Kitabı oku: «The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound», sayfa 9

CHAPTER XXV
AMONG THE SNOWDRIFTS

“This is hard work after all, let me own up!” announced Jud Elderkin, after they had been pushing on for nearly half an hour.

“To tell you the truth,” admitted Tom Betts, “we’ve turned this way and that so often now I don’t know whether we’re heading straight.”

“Trust Tolly Tip for that,” urged Paul. “And besides, if you’d taken your bearings as you should have done when starting, you could tell from the position of the sun that right now we’re going straight toward that far-off hill.”

“Good for ye, Paul!” commented the guide, who was deeply interested in finding out just how much woods lore these scouts had picked up during their many camp experiences.

“Well, here’s where we’re up against it good and hard,” observed Bobolink.

The clear space they had been following came to an abrupt end, and before them lay a great drift of snow, at least five or six feet deep.

“Do we try to flounder through this, or turn around and try another way?” asked Jud, looking as though, if the decision rested with him, he would only too gladly attack the heap of snow.

Before deciding, Tolly Tip climbed into the fork of a tree. From this point of vantage he was able to see beyond the drift. He dropped down presently with a grin on his face.

“It’s clear ag’in beyant the hape av snow; so we’d better try to butt through the same,” he told them. “Let me go first, and start a path. Whin I play out one av the rist av ye may take the lead. Come along, boys.”

The relief party plunged into the great drift with merry shouts, being filled with the enthusiasm of abounding youth. The big woodsman kept on until even he began to tire of the work; or else guessed that Jud was eager to take his place.

In time they had passed beyond the obstacle, and again found themselves traversing a windswept avenue that led in the general direction they wished to go.

A short time afterwards Jud uttered a shout.

“Hold on a minute, fellows!” he called out.

“What ails you now, Jud—got a cramp in your leg, or do you think it’s time we stopped for a bite of lunch?” demanded Bobolink.

“Here’s the plain track of a deer,” answered Jud, pointing down as he spoke. “And it was made only a short time ago you can see, because while the wind blows the snow some every little while, it hasn’t filled the track.”

“That’s good scout logic, Jud,” affirmed Paul; and even the old woodsman nodded his head as though he liked to hear the boy think things out so cleverly.

“Here it turns into this blind path,” continued Jud, “which I’d like to wager ends before long in a big drift. Like as not if we chose to follow, we’d find Mr. Stag wallowing in the deepest kind of snow, and making an easy mark.”

“Well, we can’t turn aside just now, to hunt a poor deer that is having a hard enough time of it keeping life in his body,” said Tom Betts, aggressively.

“No, we’ll let the poor beast have his chance to get away,” said the scout-master. “We’ve started out on a definite errand, and mustn’t allow ourselves to be drawn aside. So put your best foot forward again, Jud.”

Jud looked a little loth to give up the chance to get the deer, a thing he had really set his mind on. However, there would still be plenty of time to accomplish this, and equal Bobolink’s feat, whereby the other had been able to procure fresh venison for the camp.

“How far along do you think we are, Tolly Tip?” asked Tom Betts, after more time had passed, and they began to feel the result of their struggle.

“More’n half way there, I’d be sayin’,” the other replied. “Though it do same as if the drifts might be gittin’ heavier the closer we draw to the hill. Av ye fale tired mebbe we’d better rist up a bit.”

“What, me tired!” exclaimed Tom, disdainfully, at the same time putting new life in his movements. “Why, I’ve hardly begun to get started so far. Huh! I’m good for all day at this sort of work, I’m so fond of ploughing through the snow.”

The forest seemed very solemn and silent. Doubtless nearly all of the little woods folk found themselves buried under the heavy fall of snow, and it would take time for them to tunnel out.

“Listen to the crows cawing as they fly overhead,” said Jud, presently.

“They’re gathering in a big flock over there somewhere,” remarked Paul.

“They’re having what they call a crow caucus,” explained Jack. “They do say that the birds carry on in the queerest way, just as if they were holding court to try one of their number that had done something criminal.”

“More likely they’re getting together to figure it out where they can find the next meal,” suggested Bobolink, sensibly. “This snow must have covered up pretty nearly everything. But at the worst they can emigrate to the South—can get to Virginia, where the climate isn’t so severe.”

As they pushed their way onward the boys indulged in other discussions along such lines as this. They were wideawake, and observed every little thing that occurred around them, and as these often pertained to the science of woodcraft which they delighted to study, they found many opportunities to give forth their opinions.

