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

CHAPTER XVI

THE NEW CAMP

“Well, how did you like it, Jer­ry?”

“Talk to me about your shoot­ing the whirlpool at Ni­agara in a bar­rel! That was bad enough for me! I swal­lowed enough wa­ter to float a ship! And here we are yet, each perched on a measly old slip­pery rock, in the mid­dle of the rapids. Say! tell me about that, will you, Frank? How are we go­ing to get ashore?”

The sit­ua­tion was com­ical as well as trag­ical. Just as Jer­ry said, each of the late in­mates of the over­turned bull­boat, af­ter be­ing buf­fet­ed about fu­ri­ous­ly for sev­er­al min­utes, had suc­ceed­ed in wild­ly scram­bling on to an ex­posed rock.

There in mid­stream they sat, drip­ping wet, and with the foam­ing wa­ter sur­round­ing them on all sides. In spite of his re­cent scare, Frank could not help laugh­ing.

“What ails you? Per­haps you think I look fun­ny?” ex­claimed Jer­ry, who had re­ceived a few bruis­es, and was not feel­ing quite as cheer­ful as usu­al.

“Well, if you could on­ly see your­self just now, you couldn't help laugh­ing. Do you know you just put me in mind of that lit­tle god of good luck, Bil­likin!” called Frank, and in spite of his sore­ness Jer­ry had to grin in sym­pa­thy.

“Well, all right, then; there are two of us, and I guess you look as sil­ly as I do. But there's that fel­low, Will, get­ting his work in, as usu­al. A nice pair of geese we'll look like in his book of mar­tyrs.”

“Oh, that doesn't both­er me one lit­tle bit just now. All I'm think­ing about is how un­der the sun we're go­ing to get out of this pick­le,” said Frank, sweep­ing his hand around, as if to call at­ten­tion to the an­gry wa­ter that leaped and boiled in a fren­zy of ea­ger­ness to get at its ex­pect­ed vic­tims.

“Can't swim to the shore, that's sure. I sup­pose we'll just have to slip in again and make an­oth­er turn of it. Thank good­ness! the bot­tom of the old rapids is in sight, and as Bluff and Red­dy have picked up our boat and the pad­dle, they could turn their hands at life sav­ing when we came bob­bing along.”

“Hold on! Don't be rash, Jer­ry!” called Frank.

“Well, have you got any­thing bet­ter to say about it--any bright scheme to pro­pose that of­fers to soft­en the blow?” de­mand­ed the oth­er, paus­ing in his move­ment to­ward slip­ping off his un­sta­ble seat.

“I've just thought of some­thing,” an­swered Frank.

“Good for you, then. I guess I'm too bad­ly rat­tled just now, for once, to do much think­ing. What's the game, Frank?”

“Why not let Red­dy and his re­li­able old rope come in­to play again?”

“Say! we'll have to beg or buy that clothes­line from Red­dy when we go away from here, and hang it up in our clu­broom, as the most valu­able as­set we have. With­out it what would be­come of us, eh? Talk about your trained nurs­es! That fel­low is a whole hos­pi­tal to the ten­der­foot crowd. Call to him, please, and en­list his sym­pa­thy in the no­ble cause of yank­ing us in out of the wet.”

So Frank did shout to the cow­boy, who, hav­ing beached the two boats be­low the rapids, was hur­ry­ing up the shore. Mr. Ma­bie, too, had joined Will, so that present­ly the en­tire bal­ance of the lit­tle par­ty had gath­ered op­po­site.

Red­dy en­tered in­to the game with spir­it. He seemed to be­lieve that these trag­ic oc­cur­rences must have just hap­pened to give him a chance to show his skill in launch­ing his rope.

“Jer­ry first, please!” called Frank.

“And why? Is it be­cause I'm more valu­able, or bet­ter-​look­ing?” de­mand­ed Jer­ry.

“Oh, per­haps I want the plea­sure of see­ing how you look as you floun­der through the rapids; and then, again, I may pick up a few points as to how _not_ to do it.”

“Tell me about that, will you! Some peo­ple have all the nerve!” shout­ed Jer­ry, for the rush­ing wa­ter made so much noise that an or­di­nary call could not have been heard.

