Kitabı oku: «Tom Fairfield's Hunting Trip: or, Lost in the Wilderness», sayfa 7

CHAPTER XVIII
LOST AGAIN

“Now what’s up?” cried Tom, as he made a rush after the dog. But he was too late. Towser was out in the snow.

“It’s that bear again,” George said.

“You’ve got bear on the brain,” commented Bert.

The boys looked out and listened, but they could neither see nor hear anything, and soon the dog came back. But, even as he reached the door, he turned and sent a challenging bark toward someone – or something.

“This sure is queer,” murmured Bert.

“And it’s queer what Jack said,” went on Tom. “About being spied upon. What do you mean, old man?”

“Just what I said,” was the answer. “Just before the dog gave the alarm, I had a feeling as though someone outside was keeping watch over this shack.”

“That sure is a funny feeling,” commented George. “Who would it be? There aren’t any persons up around here except Sam Wilson, or maybe some of those Indian guides he knows.”

“It might be one of the Indians,” suggested Bert. “They might be sneaking around, to see what they could pick up.”

“A wild animal wouldn’t make a fellow feel as I felt,” decided Jack. “But maybe I’m only fussy, and – ”

“You are – worse than a girl,” said Tom, with a laugh that took the sharpness out of the words. “I guess it’s only the storm, and the effect of being in a strange place. Now let’s settle down and take it easy. There’s no one outside.”

Once more they disposed themselves before the cheerful blaze, the dog stretching out at full length to dry his shaggy coat that was wet with melting snow.

“I wonder what sort of a place this was?” spoke Jack, at length.

“Must have been a hunter’s cabin,” suggested Tom.

“It’s too big for that. This looks as though people had lived in it once,” declared Bert. “Besides, it’s too near the road for a hunter to want to use it. I guess the family died off, or moved away, and there isn’t enough population up here to make it so crowded that they have to use this shack.”

“Well, it comes in handy for us,” remarked George. “I could go another sandwich, but – ”

“All the going you’ll do will be to go without,” laughed Bert, grimly. “There isn’t a crumb left, but I could manage to squeeze out some more coffee.”

“Better save it for morning,” advised Tom. “We’ll need it worse by then.”

The storm still raged, but inside the deserted cabin the boys were fairly comfortable. They had on thick, warm garments, and these, with the glowing fire, made them feel little of the nipping cold that prevailed with the blizzard.

The wind howled down the chimney, scattering the light ashes now and then, and filling the room with the pungent odor of smoke. Around some of the windows, where the rags were stuffed in the broken panes, little piles of sifted snow gathered.

At times the whole frail structure shook with the force of the blast, and at such times the boys would look at each other with a trace of fear on their faces. For the ramshackle structure might fall down on them.

But as it did not, after each recurrent windy outburst, they felt more confident. Perhaps the cabin was built stronger than they thought. The dog showed no uneasiness at these manifestations of Nature. He did not even open his eyes when the wind howled its loudest and blew its strongest. And, too, he seemed to have gotten over the strange fear that caused him to act so oddly.

The other boys had rather laughed at Jack’s “notion” of being “spied upon,” but had they been able to see through the white veil of snow that was falling all about the cabin, they would have realized that there is sometimes something like telepathy, or second sight. For, in reality, the boys were being observed by a pair of evil eyes.

And the evil eyes were set in an evil face, which, in turn belonged to the body of a man who had constructed for himself a rude shelter against the storm.

It was such a shelter as would be hastily built by a hunter caught in the open for the night – a sort of “lean-to,” with the open side away from the direction in which the wind blew. But it could not have been made in this storm, and, consequently, must have been put up before the blizzard began.

The lean-to showed signs of a practiced hand, for it was fairly comfortable, and the man in it chuckled to himself now and then as he looked over toward the deserted cabin.

The man was on the watch, and he had prepared for just this emergency. At times, when he heard the barking of the dog, a frown could have been seen on his face, had there been a light by which to observe it. But the lean-to was in absolute darkness, save what light was reflected by the white snow.