“We ought to be getting pretty near that old hill, seems to me,” observed Tom, when another hour had dragged by. Then he quickly added: “Not that I care much, you know, only the sooner we see if Hank and his cronies are in want the better it’ll be.”

“There it is right now, dead ahead of us!” exclaimed Jud, who had a pair of wonderfully keen eyes.

Through an opening among the trees they could all see the hill beyond, although it was so covered with snow that its outlines seemed shadowy, and it was little wonder none of them had noticed it before.

“Not more’n a quarter of a mile off, I should say,” declared Tom Betts, unable to hide fully the sense of pleasure the discovery gave him.

“But all the same we’ll have a pretty tough time making it,” remarked Jud. “It strikes me the snow is deeper right here than in any place yet, and the paths fewer in number.”

“How is that, Tolly Tip?” asked Bobolink.

“Ye say, the hill shunted off some av the wind,” explained the other without any hesitation; “and so the snow could drop to the ground without bein’ blown about so wild like. ’Tis a fine blanket lies ahead av us, and we’ll have to do some harrd wadin’ to make our way through the same.”

“Hit her up!” cried Tom, valiantly. “Who cares for such a little thing as snow piles?”

They floundered along as best they could. It turned out to be anything but child’s play, and tested their muscular abilities from time to time.

In vain they looked about them as they drew near the hill; there was not a single trace of any one moving around. Some of the scouts began to feel very queerly as they stared furtively at the snow covered elevation. It reminded them of a white tomb, for somewhere underneath it they feared the four boys from Stanhope might be buried, too weak to dig their way out.

Tolly Tip led them on with unerring fidelity.

“How does it come, Tolly Tip,” asked the curious Jud as they toiled onward, “that you remember this hole in the rocks so well?”

“That’s an aisy question to answer,” replied the other, with one of his smiles. “Sure ’twas some years ago that I do be having a nate little ruction with the only bear I iver kilt in this section. He was a rouser in the bargain, I’d be after tillin’ ye. I had crawled into the rift in the rocks to say where it lid whin I found mesilf up aginst it.”

“Oh! in that case I can see that you would be apt to remember the hole in the rocks always,” commented Jud. “A fellow is apt to see that kind of thing many a time in his dreams. So those fellows happened on the old bear den, did they?”

“We’re clost up to the same now, I’m plazed to till ye,” announced the guide. “If ye cast an eye beyont ye’ll mebbe notice that spur av rock that stands out like a ploughshare. Jist behind the same we’ll strike the crack in the rocks, and like as not find it filled to the brim wid the snow.”

When the five scouts and their guide stood alongside the spur of rock, looking down into the cavity now hidden by ten feet of snow, they were somehow forced to turn uneasy faces toward one another. It was deathly still there, and not a sign could they see to indicate that under the shroud of snow the four Stanhope boys might be imprisoned, almost dead with cold and hunger.

CHAPTER XXVI
DUG OUT

The boys realized that they had heavy work before them if they hoped to dig a way down through that mass of snow and reach the cleft in the rocks.

“Just mark out where we have to get busy, Tolly Tip,” called out Bobolink, after they had put aside their packs, and primed themselves for work, “and see how we can dig.”

“I speak for first turn with the snow shovel!” cried Jud. “It’ll bring a new set of muscles into play, for one thing, and that means relief. I own up that my legs feel pretty well tuckered out.”

The woodsman, however, chose to begin the work himself. After taking his bearings carefully, he began to dig the snow shovel deep down, and cast the loosely packed stuff aside.

In order to reach the cleft in the rocks they would have to cut a tunnel through possibly twenty feet or more of snow.

So impatient was Jud to take a hand that he soon begged the guide to let him have a turn at the work. Tolly Tip prowled around, and some of the boys wondered what he could be doing until he came back presently with great news.

“’Tis smoke I do be after smellin’ beyant there!” he told them.

“Smoke!” exclaimed Bobolink, staring up the side of the white hill. “How can that be when there isn’t the first sign of a fire?”

“You don’t catch on to the idea, Bobolink,” explained Paul. “He means that those in the cave must have some sort of fire going, and the smoke finds its way out through some small crevices that lie under a thin blanket of snow. Am I right there, Tolly Tip?”

“Ye sure hit the nail on the head, Paul,” he was told by the guide.

“Well, that’s good news,” admitted Bobolink, with a look of relief on his face. “If they’ve got enough wood to keep even a small fire going, they won’t be found frozen to death anyhow.”

