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

CHAPTER XIX

A STRANGE DIS­CLO­SURE

“Hel­lo, there, Char­lie! How's your health?”

Red­dy swung him­self down from the limb on which he had been perched, and kicked out with his feet in such a way that he at­tract­ed the at­ten­tion of the beast.

“He's com­ing! Look out, Frank!” shout­ed Will, who, se­cure in his perch, had, of course, been ma­nip­ulat­ing his cam­era with burn­ing zeal.

Bang!

It was Bluff who had fired, but if he hit the great beast at all, the lat­ter mind­ed the wound no more than he would a flea bite.

Jer­ry al­so took a turn as the griz­zly passed the tree in which he was hid­den.

“I hit him!” he whooped as the griz­zly gave a snap back­ward at his flank.

But the en­tice­ment of­fered by Red­dy's swing­ing form proved too much for the en­raged an­imal. Doubt­less he imag­ined that all his trou­bles came from that biped or mon­key hang­ing up yon­der, just with­in reach of his claws if he arose on his hind legs. Hence his ea­ger­ness to make the at­tempt.

“Pull up, quick!” ex­claimed Frank as the griz­zly rushed un­der the tree and im­me­di­ate­ly start­ed to rear up.

The dar­ing cow­boy had held out un­til the very last sec­ond, mean­ing that noth­ing should balk his de­sign of en­tic­ing the en­emy un­der their refuge, where Frank could get in his work.

Af­ter­ward Frank un­der­stood his mo­tive. Red­dy was es­pe­cial­ly fond of him, though he al­so liked all of the oth­er chums. He be­lieved that Jer­ry had se­cured enough hon­ors in be­ing giv­en the chance to knock over the oth­er bear, and it was his de­sire to see Frank even up the score.

Just in the nick of time the cow­boy swung his legs up around the limb. The hor­ri­ble claws of the griz­zly swept through the air not a foot be­low where he had hung. Frank shud­dered at the con­se­quences had any­thing hap­pened to bring Red­dy with­in reach of such a pow­er­ful beast.

“Now get him, Frank!” gasped the one who hung on with arms and legs.

Nei­ther Bluff nor Jer­ry thought to shoot a sec­ond time. They seemed to un­der­stand that the game had passed them by, and that it was Frank's turn.

When he saw the right chance the young sports­man pulled the trig­ger. He had not made any mis­take in judg­ing just where he should aim, for with the re­port of his ri­fle the griz­zly floun­dered, and fell over.

“Wow! That did the busi­ness!” shout­ed Jer­ry.

“Hold on, boys! Don't get down yet!” called Mr. Ma­bie hasti­ly, as he thought he de­tect­ed a dis­po­si­tion on the part of ei­ther Bluff or Jer­ry to drop from their se­cure perch­es to the ground.

It was well they re­frained, for al­ready the mon­ster was once more on his feet, and, roar­ing with fury, en­deav­or­ing to reach the en­emies who clung there so tan­ta­liz­ing­ly, just be­yond his ex­tend­ed claws.

“Give him an­oth­er!” cried Red­dy prompt­ly.

Frank did; and wish­ing to end the beast as quick­ly as pos­si­ble, he aimed to send the lead straight to the heart. But he was com­pelled to use ev­ery bul­let in his six-​shot re­peater be­fore the gi­ant re­ceived his qui­etus, and rolled over, to rise no more.

Frank had a queer feel­ing as he dropped to the ground and stood over his big game. Deep down in his heart he en­vied his chum, be­cause Jer­ry had been able to kill _his_ griz­zly while the beast was charg­ing him.

“It may be all right,” he said to Mr. Ma­bie, “and it's a good thing to get rid of these sav­age an­imals in any old way, but I hope I don't take part in an­oth­er af­fair like this. He had no chance, poor old chap.”

The old ranch­er looked ad­mir­ing­ly at the boy.

“Those sen­ti­ments do you proud, lad, and I ap­pre­ci­ate them, too; but busi­ness, in my line, must go ahead of sen­ti­ment, and this old Char­lie was do­ing me a bad turn. My herds will rest eas­ier now that he is gone,” he said feel­ing­ly.

Leav­ing Bil­ly and Red­dy to se­cure the hide of the sec­ond griz­zly, the oth­ers re­turned to camp. Rest­less Jer­ry tried the fish­ing again, and as be­fore, suc­cess came his way.

“I'd give some­thing to have my lit­tle _Red Rover_ here, in that swift wa­ter,” sighed Bluff, as he and Frank sat on the edge of the bluff, lis­ten­ing to the rush of the riv­er while it sped on its way to the low­er coun­try.

“Well, a ca­noe might be fine for shoot­ing down­stream, but I don't be­lieve you'd find it as safe in the rapids as those hide boats. The rocks can't smash in their sides, like cedar or can­vas craft. Bet­ter to do as the na­tives do, I find, when­ev­er I go any­where. They know by ex­pe­ri­ence what's best,” re­turned Frank wise­ly.

“Look there! A cow­boy com­ing like the wind up the riv­er, wav­ing his hat over his head! Say! d'ye sup­pose any­thing's gone wrong at the ranch, and we'll have to cut our hunt short?” ex­claimed Bluff anx­ious­ly.

“Oh, I guess not. You see, those fel­lows are built that way. They nev­er can do any­thing with­out ex­cite­ment. See! He's hold­ing up some­thing that looks like a mail pouch,” said Frank com­pos­ed­ly.

