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

CHAPTER XII

HARD LUCK

“Talk to me about your dream­ers!” mut­tered Jer­ry, shrug­ging his shoul­ders.

“But I tell you it was so!” as­sert­ed Bluff, fir­ing up.

“The boy is right,” said Mr. Ma­bie, as he stepped for­ward and fas­tened his eyes up­on the ground.

Frank saw im­me­di­ate­ly what the stock­man had in mind. These things men­tioned by Bluff could nev­er have hap­pened with­out leav­ing some tan­gi­ble traces be­hind. Where a big elk had been slain there must be signs of the blood that had flowed.

“Look here, and see for your­self, Jer­ry.” And Mr. Ma­bie point­ed to the ground at his feet.

“There's some marks of hoofs around, I ad­mit, and they seem to cir­cle about the tree, just as Bluff says; and--yes, that's blood on the ground, as sure as you live! I guess I'm on the wrong track. He did have a mer­ry cir­cus. He did shoot an elk, but where has the bloom­ing thing gone?” ex­claimed the scoffer.

“That's just what I'm go­ing to find out through Red­dy, here. He has some lo­cal rep­uta­tion as a track­er. Put your nose down to it, and let us know what hap­pened, Red­dy.”

In ac­cor­dance with the re­quest of the ranch­man, the cow­boy threw him­self up­on his hands and knees.

“In­di­ans!” he an­nounced, be­fore they had tak­en half a dozen breaths.

“What?” cried Bluff, star­ing hard.

“Cree In­di­ans been here. I can see the print of their moc­casins plain as day; and here's where they dragged the elk along, head­ing to­ward the riv­er!”

Red­dy seemed to have not the slight­est trou­ble in read­ing the signs, and yet to the boys there was not the faintest ves­tige of marks. Present­ly, how­ev­er, Frank was able to make out the print of a foot in the soil, and he not­ed that the one who made it wore no heels. His footwear must be moc­casins.

“H'm!” re­marked Mr. Ma­bie. “Just what I sus­pect­ed. The thiev­ing Crees have robbed our young friend of his prize. Too bad! But there are more elk around, Bluff, and I hope you'll have oth­er chances.”

“But that one chased me so hard I want­ed re­venge. I cal­cu­lat­ed on eat­ing a bit of his flank for my din­ner. What's the mat­ter with our fol­low­ing up the scamps, and mak­ing them give up some of my game, any­how?” de­mand­ed the dis­ap­point­ed hunter.

“Im­pos­si­ble just now. The riv­er is close by, and they un­doubt­ed­ly had boats in which they fled, car­ry­ing off your elk. By this time they've shot the rapids, and must be miles be­low. Pos­si­bly we may run across the ras­cals lat­er, when we al­so go down the riv­er,” replied Mr. Ma­bie.

Red­dy had gone off, his head bent low, and they un­der­stood that he was fol­low­ing the trail, much as a hound would have done, with this one dif­fer­ence, that where­as a dog pur­sues by scent alone, the cow­boy had to de­pend on his eyes.

“But if game is so plen­ti­ful, why should these Crees want to steal my elk?” pur­sued Bluff, who could not be eas­ily sat­is­fied.

“That both­ers me to an­swer. Per­haps they hap­pened to be out of am­mu­ni­tion. There are sev­er­al oth­er ex­pla­na­tions, but in my opin­ion the most prob­able is the nat­ural mean­ness of cer­tain dusky bucks; just as your able tramp re­fus­es to do a lick of work, while he'll walk twen­ty miles for noth­ing,” smiled the oth­er.

“There comes Red­dy back. Per­haps he knows more about it now,” said Frank, who was de­cid­ed­ly in­ter­est­ed in the enig­ma.

They wait­ed un­til the cow­boy joined the cir­cle about the tree.

“Boats, Red­dy?” asked Mr. Ma­bie.

“Three. Must have car­ried around the falls with­out our know­ing it. Hung about here, wait­ing to steal some­thing from our camp. Had a snare set for jack-​rab­bits. Saw some torn skins in the camp,” was what the cow­boy replied, in his jerky way.

