The Outdoor Chums in the Big Woods: or, Rival Hunters of Lumber Run. Allen Quincy
of Frank, whom he knew to be the leader of the chums.
“Never mind the expense, lads,” he told them; “only get that signature for me, and I’ll not count the cost. Besides, you can hardly know the pleasure it gives me to offer you such a fine trip into the Big Woods of Maine. You’ll find them well worth going all that distance to see. It will be a great deal finer than if you were simply heading up into the pine woods of Michigan.”
“That’s what Frank’s been telling us, sir,” declared Jerry. “Perhaps you don’t know Frank’s home used to be in Maine; and that’s where he learned most of what he knows about the big outdoors. He’s often said he only wished we might have a chance to run up there and visit some of the old stamping grounds with him.”
“Well, that’s better than I thought,” Uncle Felix told them; “and when you come back I hope you’ll have some great stories to tell of your adventures in the woods. I only regret that I can’t be one of the party, because all my life I’ve been an advocate of outdoor life.”
“I expect to take a good stock of films along,” Will said, “and that new-fangled flashlight apparatus, too, so I can try to get pictures of game taken at night time by themselves. That’s a stunt I’ve been reading up lately, and I’m as anxious as can be to see what I can do.”
“Well, if we want to get off by morning,” Frank warned them, “we ought to be at work. Let’s sit down for a few minutes and figure out just what we want to take along.”
“How about the grub?” asked Bluff; for it would be strange indeed for him not to consider that important subject the first thing.
“We’ll make sure to get some things here, because we know what the quality is,” Frank commented, “such as tea and coffee and a few others; but the heavier stuff we ought to pick up after we get to the jumping-off place. That’ll save us lots of carrying, you see.”
“Why, yes,” Jerry agreed, “we wouldn’t want to have our trunk so heavy it couldn’t be lifted without a derrick. That was the trouble with the first boat old Robinson Crusoe built, remember? I’ve heard of other cases just as bad. A fellow was telling me about a time he went off on a trip with another chap and they kept adding this and adding that to the things that they thought they must have on their outing, till at last they had to take two tents along and hire a team to draw the stuff up and back.”
With that Jerry ran off, and both Frank and Bluff were not long in following his example. Each of them had made out a long list of things he must personally attend to in the time that remained before night.
Frank’s positive declaration that everything necessary must be completed before they went to bed had been accepted by his chums without a single murmur.
“Don’t try to load any shells until the last thing,” Frank had told them all. “If there’s no time for that, we can buy what we want. As a rule, though, all of us much prefer to get our own powder and shot, for then we know what’s coming; and sometimes we’ve been fooled when we used machine-made shells.”
Frank was a little anxious until he had received calls over the telephone from both Bluff and Jerry. After they assured him that full permission had been given by their parents, so that the last possible doubt was removed, Frank’s spirits grew lighter.
Nothing remained to be done but get in readiness, and on the coming morning start upon the long railroad trip to Maine.
When supper-time came four tired boys sat down to what they expected would be their last meal with the home folks for some time. Of course nothing was talked of around those family tables but the possibilities that awaited them in that wonderland of game and summer tourists.
If the anxious eyes of mothers occasionally filled with unbidden tears because of the separation to come, they bravely kept from displaying their emotions before the others, not wishing that any regrets should interfere with the happiness of those who were bound on such an enjoyable journey.
Of course every boy solemnly assured his mother that he meant to be very careful every minute of the time, knowing she would be worried; but that there was not the slightest danger of any harm befalling them.
Frank went the rounds, looking over the accumulation of traps, and lightening the collections in many ways.
“Just remember,” he told them when they murmured against his decree, “we have to tote every pound of this, and a heap of grub besides, over each foot of the way, up and down hill, and over snow fields besides. So leave it to me.”
In the end he had reduced every pack to its proper proportions; and finally returned home with the understanding that they would all meet on the station platform for the eastbound train.
Little sleep visited four pairs of eager eyes that last night under the home roofs in the little town of Centerville.
CHAPTER IV – HEADED FOR THE BIG WOODS
On the second day after leaving home, the four chums found themselves upon what Bluff called the “last leg” of their railroad trip.
They were already in the State of Maine and heading north, bound for the station where they expected to get off, and somehow find their way to the place where Mr. Samuel Darrel, the well-known lumberman, was to be found, according to his letter to Uncle Felix.
This was a logging camp known as Lumber Run. It lay in the depths of the Big Woods, and was surrounded by a virgin growth of fine timber that would consume some years in the cutting.
No doubt the crews were already starting in to work, and the boys anticipated considerable enjoyment in seeing how the loggers dropped their trees. Of course, the most picturesque part of the business came in the spring when, after the customary freshets, the logs were rafted down the rivers to the accompaniment of thrilling exploits by the lumber jacks.
The train was filled with people, every seat having been taken in the day coaches at the time the four boys got aboard. As a consequence, although they did not much fancy it, they were compelled to sit in the smoking car. At times they opened the windows a bit, so as to get some fresh air.
Of course there was a motley assortment of rough-looking men aboard. Some of them may have been honest tillers of the soil returning home after a visit down in Boston or Portland. Others were undoubtedly lumbermen, heading for regions farther north, where they anticipated doing a season’s chopping, for as a rule they carried their axes with them.
There were sportsmen on the train, too, and naturally these claimed more than a share of attention from Frank and the other boys. Anything that had to do with hunting interested them. They listened whenever they heard some of these men discussing the chances for making a record bag that season.
“Sounds from the way they talk,” remarked Bluff at one time, “as though there never was so much game in the woods as this year.”
“I only hope it turns out that way,” Jerry went on, “because we’d be nearly tickled to death if we bagged a big moose, after all our past hunts. That’s one thing I’ve dreamed of doing many a time.”
“As for me,” ventured Will, with a long sigh, “I’d rather be able to get a picture of the moose than plant a bullet back of his shoulder. I think I’ll let the rest of you supply the game for the pot, while I spend all my time trying for something that will give us pleasure later on, whenever we look at it.”
“Every one to his taste,” said Bluff. “I admit that I wouldn’t give a snap of my finger for crawling around in the night, trying to take pictures of silly little ’coons and foxes that have been baited to come up and pull a string. When I hunt, I want to see something worth while drop.”
“Like that grizzly bear we ran across when we were out West?” suggested Jerry, his eyes kindling with vivid recollections.
“I was thinking,” remarked Frank, “how some of these city sportsmen aboard here, togged out in the latest clothes, and seeming as though they’d stepped out of bandboxes, keep looking over at us every once in a while, just as if they wondered how a pack of boys had been able to break away from the apron strings of their mothers.”
“If