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

CHAPTER XIV

THE COW­BOY GUIDE

Ev­ery­body was in mo­tion at once.

Some went over back­ward, re­gard­less of ap­pear­ances; oth­ers rolled aside, bent up­on plac­ing some lit­tle dis­tance be­tween them­selves and the in­vad­er. Bluff was try­ing to work the mech­anism of his gun in or­der to se­cure a sec­ond shot, but as so of­ten hap­pens when the hunter is ex­cit­ed, he failed to ac­com­plish what should have been an easy change.

The mad­dened pan­ther had crouched again af­ter land­ing close to the fire. Per­haps what act­ed more than any­thing else to keep the beast from leap­ing once more was the un­cer­tain­ty of choos­ing among so many which he should at­tack. If he on­ly knew from whence had come that sting which had giv­en him such sud­den agony there would have been no hes­ita­tion at all.

One, how­ev­er, did not join in the al­most uni­ver­sal re­treat. This man was Red­dy. He had been lean­ing for­ward at the time, as stat­ed, about to pick up a brand with which to light his cigarette. Some im­pulse urged him to seize a flam­ing, heavy stick that stuck out of the fire, and make a fran­tic at­tack up­on the crouch­ing pan­ther.

Frank nev­er for­got that spec­ta­cle. The pan­ther, with ears flat­tened back, and fangs ex­posed, snarled and car­ried on just like a big house cat when as­sailed by a small but saucy dog, strik­ing out from time to time, as though try­ing to reach the arm that wield­ed the cud­gel.

The flam­ing brand caused too much fear to al­low of an at­tack. Still, the ug­ly beast would not give way, and leap out of its per­ilous po­si­tion.

“Where's my gun?” At least three dif­fer­ent shouts arose.

“Get out of range there, kid!” bel­lowed Bil­ly, who had drawn a heavy re­volver, and, on hands and knees, sought to get a line on the com­mon en­emy.

“But that's my pan­ther!” cried the voice of Bluff.

Frank saw him once more bring his ri­fle up to his shoul­der. Al­though hard­ly in a po­si­tion to see what was go­ing on, Will seemed to be fum­bling with some­thing in a des­per­ate fash­ion. The fel­low, as usu­al, was think­ing on­ly of what a grand thing it would be if he could on­ly get that scene for pos­ter­ity to gaze up­on.

“I hope Bluff aims straight!” Frank was say­ing to him­self, for he knew there was more or less dan­ger of the bul­let do­ing some dam­age to one of the campers who might hap­pen to be on the oth­er side, part­ly screened by the brush.

The crash of the gun fol­lowed.

“Wow!” shout­ed Red­dy, falling back as the pan­ther tum­bled over in his di­rec­tion, for he knew what dam­age those poi­sonous claws might do in the dy­ing agony of the beast.

Then the rest of the scat­tered com­pa­ny ap­peared. Some crawled out from the brush, oth­ers arose from flat­ten­ing them­selves on the ground, while still an­oth­er group made their ex­it from un­der the can­vas of the tent close by.

The beast was writhing in its last hold on life.

“That's my pan­ther, I told you!” said Bluff, jump­ing to his feet, and still hold­ing on to his gun.

He was as white as a ghost, but a fire shone in his eyes telling of the spir­it that had fi­nal­ly been aroused there. Jer­ry would soon have to look to his lau­rels now.

Mr. Ma­bie laughed as he pat­ted Bluff on the back.

“I reck­on it is, young­ster; but you took big chances that time. I'd ad­vise you to slow up a bit in the fu­ture, when shoot­ing in the dark. That im­petu­ous na­ture will sure get you in­to more than one scrape, oth­er­wise,” he said sober­ly.

Bluff hung his head. He knew now that he had been too hasty, when there were so many old­er cam­paign­ers than him­self around; but the loss of that elk had ran­kled in his heart, so that he could not re­sist the sud­den temp­ta­tion to re­deem his rep­uta­tion.

Jer­ry, for once, had noth­ing to say, at least to the suc­cess­ful one. He bent over the dead pan­ther, and ex­am­ined it with cu­rios­ity. Will was loud­ly lament­ing the fact that once again he had found him­self left in the lurch.

“You fel­lows move too fast,” he de­clared. “Now, if Bluff hadn't put in his oar, I was just about ready to shoot off a flash­light pic­ture. Just think what it would mean to see Red­dy, here, bang­ing that big cat over the head with his torch! Oh! it's just too mean for any use! Ev­ery­thing goes wrong just when I'm go­ing to squeeze my bulb, and get the best pic­ture there ev­er was! Even a rot­ten old log has to go and break off short--”

“Hey, Will! Let up on that whin­ing, won't you?” cried Jer­ry, just then, fear­ful lest his se­cret was about to come out.

Frank looked sus­pi­cious­ly at both his chums. Per­haps he may have en­ter­tained a dim thought that there was some­thing be­tween them that they did not want known; but oth­er things soon put this out of his mind for the time be­ing.