“I thought they’d end up here,” was the man’s muttered remark to himself, for he was all alone. “Yes, I thought they would. It’s the nearest shelter after they left the doctored signboard. Naturally they turned in here. That changed sign did the trick all right. Lucky I thought of it. Now I wonder what the next move will be?”

He did not answer himself for a few seconds, but crouched down, looking in the direction of the cabin, through the chinks of which shone the light of the fire.

“They’ll stay there until morning, I reckon,” communed the man to himself. “Then they’ll light out and try to find Ramsen. But they won’t locate it by going the way that sign pointed,” and he chuckled. “They’ll only get deeper in the woods, and then, if we can cut out that Fairfield from among the others, we’ll have him where we want him. If we can’t, we’ll manage to take him anyhow.”

He paused, as though to go over in his mind the details of the evil scheme he was plotting, and resumed:

“Yes, they’ll light out in the morning. I’ll have to follow ’em until I make sure which trail they take. Then the rest will be easy. It isn’t going to be any fun to stay here all night, but it will be worth the money, I guess.

“That is, if Skeel ponies up as he says he will. And if Skeel tries to cut up any funny tricks, and cheat me and Whalen, he’ll wish he never had. He’ll never try it twice!”

With another look out at the dimly lighted cabin, as if to make sure that none of those he was spying on had left, the man composed himself to pass the night in his somewhat uncomfortable shelter. He curled up in a big blanket and went to sleep. For he was a woodsman born and bred, and he thought nothing of staying out in the open, with only a little shelter, through a long, cold night. He was even comfortable, after his own fashion.

And slowly the night passed for our four friends in the deserted cabin.

They had managed to construct a rude sort of bed by placing old inside doors on some boxes. Their heavy mackinaws were covers, and the nearness of the fire on the hearth kept them warm. Occasionally, through the night, as one or another awoke from a doze, he would toss on more wood, to keep the blaze from going out.

The dog whined uneasily once or twice during the night, but he did not bark or growl. Perhaps he knew that the man in the lean-to was asleep also, and would not walk abroad to plot harm.

“Well, it’s still snowing,” remarked Tom, as he arose and stretched his cramped muscles.

“How do you know? Is it morning?” asked George, yawning.

“It’s an imitation of it,” Tom announced. “I looked out. It’s still snowing to beat the band.”

“Oh, for our cozy camp – any one of them!” sighed Jack. “Let’s have what’s left of that coffee, Bert, and then we’ll hike out and see what we can find.”

The coffee was rather weak, but it was hot, and that meant a great deal to the boys who had to venture out in the cold. Every drop was disposed of, and then, looking well to their guns, for though they hardly admitted it to each other, they had faint hopes of game, the boys set out.

As they emerged from the cabin, they were not aware of a pair of sharp, ferret-like eyes watching them from the hidden shelter of the lean-to. As the wind was blowing toward that shack, and not away from it, the dog was not this time apprised by scent of the closeness of an enemy, whatever had happened the night before.

“Well, let’s start,” proposed Tom. “This is the road to Ramsen,” and he pointed to the almost snow-obliterated highway that ran in front of the deserted cabin they were leaving.

Their hearts were lighter with the coming of the new day, though their stomachs were almost empty. But they hoped soon to be at one of their camping cabins, where, they knew, a good supply of food awaited them.

On they tramped through the snow. It was very deep, and the fall seemed to have increased in rapidity, rather than to have diminished. It had snowed all night, and was still keeping up with unabated vigor. In some places there were deep drifts across the road.

“This sure is heavy going,” observed Jack, as he plunged tiresomely along.

“That’s right,” agreed Bert.

“I don’t see how Towser keeps it up,” spoke George, for the dog was having hard work to get through the drifts.

“He seems to enjoy it,” commented Tom. “But it is deep. I think – ”

He did not complete the sentence, for, at that moment, he stepped into some unseen hole and went down in a snow pile to his waist.