“Why, of course that's it! I heard Mr. Ma­bie say he ex­pect­ed mail to-​day, and, for one, I'll be mighty glad to hear from the folks,” sighed Bluff.

“What? Not get­ting home­sick al­ready, I hope?” smiled his chum.

“Cer­tain­ly not, on­ly a fel­low nat­ural­ly likes to hear from his mom and dad when he's away so far,” de­clared Bluff stout­ly.

“Yes, and al­so from some oth­er fel­low's sis­ter, in the bar­gain. Nel­lie nev­er finds time to write to me when I'm away, leav­ing all that to the old folks; but I no­tice that you al­ways man­age to get a let­ter in her hand­writ­ing.”

“Well, I made her solemn­ly promise to write ev­ery oth­er day, you see,” ex­plained Bluff, while he sud­den­ly be­came red in the face, hur­ry­ing off to get his mail.

There were let­ters for all the boys. Jer­ry was called in from his en­tranc­ing sport to re­ceive his share, and Frank no­ticed that he, too, had a sweet-​look­ing mis­sive in a school­girl hand. Of course, it must be from Mame Cros­by, for Jer­ry and she were great friends.

“Here's some­thing en­closed in my let­ter, and di­rect­ed to Mr. Frank Lang­don. Does any­body know a fel­low by that name?” asked Will, hold­ing up a del­icate en­ve­lope that seemed to ex­hale a fra­grance all its own.

“And sealed, too! What a breach of eti­quette!” jeered Jer­ry.

“Now, _will_ you be good?” ob­served Bluff, glad of a chance to re­turn the fa­vor.

“That's all right. Pos­si­bly Vi­olet wants to make some in­quiries con­cern­ing her twin broth­er, how he be­haves, and if he has de­vel­oped any rash spir­it cal­cu­lat­ed to get him in­to trou­ble. I re­mem­ber telling her that if she felt anx­ious just to drop me a line, and I'd an­swer.”

Frank un­blush­ing­ly took the en­ve­lope from the ex­tend­ed fin­gers of Will.

“Open it!” com­mand­ed Bluff.

“You'll have to ex­cuse me, fel­lows. That wouldn't be hard­ly fair to my cor­re­spon­dent, you know. She ex­pects me to keep her se­crets.” And Frank cool­ly saun­tered off as he spoke.

Nor did he ev­er take them in­to his con­fi­dence with re­gard to what the con­tents of that scent­ed mis­sive might be. Even Will was not told. How­ev­er, like most broth­ers, it can be said that he did not seem over­ly anx­ious to learn. He had, per­haps, se­crets of his own.

Once again they were seat­ed around the camp­fire. Sup­per had been, as usu­al, a great suc­cess, and while the old­er mem­bers of the par­ty smoked, our boys amused them­selves in var­ious ways.

Will was, of course, busy with his pho­to­graph­ic out­fit. His field dark-​room was a suc­cess, and he de­vel­oped his films, and did all oth­er things nec­es­sary, with lit­tle or no trou­ble. In­deed, he had an ap­pa­ra­tus where­by he could car­ry on this op­er­ation suc­cess­ful­ly even in the day­time; but he usu­al­ly worked at night, be­cause there was noth­ing else go­ing on then.

The oth­ers had fall­en in­to a con­ver­sa­tion con­nect­ed with their home life. Red­dy hov­ered near, lis­ten­ing, and Frank won­dered why that wist­ful look had come in­to the eyes of the young cow­boy. Pos­si­bly he had a home some­where--per­haps mem­ories of a moth­er or fa­ther had crowd­ed in­to his mind while the boys were talk­ing of the sa­cred ties that bound them to Cen­ter­ville.

Frank had al­ways be­lieved there must be some­thing of a his­to­ry at­tached to Red­dy's past. He had even hoped that some time the oth­er might take such a lik­ing to him as to speak of his own folks. His man­ner gave Frank the im­pres­sion that the dash­ing cow­boy might have had a new long­ing spring up in his breast since their com­ing to the ranch, a de­sire to once again vis­it the scenes of his boy­hood.

So, as they talked, re­fer­ring to many of the events of the past, names were of­ten men­tioned, and as a thought came to him, Frank hap­pened to say:

“I won­der how Hank Brady is get­ting on with fa­ther's new car?”

He saw the cow­boy start and turn white.

“Who's Hank Brady?” he asked, his voice trem­bling.

“A fel­low we met un­der strange cir­cum­stances. Hank was on the road to the bad, but he got his eyes open just in time. Now he's our chauf­feur, and we think he's go­ing to make good,” replied Frank, watch­ing the oth­er with sud­den in­ter­est.

“Huh! Did you ev­er hear any­thing about his fam­ily?” asked Red­dy, try­ing to act in a nat­ural man­ner, but hard­ly suc­ceed­ing very well.

“Yes. He's got a fa­ther and moth­er who were mighty anx­ious about him.”

“And there's that good-​for-​noth­ing broth­er Ted he told you to keep your eye out for up here!” broke in Bluff.

“Yes; how about that, Frank? Have you ev­er asked about him?” ex­claimed Jer­ry.

“No; but per­haps I'd bet­ter be­gin now. How about it, Red­dy?” ques­tioned Frank.

“You needn't go any fur­ther, for I can tell you all about that scalawag. If you had asked Mr. Ma­bie, he'd have told you my name was Ted Brady,” was the as­ton­ish­ing re­ply.