“We must keep an eye out the rest of the time we're here,” said Bil­ly, af­ter the com­pa­ny had set­tled down again around the fire.

“Why?” asked Bluff, look­ing up from ad­mir­ing the sleek fur of his prize.

“The brutes of­ten hunt in cou­ples, you know. This was the moth­er, just as I had an ijee, and she's got half-​grown cubs around some­where. If the mate's near by he may give us a call soon­er or lat­er.”

Bluff's hand had stolen out to­ward his gun at these words.

“Here! No more of that, my lad!” said Mr. Ma­bie. “You've had your fling, and come out of it mighty lucky. Don't try it again while I'm around, please. If any more un­in­vit­ed vis­itors drop in, you leave them to the rest of us.”

But there was no fur­ther alarm. Dur­ing the night some of them de­clared they heard strange cries off in the woods, which Mr. Ma­bie said must have been the whin­ing of the pan­ther cubs, look­ing in vain for their moth­er.

Frank was dis­tressed.

“I hope they're re­al­ly big enough to for­age for them­selves. If there's any­thing I dis­like it's to shoot bird or beast that has young de­pend­ing up­on it. Per­haps the old male may look af­ter them,” he sug­gest­ed.

“Well,” smiled Mr. Ma­bie, “I hard­ly think that will prove to be the case; at least they don't, as a rule. But I've got an idea the cubs are of a good size, and can find some means of sub­sist­ing. For my part, I wouldn't care if ev­ery pan­ther in the North­west were rubbed out. I've no love for the sly beasts. They've robbed me of more than one fine calf, I can tell you.”

Af­ter break­fast a hunt was or­ga­nized.

“We ought to get an elk be­fore leav­ing up here,” said the stock­man as they pre­pared to go forth again in a squad; “and as this will be our last day in camp by the falls, we must look sharp.”

“Then we make tracks to-​mor­row?” asked Frank.

“Hard­ly that, since we go by wa­ter. You've seen the three bull­boats yon­der. We send our tents and all oth­er things around with the hors­es, while we shoot the rapids, and en­joy the most ex­hil­arat­ing boat ride you ev­er dreamed of. Just wait and see, boys. It will be some­thing worth while.”

Af­ter all, the stock­man was un­able to start out with them. He was sub­ject to at­tacks of rheuma­tism, due to his age, and many ex­po­sures in the past. When one of these came on Mr. Ma­bie was un­able to walk any dis­tance, and, un­for­tu­nate­ly, he ex­pe­ri­enced such an at­tack that morn­ing.

“Sor­ry, boys, but it can't be helped. Red­dy, here, will have to take my place. You don't need me, that's plain. On­ly don't be too reck­less, now. That's the fault with most young­sters,” and he shook his head at Bluff, who turned fiery red as his eyes fell up­on the pan­ther, which Bil­ly was skin­ning at that mo­ment.

Of course, Red­dy was to act as guide to the par­ty. He had been around the vicin­ity a num­ber of times. Be­sides, he knew the habits of the elk, which used this val­ley for their feed­ing grounds, and if any one could lead them to suc­cess in their hunt it was the young cow­boy.

Frank used to look at Red­dy, and won­der if he had ev­er seen him be­fore; but as that was out of the ques­tion, he came to the be­lief that it was sim­ply a mat­ter of re­sem­blance.

“Look there!” ex­claimed the guide, be­fore they had gone two hun­dred steps from the camp, and point­ing as he spoke.

“What was it?” asked Jer­ry ea­ger­ly.

“I saw a gray crit­ter slink­ing away in­to that thick­et!”

“The pan­ther's mate!” cried Bluff ex­cit­ed­ly, as he fin­gered his gun.

“I reck­on it was; but we ain't lost no pan­ther, and any­how, this is a hunt for elk meat. Come along, boys,” re­marked Red­dy hasti­ly.

They tramped for half an hour steadi­ly, go­ing far be­yond where Bluff had had his strange ad­ven­ture with the wound­ed elk. Will trailed along in the rear, hold­ing on to his beloved cam­era. The woods looked as though the re­cent dry weath­er had seared the leaves more or less, but they lacked the splen­did gor­geous tints of au­tumn.

More than once the oth­ers had to wait for the strag­gler, or else call to him. He grew so in­ter­est­ed in his sur­round­ings, es­pe­cial­ly when try­ing to get a view that par­tic­ular­ly ap­pealed to his fan­cy, that he was apt to for­get their mis­sion en­tire­ly.

Once he aroused him­self to the fact that he could no longer see his com­rades, or catch a sound of their voic­es. This dis­agree­able idea caused him to hur­ry, and no doubt he be­came less cau­tious in nav­igat­ing some of the var­ious nar­row paths, for be­fore he re­al­ized that he had start­ed a small avalanche, he was caught up in its gath­er­ing swoop, and found him­self be­ing car­ried swift­ly down a rather steep de­cliv­ity, un­able to stay his rush.