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

CHAPTER V

WEST­WARD BOUND

There were just eight peo­ple gath­ered to­geth­er that evening to have a good time. Be­sides Nel­lie Lang­don, of course, Will's twin sis­ter, Vi­olet, graced the oc­ca­sion with her pres­ence; then there came Mame Cros­by, the vi­va­cious girl with the auburn locks, who was so fond of teas­ing Jer­ry; and last, but not least, pret­ty Susie Prescott, a dain­ty, prim lit­tle blonde, whom Will con­sid­ered a bun­dle of sweet­ness.

What a splen­did time this con­ge­nial lit­tle com­pa­ny had! For many a day the mem­ory of it would fol­low the four chums while far away.

All of the “ma­te­ri­al of war,” as Mame called it, had been brought to Frank's house, so that it might be packed in one big trunk. Thus the boys would be both­ered with on­ly a suit­case and a gun apiece in the long jour­ney across the con­ti­nent.

The girls in­sist­ed up­on be­ing shown the won­der­ful ag­gre­ga­tion of cloth­ing and weapons. It was to them very much like a shop­ping ex­pe­di­tion, and many were the ex­cla­ma­tions of awe and cu­rios­ity as they looked up­on the ex­hi­bi­tion.

Bluff, of course, was very proud of that won­der­ful hunt­ing-​knife of his. He even smiled to see the per­cep­ti­ble shud­der with which Nel­lie sur­veyed him as he cut imag­inary cir­cles in the air with the keen-​edged weapon.

“Oh! I hope you won't have to use it very of­ten, Bluff! It makes me shiv­er just to think of you meet­ing one of those fierce griz­zly bears, such as I have seen in the menagerie,” she said con­fi­den­tial­ly to him.

“But you wouldn't have me leave this jew­el at home, would you, Nel­lie?” he asked in dis­may.

“Oh, no! Not for the world!--since you say that per­haps your very life may de­pend on hav­ing it; but please, Bluff, be very care­ful. You might cut your­self by ac­ci­dent, you know, and then--well, your moth­er and fa­ther would grieve so much if any­thing hap­pened to you.”

“Well, would you care?” asked Bluff bold­ly.

Nel­lie gave him an arch look and ran down-​stairs, as she said that she was need­ed just then to su­per­in­tend the plac­ing of the re­fresh­ments on the ta­ble. Bluff laid the won­der­ful hunt­ing-​knife, sheath and all, back on the stand where his things were gath­ered, and smiled as if pleased. He had oc­ca­sion, lat­er on, to re­call each lit­tle in­ci­dent of that evening, when wor­ry­ing his mind over a most mys­te­ri­ous thing that puz­zled him.

The lit­tle com­pa­ny sep­arat­ed about eleven, for the boys ex­pect­ed to leave home long ere noon on the fol­low­ing day, and had a stren­uous jour­ney be­fore them.

Af­ter an ear­ly break­fast they gath­ered at Frank's, where the last pack­ing was done in hot haste, as the time was short. So it hap­pened that none of them had more than a con­fused idea of what was done dur­ing that last hour, save that, some way or oth­er, their things were crammed in­to the big trunk.

“We should have tak­en two, hang it!” grunt­ed Bluff as he tugged at the met­al catch­es, while a cou­ple of his mates sat on top to in­duce the lid to come down.

“There! It's all right now!” cried Will, as the click of the catch an­nounced the de­sired union.

So the trunk was snatched up by the wait­ing men and car­ried off, to be tak­en to the sta­tion. Frank and his chums quick­ly fol­lowed. Quite a gath­er­ing of rel­atives and friends were on hand to see them off.

Frank was tak­ing a last look in­to the au­to­mo­bile, to make sure noth­ing had been for­got­ten, when Hank Brady, who seemed to be mak­ing good with his job, plucked at his sleeve.

“Hel­lo! Came near for­get­ting to say good-​by to you, Hank! Hope you get on fine and dandy while I'm gone,” said the boy, hold­ing out his hand.

“Thank you, Mr. Frank; but I on­ly want­ed to say a few words to you about a broth­er of mine who is out there some­where, we be­lieve. Now, I know the North­west is a big place, and you might as well think of lookin' for a nee­dle in a haystack as for a cer­tain feller there; but ac­ci­dents do hap­pen, and by some sorter luck you might just hap­pen to run across Ted­dy,” said Hank quick­ly, and with a wist­ful look on his face that held Frank's at­ten­tion.

“And if I do, what then?” he asked soft­ly.

“Tell him his moth­er's still a-​grievin' af­ter him. You see, he is her ba­by, though a big feller for his age, which is sev­en­teen about. He left us in a huff two years back. We heard in an in­di­rect way sev­er­al times, but nev­er straight. She wor­ries when she thinks no­body is a-​lookin'. If Ted­dy would on­ly write to her I think she'd be kinder rec­on­ciled,” went on Hank, heav­ing a deep sigh.

“All right. If by any good luck I hap­pen to run across your broth­er, you can de­pend on it I'll do my best to make him write. But how am I to know him among the thou­sands of peo­ple I meet?” re­marked Frank as he was about to turn away.