“Have a hand!” invited Jack, extending a helping arm to his chum, to pull him up. “What were you trying to do, anyhow?”

“I don’t know,” answered Tom, looking at the hole into which he had fallen. “But I think we’re off the road, fellows.”

“I do, too,” came from Bert. “It seems as though we were going over a field. Yes,” he went on, “there’s a stump sticking up out of the snow. We’re in some sort of a clearing. We’re clean off the road!”

It took only a moment for the others to be also convinced of this.

“We’d better go back,” George said. “We’ve probably come the wrong way. I don’t believe this is the road to Ramsen at all.”

“The signboard said it was,” Bert reminded him.

“I can’t help that. I believe we’re wrong again – lost!”

“Lost – again!” echoed Jack. “Lost in this wilderness!”

“It does begin to look so,” admitted Tom slowly. “Where’s that dog?”

CHAPTER XIX
THE CAPTURE

Towser had run off again, on one of his attempts to wiggle through a drift. A shrill whistle from Tom brought him back again, however, sneezing because some snow had gotten up his nose and into his mouth.

“Towser, you old rascal!” Tom exclaimed. “Why don’t you lead us back to camp?”

“Or to Sam Wilson’s,” added Bert. “That would be good enough on a pinch, until we get straightened out. Home, old fellow! Wilson’s farm! Lead the way!”

The dog barked and leaped about, but he did not show any inclination to take any particular direction through the snow-covered wilderness. He seemed to want to follow, rather than lead.

“I don’t believe he knows where Sam Wilson’s place is,” was Tom’s opinion, after watching the animal for a while.

“I guess he’s as badly lost as we are,” said Bert.

For a few seconds the boys stood there rather at a loss what to do. They had done their best, but they did not seem to be on the way to success. The storm was worse than when it first started. It still snowed hard, and the wind, while not as strong as it had been during the night, was still cold and cutting.

The boys turned their backs to it as they stood there huddled together, hardly knowing what to do next. Towser, finding he was not wanted immediately, to trail a bear or some other game, devoted his energies to burrowing in a snowbank.

“Well, I would like to know where we are,” said Tom at length.

“Wouldn’t it be a good idea to go back to the deserted cabin?” asked Jack.

“It might not be so bad, if we knew where it was,” agreed Tom.

“We could at least take that for a starting point, and try to head for Camp No. 2,” Jack went on. “I’d be satisfied with that, as long as we can’t locate No. 3.”

“Oh, I side with you there, all right, old man,” Tom said, “but where does the old cabin lie?”

“Off there!” said Bert, pointing to the right.

“No, it’s over there,” was the opinion of George, and he indicated the left.

“It’s right behind you,” insisted Jack.

“And I should say it was in front of us,” spoke Tom. “So you see we each have a different opinion, and, as long as we can’t agree, what are we going to do about it?”

“That’s so,” admitted Jack. “But we can’t stay here doing nothing. We’ve got to get somewhere.”

“Somewhere is very indefinite,” was the remark George made. “It’s very easy to say it, but hard to find it. If we could only get back on the road, we could head in either direction, and some time or other we would get somewhere. But now we are in the woods and we may be heading right toward the middle of the forest instead of toward the edge. And these forests are no little picnic groves, either.”

“I should say not!” Tom exclaimed. “But where is the road? That’s the question.”

It was a question no one could answer, and they did not try. Eagerly and anxiously they scanned the expanse of snow for some indication that a road existed – even a rough, lumberman’s highway.

But all they could see, here and there, were little mounds of snow that indicated where stumps existed under the white covering. They were in a clearing, with woods all around them. If they advanced, they might be going toward the deeper forest instead of toward the place where civilization, in the shape of man, had begun to cut down the trees to make a town or village.

“Well, we sure have got to do something,” Tom said, and it was not the first time, either. “We’ll try each direction, fellows, and see where we come out. We may have to go the limit, and tramp a bit in each of four directions, and, again, it may be our luck to do it the first shot. But let’s get into action. It’s cold standing still.”