“And,” continued Jud, who had given the shovel over to Jack, “it takes some days to really starve a fellow, I understand. You see I’ve been reading lately about the adventures of the Dr. Kane exploring company up in the frozen Arctic regions. When it got to the worst they staved off starvation by making soup of their boots.”

“But you mustn’t forget,” interposed Bobolink, “that their boots were made of skins, and not of the tough leather we use these days. I’d like to see Hank Lawson gnawing on one of his old hide shoes, that’s what! It couldn’t be done, any way you fix it.”

The hole grew by degrees, but very slowly. It seemed as though tons and tons of snow must have been swept over the crest of the hill, to settle down in every cavity it could find.

“We’re getting there, all right!” declared Bobolink, after he had taken his turn, and in turn handed over the shovel to Paul.

“Oh! the Fourth of July is coming too, never fear!” jeered Jud, who was in a grumbling mood.

“Why, Tolly Tip here says we’ve made good progress already,” Tom Betts declared, merely to combat the spirit manifested by Jud, “and that we’ll soon be half-way through the pile. If it were three times as big we’d get there in the end, because this is a never-say-die bunch of scouts, you bet!”

“Oh! I was only fooling,” chuckled Jud, feeling ashamed of his grumbling. “Of course, we’ll manage it, by hook or by crook. Show me the time the Banner Boy Scouts ever failed, will you, when they’d set their minds on doing anything worth while? We’re bound to get there.”

The work went on. By turns the members of the relief party applied themselves to the task of cutting a way through the snow heap, and when each had come up for the third time it became apparent that they were near the end of their labor, for signs of the rock began to appear.

Inspired by this fact they took on additional energy, and the way the snow flew under the vigorous attack of Jud was pretty good evidence that he still believed in their ultimate success.

“Now watch my smoke!” remarked Tom Betts, as he took the shovel in his turn and proceeded to show them what he could do. “I’ve made up my mind to keep everlastingly at it till I strike solid rock. And I’ll do it, or burst the boiler.”

He had hardly spoken when they heard the plunging metal shovel strike something that gave out a positive “chink,” and somehow that sound seemed to spell success.

“Guess you’ve gone and done it, Tom!” declared Jud, with something like a touch of chagrin in his voice, for Jud had been hoping he would be the lucky one to show the first results.

There was no slackening of their ardor, and the boys continued to shovel the snow out of the hole at a prodigious rate until every one could easily see the crevice in the rocks.

“Listen!” exclaimed Jud just then.

“Oh! what do you think you heard?” asked Bobolink.

“I don’t know whether it was the shovel scraping over the rock or a human groan,” Jud continued, looking unusually serious.

They all listened, but could hear nothing except the cold wind sighing through some of the trees not far away.

“Let me finish the work for you, Tom,” suggested Paul, seeing that Tom Betts was pretty well exhausted from his labors.

“I guess I will, Paul, because I’m nearly tuckered out,” admitted the persistent worker, as he handed the implement over, and pushed back, though still remaining in the hole.

Paul was not very long in clearing away the last of the snow that clogged the entrance to the old bears’ den. They could then mark the line of the gaping hole that cleft the rock, and which served as an antechamber to the cavity that lay beyond.

“That does it, Paul,” said Jack, softly; though just why he spoke half under his breath he could not have explained if he had been asked, except that, somehow, it seemed as though they were very close to some sort of tragedy.

The shovel was put aside. It had done its part of the work, and could rest. And everybody prepared to follow Paul as he pushed after the guide into the crevice leading to the cave.

The smell of wood smoke was now very strong, and all of them could catch it.

So long as the entrapped boys had a fire there was no fear that they would perish from the cold. Moreover, down under the rocks and the snow the atmosphere could hardly be anything as severe as in the open. Indeed Paul had been in many caves where the temperature remained about the same day in and day out, through the whole year.

Coming from the bewildering and dazzling snow fields it was little wonder that none of them could see plainly at the moment they started into the bears’ den. By degrees, as their eyes became accustomed to the semi-darkness that held sway below, they would be able to distinguish objects, and make discoveries.

Stronger grew the pungent odor of smoke. It was not unpleasant at all, and to some of the scouts most welcome, bearing as it did a message of hope, and the assurance that things had not yet come to the last stretch.

Half turning as he groped his way onward, the guide pointed to something ahead—at least Paul who came next in line fancied that Tolly Tip was trying to draw his attention to that quarter.

In turn he performed the same office for the next boy, and thus the intelligence was passed along the line, from hand to hand.