Nev­er­the­less, he ac­cept­ed the fly­ing noose that came shoot­ing straight to­ward him, placed it un­der his arms, made sure that his gun was still fast to his back, and then fear­less­ly dropped off his perch.

There was con­sid­er­able floun­der­ing on the part of the swim­mer, much strain­ing among the oth­ers who ma­nip­ulat­ed the rope, af­ter which Jer­ry was as­sist­ed up the bank. His first act, af­ter cough­ing up a lot of wa­ter, was to shake his fist at the grin­ning Frank, and then call out:

“Now you come on, and see how you like it!”

Frank did not wait up­on the or­der of his go­ing. As soon as he had the rope se­cured un­der his arms he slipped down in­to the foamy wa­ter, and be­gan to buf­fet the cur­rent like a wa­ter spaniel.

Af­ter an ex­cit­ing ex­pe­ri­ence he, too, was drawn ashore, re­al­ly none the worse for his ad­ven­ture.

“Shake hands, Frank. You did nobly. I might have laughed, on­ly I didn't seem to have breath enough,” said Jer­ry, but the look in his eyes told how he had en­joyed see­ing his chum pass­ing through the same ex­pe­ri­ence.

A fire was made, so that the soaked ones might dry off. Mean­while, Mr. Ma­bie and Will suc­ceed­ed in suc­cess­ful­ly shoot­ing the rapids, though the lat­ter was wise enough to leave his pre­cious cam­era in the care of Bluff.

As noon found them still there, they took a “snack” be­fore re­sum­ing the wa­ter jour­ney. Be­low the fierce rapids the cur­rent was still swift, but there were places where the stream widened, and here the scenery was very fine, al­though the leaves looked more or less parched on ac­count of the scarci­ty of rain dur­ing the sum­mer that was pass­ing.

An hour lat­er, and they saw signs of smoke be­low.

“The boys have ar­rived ahead of us,” said Mr. Ma­bie, point­ing to the wreaths that as­cend­ed above the trees.

“All on ac­count of our mishap. We lost three hours that way,” re­marked Frank, who felt a lit­tle pro­voked over the ac­ci­dent, since he as­pired to be a ca­pa­ble ca­noe­man at all times.

“Those things will hap­pen to the best of guides at times,” con­soled the stock­man. “I've of­ten been in the drink my­self. There are some cross-​cur­rents in our rapids, that one can on­ly learn by ex­pe­ri­ence. I rather ex­pect­ed you would go over, and in­struct­ed Red­dy to be on the watch be­low.”

“I wa­ger I wouldn't get caught in that same way again, sir,” as­sert­ed Frank.

“And I'm sure you wouldn't, lad. Ex­pe­ri­ence is the best teach­er, and if we didn't have some of these bad turns we'd grow too con­fi­dent.”

The camp was soon look­ing quite cozy again, when the tents had been placed and ev­ery­thing made snug.

“I'm go­ing to like this place al­most as well as the one un­der the cas­cade,” re­marked Will, who had been rather skep­ti­cal all along.

So the first evening came along, and sup­per was the same hearty, en­joy­able meal they had al­ways found it. The camp ap­petites worked over­time, the cof­fee tast­ed splen­did, the elk steaks were just what each one had been hun­ger­ing for, and as the cook sup­ple­ment­ed these with a heap­ing plat­ter of flap­jacks the con­tent­ment of the four chums seemed com­plete.

“How long do we stay here, Mr. Ma­bie?” asked Bluff, nev­er hes­itat­ing when in search of in­for­ma­tion.

“Pos­si­bly a week or so. Then back to the ranch, and a new line of ex­pe­ri­ences. This ter­ri­bly dry weath­er is mak­ing me anx­ious, for the range is dry­ing up, and we shall be hard set to find pas­ture for the cat­tle soon, un­less rain comes along.”

“Do you have such a dry spell in sum­mer of­ten up here?” asked Frank.

“Nev­er saw the equal of this since I set­tled in the val­ley, many years ago. Now, down in Ohio, where I orig­inal­ly came from, they have drouths even in May, at times, and I've seen things go to the dogs more than once, gar­dens dried up, and even a for­est fire in Ju­ly, but nev­er up here,” replied the stock­man.