They had given up all hope of game now. Indeed, the snow was falling so thickly that they could not have seen a deer or bear until they were very close to it – too close it would be, in the case of the bear.

As for smaller game – rabbits, squirrels and partridges, none of those were to be seen. The snow had driven the smaller animals and the birds to cover.

“Bur-r-r-r-r! But this is no fun, on an empty stomach,” grumbled George, as he followed the others. The dog, having seen his friends start off, was following them. He seemed to have no sense of responsibility that he was expected to lead his friends in the right direction. “I sure am hungry!” George went on.

“Quit talking about it,” urged Tom. “That doesn’t do any good, and it makes all of us feel badly. Have a snow sandwich!”

“It makes you too thirsty,” interposed Jack. “If you want to drink, we’ll stop, make a fire of some fir branches, and melt snow in our tin coffee cups. If you start chewing flakes, you’ll get a sore mouth, and other things will happen to you. That’s what a fellow wrote in a book on Arctic travel.”

“If only we hadn’t eaten all the grub!” sighed Bert.

“Too late to think of that now,” Tom spoke. “Come on – let’s hike!”

Off they started. They decided to make an effort in each of the four cardinal points, first selecting that which one of the boys declared led back to Camp No. 2.

“If we go on for a mile or two, and find we’re wrong again, back we come and try the other side,” Tom explained. “But I can’t see why that sign says seven miles to Ramsen, when the road is so easy to lose yourself on.”

“It will take us the rest of the day to do that experimenting,” grumbled George.

“Well, suggest a better plan,” spoke Tom, quickly. “We’re lost, and if we don’t find the proper road soon, we’ll be more than all day in this pickle.”

George had no more to say.

The boys were now a little alarmed at their plight, for they were cold and hungry, and that is no condition in which to fight the wintry blast. But there was nothing they could do except keep moving. In a way, that was their only hope, for the exercise kept them warm, though it made them all the more hungry.

“Keep a lookout for game – even small kinds,” advised Tom, as they went on. “A rabbit or a squirrel wouldn’t come amiss now. We could manage to broil it over the coals of a fire, though it probably won’t be very nice looking.”

“Who cares for looks when you’re hungry?” demanded Bert.

But game did not show itself as the boys tramped on through the snow. They went on for some distance in the direction first decided on, but could see no familiar landmarks. Nor did they reach anything that looked like a road.

“Better go back,” Tom decided, and they did manage to find the little clearing again.

“Say!” cried Bert, as they stood irresolute as to which of the three remaining directions to select next, “aren’t we silly, though?”

“Why?” asked Tom.

“Why, because all we had to do was to follow our trail back in the snow. That would have led us to the old cabin.”

Tom shook his head.

“What’s the matter?” asked Bert.

“Our footprints are blown or drifted over three minutes after we make them, in this wind and shifting snow,” Tom said. “Look!”

He pointed over the route they had just come. Their earlier footprints were altogether gone. The expanse of snow was white and unbroken.

“Well, we go this way next,” said Jack. “I remember because I saw that broken white birch tree. Head straight for that.”

They did so, but again were doomed to disappointment. That way led to a low, swampy place, though there was no water in it at present, it having been frozen and covered with snow.

“No road here,” Tom said. “Let’s try some other route.”

“Say!” cried Jack. “What’s the sense of all four of us going in the same direction all the while? Why not try four ways at once? The one who finds the road can fire two shots in quick succession. The rest of us will then come to where we hear the shots.”

“A good idea!” commented Tom. “We’ll try it. Scatter now, and don’t go too far. Oh, you’re coming with me, are you, Towser?” for the dog followed him, evidently considering Tom his master.

The four boys now set off in different directions, and soon were lost to sight of one another in the storm. Tom was sure he was going the route that would take him to the road. He pressed on eagerly.

The dog ran on ahead, and disappeared.

“He’s fond of taking a lot of exercise,” was Tom’s mental comment. Then he saw some bushes, just ahead of him, being agitated and he went on: “No, he’s coming back. Maybe he’s found something.”