“Oh! Then I guess they must have been here be­fore we came, and all you say makes me be­lieve I was right. They have no arms, or else their pow­der and shot have run out; and for some rea­son they are afraid to meet whites. Well, the elk's gone, and we can't mend that. Let's re­turn to camp. You have the tail to show for your lit­tle ad­ven­ture, my lad.”

“Yes, sir; and the mem­ory of it all, which will haunt me for a good long time,” said Bluff, with a shake of his head, as he con­tem­plat­ed the his­toric tree around which he had done a lit­tle Marathon.

“But I mean to get a pic­ture of this tree, any­how, just to re­mind Bluff how valu­able a good pair of sprint­ing legs may be some­times,” laughed Will.

And he did, with Bluff stand­ing along­side; for once the of­fi­cial pho­tog­ra­pher de­mand­ed a pose, he was bound to get it, or throw up his job, for such was the law of the Rod, Gun and Cam­era Club.

Then they re­traced their steps to the camp, Frank more than usu­al­ly thought­ful, for any­thing in the shape of a mys­tery al­ways set him to puz­zling, and he more than once won­dered whether they would ev­er learn just why those Crees stole the elk Bluff had downed af­ter so much trou­ble.

“How many did there seem to be?” he asked Red­dy, a lit­tle lat­er.

“You mean of the thiev­ing reds? I count­ed nine in all, four bucks, two squaws and three pap­poos­es,” replied the oth­er.

“But if I un­der­stand right­ly, these In­di­ans nev­er take their fam­ilies when they go on the war-​path. Is that so, Red­dy?” Frank asked quick­ly.

“Say, get that no­tion out of your head right away. They ain't no Crees lookin' for trou­ble these days. My idea is just this: This is a fam­ily trav­elin' acrost coun­try, for some rea­son or oth­er. P'raps they got kicked out of their pesky old vil­lage. I've knowed such things to hap­pen. Then they run short of meat, and didn't have guns or pow­der. Un­der such con­di­tions any red­man would steal.”

“Well, who could blame them, with wom­en and chil­dren to feed? I guess you hit the nail on the head that time, Red­dy. Glad to think that way, too. We can spare the elk, and it will spur Bluff on to oth­er hunt­ing deeds. He's had a taste now, and the fever will work on him.”

Mean­while, Jer­ry had start­ed his fish­ing be­low the cataract. There were places just at the end of the foam-​splashed out­let of the big pool where they had seen no­ble trout jump­ing, and it was here he dropped his flies.

Af­ter try­ing them a short time, and as­cer­tain­ing that the trout paid lit­tle at­ten­tion to the feath­ery lure, prac­ti­cal Jer­ry ac­tu­al­ly de­scend­ed to the plebian an­gle­worm, though he blushed when Frank came over to watch him.

“Got to have some for sup­per, you know,” he re­marked. “Now, if I was on­ly do­ing this thing for the sport, noth­ing could tempt me to use live bait. I'm at it in the strict com­mer­cial sense this time.”

“I un­der­stand; and Jer­ry, let me tell you, the sports­man who, when trout-​hun­gry, re­fus­es to go back to first prin­ci­ples, and use grubs and worms af­ter the fish refuse the fly, is to be pitied, that's all,” laughed Frank.

“Hey! That's a dandy, all right! See him jump, will you? Wow! He's all of two pounds, and as strong as an ox! I hope the lead­er holds. It's been frayed some by rub­bing over rocks in the past. Please pick up that land­ing-​net and at­tend to the beau­ty, if I can coax him close enough, Frank.”

Frank land­ed not on­ly that beau­ty, but sev­er­al more, ere he wan­dered off to do some­thing else. Jer­ry kept on fish­ing un­til he could not get an­oth­er bite, by which time he had quite a nice string of the speck­led beau­ties.

“Per­haps enough for a de­cent meal; though if Bluff de­vel­ops his usu­al ap­petite, the rest of us would go hun­gry. I won­der if a fel­low mightn't have some luck up above the falls? Guess I'll make a shift to try,” he said to him­self.

The last view he had of the camp showed him Red­dy amus­ing Bluff by mak­ing fly­ing toss­es of his rope and las­so­ing all sorts of ob­jects, from the hat on the head of the ad­mir­ing wit­ness, to some­thing tossed up in the air.

Jer­ry la­bored up the hill­side un­til he fi­nal­ly came to where he could look down at the wa­ter as it shot over the edge. It fell with a great deal of noise, strik­ing the rocks be­low in many places with ter­rif­ic force.