They could, by straining their eyes, discover some half huddled figures just beyond. A faint light showed where the dying fire lay; and even as they looked one of the partly seen figures was seen to stir, and after this they noticed that a little flame had started up.

Paul believed that the very last stick of wood was on the fire and nearing the end.

Bobolink could not help giving a low cry of commiseration. The sound must have been heard by those who were huddled around the miserable fire, for they scrambled to their knees. As the tiny blaze sprang up just then, it showed the scouts the four Stanhope boys looking pinched and wan, with their eyes staring the wonder they must have felt at sight of the newcomers.

Hank was seen to jab his knuckles into his eyes as though unable fully to believe what he beheld. Then he held out both hands beseechingly toward the newcomers. They would never be able to forget the genuine pain contained in his voice as he half groaned:

“Oh! have you come to save us? Give us somethin’ to eat, won’t you? We’re starvin’, starvin’, I tell you!”

CHAPTER XXVII
“FIRST AID”

Possibly the case was not quite as bad as Hank declared, but for all that those four lads were certainly in a bad way.

Paul took charge of affairs at once, as became the acting scout-master of the troop.

“It’s a good thing we thought to pick up some wood as we came along,” he remarked. “Fetch it in, boys, and get this fire going the first thing. Then we’ll make a pot of coffee to begin with.”

“Coffee!” echoed the four late prisoners of the cave. “Oh, my stars! why! we went and forgot to bring any along with us. Coffee! that sounds good to us!”

“That’s only a beginning,” said Bobolink, as he came back with his arms filled with sticks, which he began to lay upon the almost dead fire. “We’ve got ham and biscuits, Boston baked beans, potatoes, corn, grits, and lots of other things. Just give us a little time to do some cooking, and you’ll get all you can cram down.”

Paul knew the hungry boys would suffer all sorts of tortures while waiting for the meal to be cooked. On this account he saw that they were given some crackers and cheese, to take the keen edge of their voracious appetites off.

It was a strange spectacle in that hole amidst the rocks, with the fire leaping up, Bobolink bending over it doing the cooking with his customary vim, the rest of the scouts gathered around, and those four wretched fellows munching away for dear life, as they sniffed the coffee beginning to scent the air with its fragrance.

As soon as this was ready Paul poured out some, added condensed milk, and handed the tin cup to Hank.

He was really surprised to see the rough fellow turn immediately and give it to Sid Jeffreys and hear him say:

“I reckon you need it the wust, Sid; git the stuff inside in a hurry.”

Then Paul remembered that Sid had recently been injured. And somehow he began to understand that even such a hardened case as Hank Lawson, in whom no one seemed ready to place any trust, might have a small, tender spot in his heart. He could not be all bad, Paul decided.

Hank, however, did not refuse to accept the second cup, and hastily drain it. Apparently, he believed the leader should have first choice, and meant to impress this fact upon his satellites.

What to do about the four boys had puzzled Paul a little. To allow them to accompany him and his chums back to Deer Head Lodge would make the remainder of their outing a very disagreeable affair. Besides, there was really no room for any more guests under that hospitable roof; and certainly Tolly Tip would not feel in the humor to invite them.

So Paul had to figure it out in some other way. While Hank and his three cronies were eating savagely, Bobolink having finished preparing the odd meal for them, Paul took occasion to sound the one who occupied the position of chief.

“We’ve brought over enough grub to last you four a week,” he started in to say, when Hank interrupted him.

“We sure think you’re white this time, Paul Morrison, an’ I ain’t a-goin’ to hold back in sayin’ so either, just ’cause we’ve been scrappin’ with your crowd right along. Guess you know that we come up here partly to bother you fellers. I’m right glad we ain’t had a chance to play any tricks on you up to now. An’ b’lieve me! it’s goin’ to be a long time ’fore we’ll forgit this thing.”

Paul was, of course, well pleased to hear this. He feared, however, that in a month from that time Hank was apt to forget the obligations he owed the scouts, and likely enough would commence to annoy them again.

“The question that bothers me just now,” Paul continued, “is what you ought to do. I don’t suppose any of you care to stay up here much longer, now that this blizzard has spoiled all of the fun of camping out?”

“I’ve had about all I want of the game,” admitted Jud Mabley, promptly.

“Count me in too,” added Sim Jeffreys. “I feel pretty sick of the whole business, and we can’t get back home any too soon to suit me.”

“Same here,” muttered Bud Phillips, who had kept looking at Paul for some time in a furtive way, as though he had something on his mind that he was strongly tempted to communicate to the scout leader.