Suddenly the bushes back of Tom parted with a crackling of the dry twigs. The lad thought perhaps it was some animal stirred up by the dog, and he was advancing his gun, to be in readiness, when he felt, all at once, something cover his head. He was in blackness, but he could tell by the smell that a bag had been thrust over his eyes.

“Here. Quit that! Stop!” yelled Tom, and then his voice ended in a smothered groan. Something like a gag had been thrust between his lips and he was thrown heavily.

For a moment Tom’s senses seemed to leave him. He could see nothing, but he felt that he was being mauled. He had a momentary fear that it might be a bear. But, he reflected, bears do not throw sacks over one’s head, nor gag one. It must be men – but what men?

Vainly Tom struggled. He felt his hands being tied – his feet entangled in ropes. He fought, but was overpowered. Then he heard a voice saying:

“Well, we’ve captured him, anyhow.”

“Yes,” agreed another voice, and Tom vainly wondered where he had heard it before. “Yes, we have him, and now the question is, what to do with him.”

CHAPTER XX
A PRISONER

Tom was in sort of a daze for the first few moments following the unexpected and violent attack on him, an attack culminating in his being bound so that he could hardly move.

Dimly, and almost uncomprehendingly, he heard voices murmuring about him – he could hear the voices of men above the howl of the gale that seemed to continue with unabated fury.

Gradually Tom’s senses cleared. The haze that seemed to envelope his mind passed away and he began to realize that he must not submit dumbly to this indignity. He first strained lightly at his bonds, as if to test them. The sack was still over his head, so he could not see, and there was a horribly stuffy and suffocating feeling about it.

Tom’s effort to loosen his bonds, slight as it was, had the effect of starting his blood up in a better circulation, and this helped him to think better and more quickly.

“I’ve got to get out of this!” he told himself energetically. “This won’t do at all! I wonder who the scoundrels are who have caught me this way?”

But Tom did not stop then to argue out that question. He wanted to devote all his time to getting himself loose. With that in view, he put forth all his strength. He was lying on his back, in a bank of snow, he judged, and he now strained his arms and legs with all his might.

But he might just as well have saved his strength. Those who had tied the bonds about him knew their evil business well, and poor Tom was like a roped steer. Not only was he unable to loosen the bonds on his arms and legs, but he found the effort hurt him, and made him almost suffocate, because of the gag and the closeness of the bag over his head.

Then he heard voices speaking again.

“He’s coming to,” said someone – a vaguely familiar voice.

“Yes, but he’ll have to come a great deal harder than that to get away,” was the answer, and someone chuckled. Tom wished he could hit that person, whoever he was. His gun had either fallen or been knocked from his hand at the first attack.

“Well, what are we going to do with him?” asked the voice that had first spoken.

“Wait until – ” but the rest of the sentence Tom did not hear, for the wind set up a louder howling at that point, and the words were borne away with it. Then, too, Tom was at a disadvantage because of the bag over his ears.

He felt himself being lifted up, and placed in a more comfortable position, and he was glad of that, for he felt weak and sick. It must be remembered that aside from a little coffee that morning, he had had no breakfast, and that he had had little or no sleep the night before. With a scant supper, a battle with the storm, the anxiety about being lost, and having led his friends, unconsciously enough, into a scrape, it was no great wonder that Tom was not altogether himself.

“But who in the world has captured me, and what do they want of me?” Tom asked himself. He had an idea it might, perhaps, be some of the half-breed Indians who had caught him for the sake of his gun and clothing. Or perhaps some trapper or guide was guilty.

But if they were after his gun, or what money he carried, or even the fine mackinaw he wore, why did they not take those things and make off into the woods? That would at least leave Tom free.

But the men remained on guard over the bound figure of the boy, now sitting upright on a bank of snow. Tom could dimly hear them moving about. They were evidently waiting for someone.

“But if they wait long enough, the fellows may come to look after me,” Tom reasoned. “Jack, George, and Bert will know how to deal with these scoundrels.”

