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

CHAPTER XX

“WE MUST CUT AND RUN FOR IT!”

It was sur­pris­ing to see the ef­fect of the cow­boy's an­nounce­ment.

Frank was in some mea­sure pre­pared for it. He had en­ter­tained a sud­den sus­pi­cion as he no­ticed the emo­tion of the oth­er. But his chums seemed al­most thun­der­struck.

“Tell me about that, will you!” said Jer­ry, fee­bly wav­ing his hands.

“Did you ev­er hear of such luck?” ejac­ulat­ed Will.

“Beats a sto­ry all hol­low. Here's the prodi­gal son found at last, eat­ing his din­ner with the--” be­gan Bluff, when Jer­ry pounced on him.

“Don't you dare fin­ish that, on your life! Of course, you can call your­self swine, if you please, but I ob­ject. But is it re­al­ly true, Red­dy? Are you Hank's long lost broth­er?” he asked, turn­ing to the oth­er.

“I cer­tain­ly am, al­though I ought to be ashamed of the way I've treat­ed my folks. All for a measly lit­tle mat­ter, too. My eyes have been openin' late­ly, and I was mighty near headin' East­ways be­fore you came,” said the cow­boy, hang­ing his head.

“Then per­haps you'll go back with us, and sur­prise the folks?” sug­gest­ed Frank ea­ger­ly.

“Well, now, I'd like to do that same, if so be you fel­lows mean it. You see, my folks ain't al­ways lived in Cen­ter­ville. I thought that lots of things you talked about seemed kinder fa­mil­iar to me, for I was brought up in that part of the State. Yes, I'll go home, and try and make up for what I done to hurt the old folks. Some­how, just the idea of it makes me feel bet­ter.”

He ea­ger­ly ques­tioned the boys about his peo­ple. Of course, they did not have much news to tell him. Hank was on­ly a year or so old­er than his broth­er, and the ab­sent one was very much in­ter­est­ed in hear­ing how they had met him, and what awak­ened Hank to a con­scious­ness of the ter­ri­ble mis­take he was mak­ing in as­so­ci­at­ing with un­scrupu­lous men.

Af­ter that Red­dy as­sumed a new place with the boys. He seemed to be clos­er to them than ev­er, and Frank no longer won­dered why the oth­er's sun­burned face had seemed part­ly fa­mil­iar to him when he first met him.

“You and Hank are very much alike,” he said, lat­er on, to Red­dy.

“They used to say that at home. I was just big enough to be ac­cused of many of Hank's tricks, and once I got a lickin' he de­served.”

“And an­oth­er thing,” laughed Frank, “I know now what he was about to tell me at the time I was dragged away by my folks. I was ask­ing him how I could ev­er rec­og­nize you, in case we met, and he put up his hand to his head, but I nev­er heard the rest of it.”

“Why, of course, he was go­ing to tell you that I had a mop of beau­ti­ful red hair, and that Ted­dy went with Red­dy. I guess you'd have known me if you'd heard that,” was the good-​na­tured re­mark of the found one.

On the fol­low­ing day the four out­door chums de­ter­mined to set out in a bunch to have a grand hunt, fol­low­ing the dense woods far down the val­ley. The last words of the old stock­man were a cau­tion in con­nec­tion with the dry grass.

“Be care­ful about a fire, lads. If you make one, be sure the last spark is out be­fore you leave it. A for­est fire would play the mis­chief just now, with ev­ery­thing so dry. But some­how, I've got hopes that the rain is com­ing soon,” and he looked in­to the west, as though the few low-​down clouds gave him en­cour­age­ment.

When noon came the boys had put up a cou­ple of elk, but at such a dis­tance that no one but Bluff fired, and he be­cause he knew no bet­ter.

“Do you think I wound­ed him?” he had the nerve to ask, where­at Jer­ry looked at Frank and just smiled broad­ly.

“Any­how, they ran off faster af­ter I fired,” as­sert­ed Bluff con­fi­dent­ly.

“I should think any­thing would,” was all Jer­ry said, and if there was mal­ice in the re­mark Bluff did not know it in his in­no­cence.

While they sat down to eat the lunch they had car­ried along Frank called at­ten­tion to the fact that the wind had risen.

“Per­haps Mr. Ma­bie was right, af­ter all, and there is a rain­storm com­ing be­fore long,” sug­gest­ed Will.

“Then I hope it'll have the de­cen­cy to hold off un­til we get home,” said Bluff.

“Oh, a lit­tle wet­ting wouldn't hurt us. We're not made of sug­ar or salt. But per­haps we'd bet­ter not go any fur­ther. We've come a long way since break­fast. This val­ley seems to have no end, and it broad­ens out down here, too.”

“Yes; and, Frank, have you no­ticed how thick the trees grow, too? Why, in some places a fat man would have trou­ble get­ting through be­tween the trunks,” said Jer­ry.

“What ails Frank? He seems to be sniff­ing the air like a hound,” asked Will.

