The Outdoor Chums in the Big Woods: or, Rival Hunters of Lumber Run. Allen Quincy
minutes, so perhaps you’d better hurry. My men have big appetites these brisk days, and might clear off the table before you had a show.”
Of course the lumberman was only joking, for Cuba had gone to extra pains to have an abundance of food prepared. He had made fresh biscuits, and there was also oatmeal and coffee, with some fried ham and potatoes, as well as an egg apiece for the favored young guests of the “boss.”
Pretty soon the big lumberjacks started off to their daily work of chopping down trees. These would be trimmed into logs, and eventually be drawn by teams of horses to the river, where their voyage down to the sawmills or the pulp factories would begin.
The boys had never been in a lumbering region before, and numerous things interested them. Each brawny axman shouted good-by to the boys ere departing, for they were a jovial as well as a brawny lot. Frank could see how a life like this must develop any one physically.
Having received full directions from their host how to find his lonely lodge in the heart of the Big Woods, the four chums set out. Mr. Darrel would have accompanied them but for the fact that he had his hands full just then, and was expecting a new lot of employees to arrive that day.
“But a little later on you can expect a visit from me, lads,” he told them, as he squeezed each boy’s hand in a way that made them wince. “I’ll be looking forward to seeing you again with considerable pleasure.”
So the chums started off. Being fresh after a good night’s sleep, they did not mind the weight of their packs so much now. Later on in the day, if the tramp proved protracted, they might murmur again, particularly Bluff. He was addicted to that habit, though he really did not mean anything by it, as Frank knew from experience.
They tramped for more than an hour. Frank was always on the watch. He had been given explicit directions, which he was following closely. For a mile they had kept along the little creek, now beginning to freeze. Arriving at a spot where a spruce tree hung half-way across the bed of the stream, they had turned sharply to the left, and commenced making their way through a dense wilderness of firs.
In this way the second mile had been covered, while a third had taken them to what seemed to be quite a little hill.
“Sure we’re on the right track, are you, Frank?” asked Will, when they had left this elevation behind them nearly half an hour.
“Yes, we’re going as straight as a die,” Bluff hastened to say, before the leader could utter a word. “I know it because right ahead of us I can see that other little stream Mr. Darrel was saying we’d strike. Down that two miles and we’ll come to his cabin.”
“I only hope we find it unoccupied, that’s all,” ventured Will.
“No danger of anybody breaking in,” Frank declared. “Up here in the Maine woods there’s a queer sort of law among the natives. They are honest as the day in that way. Nobody ever thinks of locking his door at night.”
“Small game seems to be plenty enough,” Bluff went on to say. “But where are all the deer they’ve been telling us about? I’d like to run across something worth taking a crack at with my pump-gun.”
“Then there’s your chance, Bluff!” suddenly remarked Will. “Why, it looks for all the world like a gray wolf to me!”
“It must be a wolf, because Mr. Darrel said they sometimes come down here from over the Canadian border!” exclaimed Jerry.
“I’ll wolf him with that buckshot charge I’ve got ready for a deer!” muttered Bluff fiercely, as he dropped his pack and started to bring his repeating shotgun up to his shoulder.
“Hold on!” cried Frank, pulling the weapon hastily down. “Look again, Bluff, and you’ll see that’s no wolf, but a dingy dog. Yes, and we’ve seen that dog before, too!”
CHAPTER VI – THE LONE CABIN
“Here’s trouble ahead!” declared Jerry, in evident disgust; “because sure enough that’s certainly the ugly beast we saw on the train.”
“Bill Nackerson’s dog!” exclaimed Will.
Bluff was still staring. He seemed half-inclined to doubt his eyesight. Just then the dingy-looking animal gave a series of snappy barks; after which expression of defiance to the boys he turned and scampered away at a rapid pace.
“For three cents I’d knock him over,” muttered Bluff angrily.
“It would be silly for you to try it, Bluff,” Frank told him, “and only give the dog’s owner a good reason for taking the law in his own hands.”
“But, just think of it, that crowd must have got off at the next station, Frank!” declared Bluff.
“Well, they had a right to, if they felt like it, I suppose,” he was told. “Since when did the railroad company give us charge over the trains up here in Maine, that we could object to anybody leaving the cars? We did that when we felt like it.”
“Yes, but we’re going to have that bunch around here, and they’ll be our rivals in the hunting,” Bluff continued vigorously.
“If half they tell us is true,” laughed Frank, determined not to cross rivers before he came to them, “there’ll be plenty of game here for us all.”
“But when that Nackerson knows we’re here he’ll just as like as not try to make things uncomfortable for us,” Jerry broke in, showing that he felt the same way Bluff did.
“Oh! let’s hope not,” murmured Will, whose motto was peace.
“If they bother us too much we can let Mr. Darrel know about it,” Frank went on calmly.
“That’s so,” Will burst out, “and I tell you if a bunch of those husky lumberjacks got busy, they’d chase Nackerson and his cronies out of the Big Woods in a hurry, believe me!”
At the same time, while Frank tried to make light of the impending trouble, deep down in his heart he feared they were to find the Nackerson set of sporting men unpleasant neighbors.
“The only bother it can make us that I can see,” Frank told the others, “is that we’ll have to do all our roaming around in couples. There must be no solitary jaunts. With two to handle they would hesitate to attempt anything serious. Remember that always, will you, boys?”
“It’s just as well,” remarked Will, “and whoever stays in camp with me can help with my photograph work. I’m in earnest about succeeding in my particular branch on this trip; and p’raps you’d like to know the reason why.”
“We certainly would,” Frank told him; “I’ve had an idea that you were keeping something back all this while; so out with it.”
Will chuckled, and took some papers from his pocket.
“That’s a folder issued by one of the big Maine railroads,” he explained. “You see, I happened to read in a paper that they had offered some pretty nice cash prizes for the best photographs taken this season that would show what woods life up here stood for. The offer holds good up to New Year’s Day.”
“And you mean to enter – to try for the money?” demanded Bluff.
“That’s what I expect to,” was the reply. “I’ve complied with all the conditions they impose, and if I’m lucky enough to get some first-class views while in the Big Woods, I mean to submit them in competition. It may be keen, and I’ll stand little show, but nothing venture nothing win.”
Bluff knew what splendid work Will had been doing in the line of sport he had taken as his especial hobby.
“Now, excuse me for differing with you there,” he said, “but I’d like to say right here that if you go in for those prizes they’re sure to drop into your hand like ripe plums. You know how to get results better’n any amateur photographer I ever ran across.”
They were once more pushing forward while discussing this latest matter. For the time being every one seemed to have quite forgotten the unpleasant feeling conjured up by the sudden appearance of the dog.
It