“Ugh! It would just about bang a fel­low to pieces to drop over there,” he re­marked, com­menc­ing to move up­stream, look­ing for a promis­ing place to be­gin his fish­ing op­er­ations.

Present­ly he dis­cov­ered a log that jut­ted out over the swift cur­rent. From this out­look he be­lieved he could al­low his bait to float down in­to an ed­dy that looked as though it might be the home of a big her­mit trout.

Jer­ry test­ed the log as he cau­tious­ly ad­vanced. He re­al­ized that he was tak­ing some chances in creep­ing out to its fur­thest end, but so far as he could as­cer­tain it seemed to be firm enough.

Strad­dling the log, he start­ed to get his bait­ed hook in mo­tion. The wrig­gling worms sank a lit­tle in the swirl. At first, he was un­able to just mas­ter the dif­fi­cult prob­lem of how to in­flu­ence the bait to float in­to the ed­dy. Twice he failed to ac­com­plish this, but study­ing the rush­ing stream a lit­tle, he fan­cied that by a cer­tain throw in the start he could gain his end.

Sure enough, it worked, and like a charm. The bait­ed hook was drawn back in­to the foam-​flecked ed­dy, and he saw it van­ish from view. Then came a most tremen­dous jerk, that al­most caused him to lose his bal­ance and the log to quiver, with sick­en­ing pos­si­bil­ities.

But Jer­ry glued his legs against the sides, just as he had been told to do with a re­frac­to­ry pony, and man­aged to re­cov­er his bal­ance. The trout was a gamey one, and the swift­ness of the cur­rent made the task of se­cur­ing him dou­bly hard.

“I'll work, all right, for ev­ery­thing I hook here,” pant­ed Jer­ry, af­ter ten min­utes had passed, and he tossed his ex­haust­ed prize over to the bank.

But he would not give up. Where one such fine, fat fel­low held out there was cer­tain­ly a chance for more, so he con­tin­ued his fish­ing.

Un­known to him, Will had al­so wan­dered up that steep hill­side, search­ing for a new view of the won­der­ful cataract. Push­ing through the dense thick­ets, he chanced to catch a glimpse of the lone fish­er­man.

“Now, that's what I call a pic­turesque sight! Look at the chap perched out on the very end of that log, with the wa­ter rush­ing be­low like a mill-​race! Here's where I get you, my duck. Fan­cy to what ends a fish­er­man will go in or­der to en­joy his fa­vorite sport.”

Will seemed to for­get en­tire­ly that he was will­ing to un­der­take just as long a pil­grim­age and buck up against as dif­fi­cult prob­lems sim­ply to get one snap­shot that ap­pealed to his soul.

“There! He's got an­oth­er fish on! My! How it pulls! I wouldn't be out on that log, do­ing such a job, for any­thing. But I just bet Jer­ry is as hap­py as a clam. He sets his teeth, and holds on as if he had a whale, and per­haps it is a big un! I must get him again in that po­si­tion. Why, al­though he don't know it, he's just giv­ing me the best thing of the day!”

Will rapid­ly ad­just­ed his cam­era, and looked down to see that he had the prop­er fo­cus be­fore snap­ping the shut­ter. The light was good up there, and he be­lieved he must have the great­est suc­cess with such a pic­ture as that. Be­sides, it had the gen­uine ar­ti­cle of life in it, which he al­ways sought in tak­ing his views.

Then he pressed his fin­ger, in the be­lief that he was about to snatch a snap­shot bound to give the four chums the keen­est sat­is­fac­tion in days to come.

“Oh!”

The star­tled ex­cla­ma­tion broke in­vol­un­tar­ily from the lips of Will even at the very sec­ond he took his pic­ture, and he let his beloved cam­era fall to the ground, at the risk of do­ing it some ma­te­ri­al dam­age.

It was not this seem­ing mishap that had brought the star­tled cry from his lips, but the crash of sun­der­ing wood, and the sud­den dis­ap­pear­ance of the lone fish­er­man be­low the rim of the riv­er bank; for the log had fi­nal­ly be­trayed Jer­ry, and dropped him in­to that swirling, mad­den­ing cur­rent above the high falls!