“The woods look as though it wouldn't take a great deal to set them go­ing,” de­clared Frank. “One of the men threw a match down to-​day, af­ter light­ing his cigarette, and it seemed like mag­ic the way the fire flashed up. He had to be quick to jump on it be­fore the breeze car­ried it along.”

Mr. Ma­bie frowned.

“I won't ask you which man it was, Frank; but I must warn them again to be more than or­di­nar­ily care­ful about throw­ing match­es around and leav­ing a fire burn­ing any­where in the woods. Many a grand for­est has been ru­ined by such care­less­ness,” he said.

“How does that hap­pen, sir?” in­quired Bluff.

“It is easy. The care­less hunter or trap­per leaves his dy­ing fire when he breaks camp. Then up comes a sud­den wind and some of the red cin­ders are blown in­to the dead leaves or punk grass. Fanned by the breeze, they be­come a roar­ing flame in a minute, and the mis­chief is done. Be care­ful, boys, please.”

“We cer­tain­ly will, sir,” replied Frank sin­cere­ly. “Not to speak of the dam­age done, it must be mighty un­pleas­ant to be caught in a for­est fire. I've read of such things, but nev­er han­kered for a per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ence.”

On the fol­low­ing day they start­ed to look in­to the pos­si­bil­ities for big game around the new camp.

“Red­dy, here, says he knows of a bear den that we ought to vis­it some time lat­er. While at it, you boys must see all there is go­ing in the way of sport, for you may nev­er come out this way again, though I hope that will not be the case. To-​day, how­ev­er, we will take things a bit easy,” re­marked the ranch­man.

Al­though the stock­man did not speak any plain­er, Frank knew just what he meant.

“He thinks we must be feel­ing the ef­fects of our lit­tle ex­cite­ment yes­ter­day, Jer­ry, and that the sore­ness in our mus­cles will take our am­bi­tion away for to-​day,” he said aside to his chum.

“Tell me about that, will you! To prove that we're tougher than Mr. Ma­bie thinks, let's you and I en­gi­neer a lit­tle hunt of our own?” pro­posed the oth­er quick­ly.

Ac­cord­ing­ly, they start­ed out, go­ing down the val­ley.

“The walk will do us good, any­how,” de­clared Frank, “even if we don't run across any big game.”

“I was ask­ing Mr. Ma­bie about moose, and he said that oc­ca­sion­al­ly one is seen in this re­gion, though gen­er­al­ly they hang out fur­ther east. I've al­ways want­ed to get a moose, but was nev­er able to be up in the woods where they are found, when the law was off. How about you, Frank? Ev­er shoot at one?”

“Nev­er had that luck, though I've seen many in the sum­mer time, in Maine. Some­how, it seems to go against the grain do­ing this hunt­ing at such a queer time. I guess it won't be long be­fore they have as strict laws up here as we have to pro­tect such game as deer and elk.”

“How about pan­thers and griz­zlies?” asked Jer­ry.

“They don't want to pro­tect those fel­lows. You've got a right to knock one over, or a wolf, any time you want, if he doesn't get you first,” laughed Frank.

An hour lat­er they sep­arat­ed, Frank to look along one ridge, while Jer­ry had tak­en a no­tion to see what the oth­er might have in the shape of game.

Frank spent quite a long time scour­ing the woods that cov­ered the side of the val­ley. He had not put up any­thing worth while, and was even think­ing about head­ing back to the place where he had agreed to meet his chum, when a dis­tress­ing lit­tle ac­ci­dent oc­curred.

Just as he was hur­ry­ing down a steep bank his foot caught in a vine, and he was hurled for­ward with such vi­olence that his head, com­ing in con­tact with the hard ground, re­ceived such a blow that he was ren­dered un­con­scious.

Frank nev­er knew just how long he re­mained in­sen­si­ble. It might have been on­ly a few min­utes, or per­haps half an hour slipped by while he lay there. When he fi­nal­ly opened his eyes he looked up in­to a dusky face, and re­al­ized that it be­longed to an In­di­an!