“So you see that settles it,” grinned Hank. “Even if I wanted to hang out here all the rest o’ the holidays, three agin one is most too much. We’d be havin’ all sorts o’ rows every day. Yep, we’ll start fur home the fust chance we git.”

That pleased Paul, and was what he had hoped to hear.

“Of course,” he went on to say to Hank, “it’s a whole lot shorter cutting across country to Stanhope than going around by way of Lake Tokala and the old canal that leads from the Radway into the Bushkill river; but you want to be mighty careful of your compass points, or you might get lost.”

“Sure thing, Paul,” remarked the other, confidently; “but that’s my long suit, you ought to know. Never yet did git lost, an’ I reckon I ain’t a-goin’ to do it now. I’ll lay it all out and make the riffle, don’t you worry about that same.”

“We came over that way, you know,” interrupted Jud Mabley, “and left blazes on the trees in places where we thought we might take the wrong trail goin’ back.”

“That was a wise thing to do,” said Paul, “and shows that some of you ought to be in the scout movement, for you’ve got it in you to make good.”

“Tried it once you ’member, Paul, but your crowd didn’t want anything to do wi’ me, so I cut it out,” grumbled Jud, though he could not help looking pleased at being complimented on the woodcraft of their crowd by such an authority as the scout-master.

Paul turned from Jud and looked straight into the face of the leader.

“Hank,” he said earnestly, “you know just as well as I do that Jud was blackballed not because we didn’t believe he had it in him to make an excellent scout, but for another reason. Excuse me if I’m blunt about it, but I mean it just as much for your good as I did bringing this food all the way over here to help you out. Every one of you has it in him to make a good scout, if only he would change certain ways he now has.”

Hank looked down at his feet, and remained silent for a brief time, during which he doubtless was having something of an inward fight.

“All right, Paul,” he suddenly remarked, looking up again grimly. “I ain’t a-goin’ to git mad ’cause you speak so plain. If you fellers’d go to all the trouble to fight your way over here, and fetch us this food, I reckon as how I’ve been readin’ you the wrong way.”

“You have, Hank! You certainly have!” affirmed Bobolink, who was greatly interested in this effort on the part of Paul to bring about a change in the boys who had taken such malicious delight in annoying the scouts whenever the opportunity arose.

“Believe this, Hank,” said Paul earnestly; “if you only chose to change your ways, none of you would be blackballed the next time you tried to join the organization. There’s no earthly reason why all of you shouldn’t be accepted as candidates if only you can subscribe to the iron-bound rules we work under, and which every one of us has to obey. Think it over, won’t you, boys? It might pay you.”

“Reckon we will, Paul,” muttered Hank, though he shook his head at the same time a little doubtfully, as though deep down in his heart he feared they could never overcome the feeling of prejudice that had grown up against them in Stanhope.

“I wouldn’t be in too big a hurry to start back home,” continued Paul, thinking he had already said enough to fulfill his duty as a scout. “In another day or so it’s likely to warm up a bit, and you’ll find it more comfortable on the way.”

“Just what I was thinkin’ myself, Paul,” agreed Hank. “We’ve got stacks of grub now, thanks to you and your crowd, and we c’n git enough wood in places, now you’ve opened our dooryard fur us. Yep, we’ll hang out till it feels some warmer, and then cut sticks fur home.”

“Here’s a rough map I made out that may be useful to you, Hank,” continued the scout-master, “if you happen to lose your blazed trail. Tolly Tip helped me get it up, and as he’s been across to Stanhope many times he ought to know every foot of the way.”

“It might come in handy, an’ I’ll take the same with thanks, Paul,” Hank observed, with all his customary aggressive ways lacking. There is nothing so well calculated to take the spirit out of a boy as acute hunger.

When they had talked for some little time longer, Paul decided that it was time for him and his chums to start back to the cabin. Those afternoons in late December were very short, and night would be down upon them almost before they knew it.

It was just then that Bud Phillips seemed to have made up his mind to say something that had been on the tip of his tongue ever since he realized under what great obligations the scouts had placed him and his partners.

“Seems like I oughtn’t to let you get away from here, Paul, without tellin’ somethin’ that I reckon might be interestin’ to you all,” he went on to say.

“All right, Bud, we’ll be glad to hear it,” the scout-master observed, with a smile, “though for the life of me I can’t guess what it’s all about.”

“Go ahead Bud, and dish it out!” urged Bobolink, impatiently.