“Well, he has--”

Just then some one pounced on Frank, and dragged him off, so that he nev­er re­al­ly knew how he was to rec­og­nize this wan­der­ing broth­er of Hank Brady in case he should meet him.

The train was al­most due, and gen­er­al good-​bys were quick­ly said. Such a chat­ter­ing as en­sued, which kept up un­til the four chums climbed in­to the car that was to take them to the near­est city, where they would board the through train for the North­west.

Af­ter the last glimpse of their loved ones had been lost by a sud­den bend in the road, they set­tled down to mak­ing them­selves com­fort­able. It was ex­pect­ed that they would make con­nec­tion in St. Paul with the west­ern through train bound for Seat­tle. Then would be­gin the grand­est ride on the whole Amer­ican con­ti­nent, over bound­less plains, and fi­nal­ly up in­to the ma­jes­tic moun­tains.

Day and night they would be car­ried swift­ly on­ward across the many miles of en­tranc­ing scenery. Won­der­ful sights would fall to their por­tion.

St. Paul was reached in due sea­son, and once more they start­ed forth, this time head­ed west, with the hunt­ing-​land beck­on­ing them on.

“Tell me about this, will you!” re­marked Jer­ry, af­ter they had crossed the broad prairies and were climb­ing the tremen­dous heights that lie like a bar­ri­er be­tween the cen­ter of the con­ti­nent and the Pa­cif­ic Slope. “How much more of it do we have be­fore us, Frank? I'm get­ting so filled with won­der and awe that my tongue is get­ting in­to a rut with say­ing 'Ah!' so much.”

“Less than a day will see us through now. Once we get over this range there lies a long val­ley, and in that is where Mar­tin Ma­bie has his ranch.”

“Then we'll do our hunt­ing along the sides of the moun­tains?” sug­gest­ed Will, who had used up near­ly half his sup­ply of films al­ready, tak­ing views of the won­der­ful things they saw on the trip.

“That's my im­pres­sion, from what he wrote,” replied Frank.

“And he al­so said game was fair­ly plen­ti­ful, if I re­mem­ber aright,” re­marked Jer­ry.

“Well, he did say that they had been so busy of late on the ranch that no one had had time for hunt­ing, and con­se­quent­ly the game had not been both­ered very much; which, I sup­pose, amounts to the same thing.”

“H'm! I hope he won't be so rushed with work that he can't take the time to go with us. Half of the fun would be lost if Mr. Ma­bie couldn't be along; for Jesse says he is the most en­ter­tain­ing man alive,” grunt­ed Bluff.

“Oh, you for­get that he said by the time we got there the work would slack­en up, and he promised him­self a va­ca­tion, just to re­new his old plea­sure of camp­ing out in the wilder­ness, away from all mankind,” laughed Frank.

“That re­lieves my mind some,” de­clared Bluff, bright­en­ing up.

“You're get­ting tired of all this trav­el, that's what ails you,” said Jer­ry.

“No; it isn't that,” re­marked Frank. “Bluff has con­fessed to me that for the life of him he can't re­mem­ber putting that beau­ti­ful hunt­ing-​knife in the trunk along with his oth­er traps; and if he left _that_ be­hind, half his plea­sure would be lost. Now you know what's the mat­ter.”

“Not that I wish it to be so, but if such should prove to be the case, there'll be one de­light­ed griz­zly bear out in these same moun­tains--the chap Bluff cal­cu­lat­ed on carv­ing with that big stick­er,” re­marked Jer­ry jo­cose­ly.

But Bluff would not even smile. Truth to tell, he was count­ing the hours un­til he could open that trunk and re­lieve his dis­tressed mind.

“Did you ev­er see a wilder bit of coun­try?” said Frank, peer­ing out in­to the gath­er­ing dusk, and try­ing to imag­ine those wood­ed hill­sides pop­ulat­ed with elk and buf­faloes, and all the big game of the past, when a white man was nev­er known west of the Great Lakes.

“Well, to tell the truth, I was think­ing of that ac­count I read in the pa­per we bought, about the work of a sher­iff's posse in this re­gion, chas­ing the bad men who held up a rail­road train not a hun­dred miles away from here. It wouldn't be a pleas­ant ex­pe­ri­ence for us to meet with, eh, fel­lows?” asked Will, who was known to have a timid streak in his make-​up.

“Talk to me about your croak­ers!” jeered Jer­ry. “Will, here, is enough to freeze the mar­row in one's bones. There isn't one chance in a thou­sand that such an ad­ven­ture will come our way, and he knows it.”

“Good­ness! What a jar! The en­gi­neer must have thrown the air brakes on then in a big hur­ry! We're com­ing to a sud­den stop, too! Oh! I won­der if any­thing can have hap­pened? Are we go­ing to have an ac­ci­dent, fel­lows?” cried Will.

With much creak­ing of the wheels the heavy train came to a stop, and at the same mo­ment the four chums, lis­ten­ing with con­sid­er­able ap­pre­hen­sion, caught the sound of many loud and ex­cit­ed voic­es just out­side the car.