jerk at the prop­er in­stant tight­ened the clutch, and af­ter that it was the eas­iest thing in the world to pull the weapon up with­in reach of his trem­bling hands.

“Now, we'll see if you're go­ing to have the laugh on me, you old scamp! Hi! Hold on, there! Who said you could walk away? Come back here, and have it out! I dare you!”

The elk, as if sus­pect­ing that all was not well, had in­deed start­ed to move off. But when Bluff made a great feint of com­ing down, he suc­ceed­ed in ex­cit­ing the an­imal's anger again, and cau­tion was flung to the winds.

Bluff watched for his chance, and when it came he made sure work of it by send­ing a bul­let through the heart of the fight­ing elk.

Even then he wait­ed a lit­tle while.

“Go­ing to try get­ting up again? This time I'm ready for you, old fel­low!” he said to the fall­en beast; but present­ly it be­came patent, even to his in­ex­pe­ri­enced eyes, that the elk had breathed its last.

“Now, if Will were on­ly here,” Bluff re­marked en­vi­ous­ly, as he put one foot on his prize and tried to look very un­con­cerned, as if knock­ing down such big game might be a mat­ter of al­most dai­ly oc­cur­rence with him.

Not know­ing how to go about cut­ting the elk up, Bluff head­ed back to­ward the camp. Be­fore leav­ing the spot he thought to bleed the quar­ry, af­ter a fash­ion, for he un­der­stood that such a thing was al­ways done to make the meat taste bet­ter.

Half an hour lat­er he showed up in the camp. It was next to im­pos­si­ble to get lost in that val­ley, which might ac­count for Bluff find­ing his way back with com­par­ative ease.

Jer­ry was loung­ing along­side one of the tents, en­gaged in get­ting his fish­ing tack­le in or­der, for a try in the pool be­low the falls.

“Shall we send the hors­es out to tote it in?” he asked, af­ter the usu­al fash­ion of greet­ing green­horns when they come back from a hunt ap­par­ent­ly unat­tend­ed by suc­cess.

“Did you hear me shoot?” asked Bluff care­less­ly.

“Why, yes, twice; and some time apart. What was it--a crow or a jack-​rab­bit?”

Bluff on­ly smiled as Mr. Ma­bie came out of the tent and glanced at him.

“What would you say that was, sir?” he asked, thrust­ing some­thing in front of the old stock­man.

Start­ing back, Mr. Ma­bie looked hasti­ly at the hairy ob­ject.

“An elk's tail, as sure as you live!” he re­marked, his face re­lax­ing in a smile.

“What's that?” roared Jer­ry, spring­ing to his feet.

“Oh, you needn't get ex­cit­ed about it. Do you see the dull spots on my knife? Well, I bled my game, all right, just as I want­ed to do with that bul­ly good blade that was left be­hind; and if Red­dy will on­ly go back with me, we can bring the old fel­low in on a horse,” said Bluff cool­ly.

“Count me in on that!” ex­claimed Will, rush­ing out of his im­promp­tu dark-​room, and wav­ing the bot­tle in which he was mak­ing a so­lu­tion of hy­po.

“I think I'll go along, too,” re­marked Frank, ap­pear­ing from some oth­er place.

When the par­ty start­ed forth present­ly, there were six of them with the horse--the chums, Red­dy, and Mr. Ma­bie him­self.

“I am be­gin­ning to be­lieve you boys will cor­ral ev­ery­thing in sight if you keep on the way you've start­ed. A griz­zly, a sheep, and now an elk; and on­ly thir­ty hours with me! H'm! Per­haps I may not be able to show you as much about big-​game hunt­ing as I ex­pect­ed,” said the stock­man, who seemed vast­ly amused at the en­er­gy shown by his young guests at the ranch.

“Oh, we can pull a trig­ger, all right, sir, but there are a thou­sand things we want to know about these na­tives that books nev­er teach. I'm like a sponge, and can keep on soak­ing up in­for­ma­tion all the time,” laughed Frank.

In­cau­tious­ly, Bluff let fall cer­tain words that gave Jer­ry a clue as to the true sit­ua­tion.

“A tree! Shot him down­ward from a tree, eh? Now, since you've so frankly con­fessed that much, why not tell the whole bloom­ing sto­ry, Bluff?” he cried.

“There isn't much to it. I saw the elk. Then I shot him, and he fell over. Af­ter that the elk saw me. He chased me about a tree. I re­mem­bered how fast Jer­ry said he ran around when those wild dogs were af­ter him, and I want­ed to go him just one bet­ter. Then I found a chance to climb when the wound­ed elk stum­bled. Af­ter that I made a rope out of my hand­ker­chief and fished with a loop un­til I caught the bar­rel of my gun. That's all.”

“A whole his­to­ry in a nut­shell. But we must be get­ting near the place, ac­cord­ing to what you said at the start. There are the three oaks grow­ing in a clump. Now where's your dead elk?”

As Frank spoke he turned to Bluff. That in­di­vid­ual was star­ing around in ev­ident be­wil­der­ment.

“It was sure here I met him. There's the lit­tle glade, and this big tree is the one I climbed up in­to. I saw him ly­ing there. I _know_ he was dead when I bled him. But I must be blind, for the elk cer­tain­ly is not here now. Oh! Did he come to life again, and run away?” said poor Bluff, in de­spair, look­ing at the tail, which he had thrust in­to his belt.