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

CHAPTER II

THE MO­TOR­CY­CLE THIEVES

“What's gone wrong, Frank?” de­mand­ed Bluff, drop­ping off his seat.

“In luck again, for I'd have banged up against that big root if Frank hadn't giv­en the sig­nal just then,” chuck­led Will, hold­ing up his ma­chine.

“A punc­ture, Frank?” de­mand­ed Jer­ry, who had been in the rear.

“Not at all. I thought I heard some one shout­ing. Per­haps I was mis­tak­en, for with a lot of mo­tors pop­ping away it's hard to be sure. Still, we can stop for a minute and lis­ten,” re­marked Frank se­ri­ous­ly.

“Shout­ing--for help?” re­peat­ed Will, look­ing around ner­vous­ly.

“That's queer,” cried Bluff, “that we sel­dom go out any­where but what some­body calls on us for as­sis­tance. Think of it! There was the town bul­ly, Andy Lash­er, who was caught un­der that falling tree in the storm, and res­cued by Jer­ry.”

“That's a fact; and then there was Jed, the bound boy, you re­mem­ber, fel­lows,” went on Will ea­ger­ly.

“Not to men­tion the sav­ing of the aero­naut from the burn­ing ho­tel by Frank, here; and last, but not least, our giv­ing that lit­tle Joe the glad hand down South,” ob­served Jer­ry, join­ing in with en­thu­si­asm.

“Yes, but there are a few res­cues you seem to for­get, Jer­ry. How about that time when the wild dogs had you chas­ing around the tree?” asked Bluff, grin­ning.

“Oh, that isn't in the same class. You for­get that I got out of that scrape by my own ex­er­tions,” replied the oth­er.

“But there was an­oth­er time when we hauled you out of a hol­low tree in which you found your­self caged. You didn't crawl out of there alone and un­aid­ed, if I re­mem­ber right,” per­sist­ed Will.

“Some things are bet­ter buried in obliv­ion. You and your cam­era want to re­mind a fel­low con­stant­ly of events that ought to be for­got­ten. But Frank, that must have been an owl you heard. I haven't caught any call for help yet.”

“Per­haps we'd bet­ter go on, then. Look out how you mount here, for it's a hard propo­si­tion, Jer­ry, with these roots and stones.”

Frank had just start­ed to move for­ward with his own mo­tor­cy­cle, when all of them heard a sound is­su­ing from the woods along­side the “tote” road.

“Help! help!”

They looked at each oth­er.

“Some­body's in trou­ble there. Who can it be?” said Frank as he leaned his ma­chine up against a tree, as though ea­ger to has­ten to the as­sis­tance of the one who had cried out.

“No hunters around at this time of year,” re­marked Will as he fol­lowed suit.

“And the log­gers have been gone some months,” went on Bluff.

“Tell me about that, now! It wasn't a child's voice, or I might think a kid had got lost up here. Per­haps some man has cut him­self bad­ly with his ax,” sug­gest­ed Jer­ry.

“Or dropped down in­to some old aban­doned mine shaft,” spoke up Frank, with a wink to­ward Will; for one of the chums had gone through with just such an ex­pe­ri­ence dur­ing one of their out­ings, and had to be res­cued.

“Shall we all go?” de­mand­ed Bluff, giv­en to cau­tion.

“Why not? Noth­ing can hap­pen to our ma­chines here. For one, I de­cline to stay out of the res­cu­ing par­ty. Be­sides, per­haps I may get a chance to snap off a love­ly pic­ture of the Good Samar­itans at work.”

Will had hasti­ly un­fas­tened his cam­era, and held it in his hands as he spoke.

“All right, then. Come on, boys!”

With these words, Frank led the way in­to the woods.

“Sure the sound came from this di­rec­tion?” asked Bluff.

“That was my im­pres­sion. What do you say, Jer­ry?” and Frank turned to the chum on whose knowl­edge of wood­craft he felt he could re­ly.

“Straight in there. You're head­ing all right, Frank,” he replied.

“How far did it seem to be?” went on the lead­er.

“That is hard to say. The man may have been weak­ened from loss of blood. If he was shout­ing, then it may have been sev­er­al hun­dred yards, per­haps a quar­ter of a mile off; but I think we'll come across him clos­er than that.”

“I agree with you, Jer­ry,” said Frank, stop­ping short.

“What did you hear?” de­mand­ed the oth­er, for Frank had bent his head, and seemed to be lis­ten­ing over his shoul­der.

“I don't know. Per­haps it was a bush spring­ing back in­to place af­ter our pas­sage. But sup­pose we shout oc­ca­sion­al­ly? It may en­cour­age the poor fel­low, and be­sides, guide us to where he lies,” re­turned Frank, once more push­ing on.

Ac­cord­ing­ly they lift­ed up their voic­es and gave a se­ries of calls.