Then he reflected that the other lads would not know where he was unless he fired his gun, and he could not do that. If one of the others – Bert, Jack or George – found the road, they would not know where Tom was.

“Unless the dog could lead me to them, or them to me,” he mused. “I wonder where Towser is, anyhow?”

Tom’s last view of the animal had been when it darted into a bush, after some rabbit, perhaps. Then had come the sudden attack. If the dog had returned, Tom did not know of it. He only hoped the animal would “raise some sort of row,” as he put it.

But there was no evidence of Towser. Tom could hear only the now low-voiced talk of two men, and the rush of the wind. That it was still snowing he was quite sure, and he wondered what his companions were doing.

Suddenly he became aware of some new element that entered into his predicament. One of the men exclaimed:

“Here he comes now!”

“That’s good!” responded the other, and there seemed to be relief in his tones.

“I didn’t see anything of him,” called the newcomer. “I saw the others – they’ve separated, all right, but Fairfield – ”

“He’s here! We’ve got him!” was the triumphant rejoinder of one of the men near Tom. “Got him good and proper!”

“You have! That’s the ticket. Now we’ll see what the old man has to say. I guess he’ll pony up all right.”

Tom felt a shock as though someone had thrown cold water over him.

That voice!

Tom knew now. It was Professor Skeel.

He began to understand. He saw the meaning of many things that had hitherto puzzled him. The vagueness was clearing away. The plot was beginning to be revealed.

Was this why Skeel had come to the wilderness of the Adirondacks? Was this why he and his cronies had been sneaking around the camp cabins? It seemed so.

“And yet, what in the world can he want of me?” Tom asked himself. “If it’s revenge for what I did to him, this is a queer way of showing it. I didn’t think he’d have spunk enough to plot a thing like this, though he certainly has meanness enough.”

Tom was thinking fast. He was putting together in his mind many matters that had seemed strange to him. Certain it was that at Skeel’s instigation he had been made a prisoner, and probably with the help of Murker and Whalen, though Tom had not seen their faces clearly and could not be sure of their identity.

“But what’s it all about?” poor Tom asked himself over and over again. “Why should he make a prisoner of me?”

“Can we carry him?” asked Skeel’s voice. “We’ve got to take him to the old shack, you know. Can’t leave him here. Besides, there’s some business to attend to in connection with him. Can you carry him through the snow?”

“Sure,” was the answer. “He isn’t so heavy. Up on your shoulders with him, Whalen, and we’ll follow the professor. I’m all turned about in this storm!”

Tom was sure, then, of the identity of his three captors. He was as sure as though he had seen them.

A moment later he found himself being lifted up, and he could feel that the men were adjusting him to their shoulders. It was no easy task, for Tom was rather heavy, and his clothing, for he was dressed warmly for the cold, made an additional burden. But the men were strong, it seemed.

“Shall we take that off?” asked one of the men. Tom had an idea he referred to the head-covering bag.

“No, better leave it on until we get farther off. Some of the others might see him,” was Skeel’s answer. Tom felt sure he referred to the bag.

“I wish they’d take this gag out of my mouth,” Tom mused. “I don’t care so much for the bag. But my tongue will feel like a piece of leather in a little while.”

On through the storm Tom was carried, on the shoulders of the two men. In fancy he could see the former instructor leading the way.

“He spoke of the old shack,” mused Tom. “I wonder if he means the deserted cabin where we were? If he takes me there, the boys will have a better chance of finding me if they look.”

But Tom was soon to know that it was not to the deserted hut he was being carried. For the journey soon came to an abrupt termination. The young prisoner felt himself being carried into some building, for he was lowered from the men’s shoulders.

“They never could have reached the old cabin in this time,” Tom decided to himself. “They must have brought me to some new place. I wonder what will happen now?”

Tom felt himself laid on some sort of bed or bunk. Then he heard a door closed and locked.

“Well, we’ve got him just where we want him,” said Skeel. “Now we’ll go ahead with our plans.”

And the prisoner wondered what those plans were.