“Oh, he al­ways de­clared he had a fine scent, and I've no­ticed that he knows when din­ner is ready, ahead of the rest of us,” re­marked Jer­ry.

Frank laughed good-​na­tured­ly.

“To tell the truth, I was won­der­ing, fel­lows, whether we could be near an­oth­er camp,” he re­marked.

“Did you hear any­body shout?” asked Will.

“No; but when there came a sud­den shift to the wind I thought I got a scent of fire. No, it wasn't cook­ing, this time, Jer­ry, so don't get ready to ac­cuse me of that weak­ness again; just some­thing burn­ing.”

“Say! you don't think it could be the woods afire, do you?”

“Talk to me about your ghost-​seers, will you! Will, here, can jump on to trou­ble quick­er than any fel­low I know. Why, if the woods were on fire, don't you think we'd have found that fact out be­fore now, Mr. Faint Heart? I guess such a thing couldn't hap­pen with­out a heap of smoke that would look like a pall, and ap­pal us, in the bar­gain.”

“Well, all I can say is, I'm not han­ker­ing af­ter any for­est fire ex­pe­ri­ence af­ter what Mr. Ma­bie told us about those friends of his who were near­ly burned to death sev­en years ago; and that was a prairie fire, too,” ob­served Will, con­tin­uing to cast anx­ious glances around.

“Amen to that,” re­marked Bluff.

“Why, you must think I'm just wild to try my legs, with a healthy blaze jump­ing af­ter me; but I'm not, all the same. Come along, Lazy-​bones! We're go­ing to have the de­light­ful plea­sure of cov­er­ing those ten miles back again,” and Jer­ry pulled Will to his feet.

“Ten miles!” groaned the oth­er dis­mal­ly, mak­ing a pre­tense of hob­bling, as if his mus­cles had giv­en out. “How in the world can I ev­er do it?”

“Well, sing out when you want to stop. We'll hang you up in a tree, safe and sound, just as I did that wolf I got; and lat­er on one of the boys can come for you with a horse,” was Jer­ry's cheer­ful re­mark.

“Oh, I'd hate to put you to any ad­di­tion­al trou­ble, so I'll try my best to limp along,” replied Will, who, of course, was on­ly sham­ming, in that he was not half so tired as he tried to make out.

So they turned their faces to­ward the home camp, and start­ed trudg­ing along, now and then call­ing to one an­oth­er as some­thing caught their fan­cy.

Will had had lit­tle op­por­tu­ni­ty to make use of his pic­ture-​tak­ing ma­chine this trip. His stock of films was be­gin­ning to run low, and on­ly spe­cial sub­jects must claim his at­ten­tion from now on. Be­sides, he had sev­er­al views of the great woods, and the light was so poor un­der the trees that it re­quired a time ex­po­sure to bring out the de­tails.

“I think it's a mean shame none of you fel­lows think enough of me to get up some sort of ex­cite­ment, in or­der to let me snap you off,” he was say­ing as he tramped along.

“Tell me about that, will you! The chap re­al­ly thinks that it's our du­ty to do all sorts of re­mark­able stunts, in or­der that he may have the plea­sure of snap­ping us off in ridicu­lous po­si­tions!”

“Hear! hear! That was the finest speech I ev­er knew Jer­ry to put up. As a rule, he leaves the heavy talk to me, and is sat­is­fied to just grunt out his ideas. But look here, Frank, I be­lieve you were right,” said Bluff, stop­ping to el­evate his nose in a sig­nif­icant fash­ion.

“Oh! dear me! Do you smell smoke, too?” de­mand­ed Will.

“Why, so do I, now that you men­tion it. And say! just cast your eyes back of us, fel­lows! Don't it seem as though there was more or less smoke in the woods over yon­der?” asked Jer­ry.

The four boys now showed sud­den an­ima­tion.

“Hark to the wind, too! It's be­gin­ning to make a sound up there in the tree-​tops. Which way is it com­ing, Frank?” asked Will.

Frank's face be­gan to as­sume a se­ri­ous look. The wind was fair­ly grow­ing stronger with ev­ery pass­ing minute. If the woods should be afire, this would whip the flames fu­ri­ous­ly, and send them speed­ing along at a dan­ger­ous pace.

“It be­gins to look bad for us, boys,” he re­marked.

“What! Do you re­al­ly mean it, or are you just try­ing to play a joke?”

“You know me bet­ter than that, Will. There is cer­tain­ly a brush fire back there. Some camper has left his fire, and the ris­ing wind has car­ried it in­to the dead leaves,” said Frank sober­ly, sur­vey­ing his sur­round­ings.

“Could we push for­ward and put it out be­fore it does any dam­age?” asked Bluff.

“I'm afraid it's too late for that now. See there! The smoke is get­ting thick­er and thick­er all the time. Boys, we might as well look the mat­ter straight in the face.”

“What do you mean, Frank?” asked Will in a trem­bling voice.

“We must cut and run for it, that's all, for the fire is com­ing swift­ly!”