“Why doesn't he an­swer us?” asked Will, as­ton­ished when on­ly the echoes came back from the sur­round­ing for­est.

Frank stopped in his tracks.

“Can he have faint­ed from loss of blood?” said Bluff, still hav­ing in mind a pic­ture of a woods­man who had sev­ered an artery by a mis­blow of his ax.

“There's Frank lis­ten­ing again, and he seems to be pay­ing more at­ten­tion to our rear than ahead,” re­marked Will, puz­zled.

“I bet you he thinks some­body is play­ing us for a lot of fools; that there isn't any one hurt, or in need of help at all. What's that?”

The dis­tinct and well-​known “pop­ping” of a mo­tor was heard.

“It's a trick, fel­lows! Some­body is med­dling with our ma­chines! Back to the road!” shout­ed Jer­ry, turn­ing and plung­ing through the un­der-​brush reck­less­ly.

A wild scram­ble fol­lowed. The four chums were so ex­cit­ed, and filled with a de­ter­mi­na­tion to stop the un­known mis­cre­ants from mak­ing way with their ma­chines, that they gave lit­tle heed to their steps. The con­se­quence was that more than once a col­li­sion with a tree en­sued, and var­ious bumps af­ter­ward gave mute ev­idence as to the reck­less man­ner of their chase.

“There's two of 'em!” shrieked Will from the rear, as he caught the sound of a sec­ond se­ries of er­rat­ic pop­pings.

Ev­ident­ly those who were med­dling with the mo­tor­cy­cles did not have a thor­ough knowl­edge of how to work the same, for the sounds would sud­den­ly cease and then start up again.

“Oh! don't I wish they'd just take head­ers over some nice fat root!” gasped the per­spir­ing Will, still hug­ging his pre­cious cam­era to his heart as he fol­lowed in Frank's wake.

The lat­ter had made for the road in as di­rect a line as pos­si­ble. Progress was bound to be slow through the dense un­der­growth, and the soon­er they struck the open the quick­er they could hope to gain on the thieves.

In this fash­ion they came up­on the road at last. Of course, their eyes im­me­di­ate­ly turned down its sin­uous way to the quar­ter whence the ex­citable pop­ping sounds still con­tin­ued to come.

The sight that met their eyes amazed them. All of the chums had nat­ural­ly ex­pect­ed that they would dis­cov­er some mis­chievous school com­pan­ions, who, see­ing them com­ing, had hatched up this lit­tle game with the in­ten­tion of play­ing a prac­ti­cal joke.

Noth­ing of the kind. On the con­trary, they saw two of the mo­tor­cy­cles bob­bing along in the most er­rat­ic man­ner pos­si­ble, mov­ing from one side of the rough road to the oth­er, and mount­ed on the same were a cou­ple of rough­ly dressed men, ei­ther tramps, or jour­ney­men on the road look­ing for a job.

“Tell me about that, will you!” gasped Jer­ry.

“Why, the bloom­ing id­iots mean to steal our ma­chines!” cried Bluff.

“Oh! what luck that I thought to take my cam­era with me!” came from Will.

Frank on­ly made one re­mark, but it was char­ac­ter­is­tic of the boy:

“Af­ter them, fel­lows!”

Then be­gan a mad chase. Had the road been half-​way de­cent, the boys would have had no chance of over­tak­ing the thieves; but those ex­posed roots, while not both­er­some to the lum­ber­men, proved ex­treme­ly so to the men who were try­ing to make off with the mo­tor­cy­cles.

They dared not put on great speed. More than this, much of their time was tak­en up with dodg­ing the stones and oth­er things that threat­ened to bring sud­den dis­as­ter up­on them.

Hence it was that the boys, hav­ing con­sid­er­able sprint­ing abil­ity, be­gan to rapid­ly over­haul the flee­ing ras­cals. The two men dared not cast a sin­gle glance be­hind, and con­se­quent­ly the on­ly means they had of know­ing how close their pur­suers might be would lie in any shouts giv­en by Frank and his chums.

As he ran, the lead­ing boy cast an oc­ca­sion­al look along­side the path. He was in search of a good stout cud­gel. Know­ing that the chances were the af­fair would present­ly come to a face-​to-​face is­sue be­tween the two par­ties, he wished to be pre­pared as well as pos­si­ble.

“Bul­ly stunt!” ex­claimed Jer­ry as he fol­lowed suit.

They were now draw­ing close up­on the fugi­tives, who were hav­ing a nerve-​rack­ing time dodg­ing those nu­mer­ous roots.

Know­ing that the an­gry own­ers of the wheels must be close up­on them, the men en­deav­ored to in­crease their speed, with dis­as­trous re­sults.

“Wow!” shout­ed Jer­ry, as he saw one of the rid­ers sud­den­ly shoot out of his sad­dle and take a head­er, to be fol­lowed by his com­pan­ion a sec­ond lat­er.