Meanwhile Phil was rubbing the hands and limbs of the child, astonished beyond measure at having run across such a little fellow there in the midst of that Canadian wilderness.
"Here you are, Phil; fetch him up close to it!" called out the other boy, as he judiciously added further pieces of wood to the blaze he had contrived to start.
Neither of them could solve the problem as to where the little fellow had come from.
"He must have rained down," said Ethan; "or else he"s been with that other party of sportsmen, and slipped away from their camp, bent on having a regular moose hunt of his own. Look at this popgun, will you; it"s one of the kind that has a spring in it, and shoots B. B. shot.
I"ve owned the same kind myself years ago. But what do you think, Phil?"
"I"m all up in the air," replied the other, candidly. "If he came from that other camp he couldn"t be connected with any of those rich sportsmen, for you can see his clothes are those of poverty, though warm enough. He must belong to some Canadian backwoods family. It might be they"ve got a man and wife cooking for them in their camp, or the man as a guide and the woman to get the meals. And the child could belong to them, it might turn out."
"Didn"t Mr. McNab tell us that terror of the pines, Anson Baylay, had several kids at his home, as well as a wife, a small woman who knew how to manage the big giant?" inquired Ethan.
"That"s a fact!" declared Phil, looking again at the small boy; "I wonder now if this could be one of his brood? But when he gets so he can talk perhaps we"ll be able to find out all about him."
"What"s the program?" demanded Ethan; "we don"t want to stay here, do we, hoping some one may come in search of the poor kid?"
"No, our best plan is get him to camp with all speed. He may not be as well off as I"ve hoped is the case. And with a night ahead of us, a shelter, with food and a fire will be good for all of us. Fact is, there"s a change coming on; the sun has gone behind the clouds, and it wouldn"t surprise me if we had one of those blizzards you"re so fond of talking about."
"Well, for myself I wouldn"t mind," said Ethan, loftily; "but it would be pretty tough on the little chap if we got caught in a howling storm, with the mercury going away down below zero. I"ll take my turn carrying him, Phil, remember."
"We"ll have to change about, because he"s going to be no light load,"
Phil admitted; "I wish the boy would come to himself; he might tell us something that"d put us on the right track. But we"re not going to wait for that."
With these words he gathered the little fellow up in his arms and started. Ethan on his part took charge of the guns, as well as the camera; and in this manner they headed in what Phil believed to be a bee-line for the camp.
It would have been no small task carrying the boy for any distance, even under ordinary conditions; and the fact of their being on snow-shoes made it all the more difficult.
Still, both of them were stalwart fellows, and able to do considerable along the line of carrying burdens. Their outdoor life had given them more strength than most boys of their age possessed.
Phil kept it up for quite a time.
"Better change off with me, now," Ethan hinted, for the fifth time.
"All right, then, Ethan; just lay those things down where I can get them, and I"ll give you the boy. He"s some heft, believe me, and a pretty chubby lad for his age, which I shouldn"t take to be more than five, or six at the most."
"But isn"t it queer he hasn"t come to, and asked us who we are, and where we"re taking him?" remarked the second boy, as he took the object of their solicitude into his arms.
"He"ll come out of it all right later on, I feel pretty sure," Phil observed, as he loaded himself with the guns and camera, after which he started ahead of his companion so as to break the way.
"There"s a dash of color beginning to show in his cheeks, I do believe!"
called out Ethan, presently.
Later on he had to hand his burden over to the other; and this sort of thing continued many times, until all of two hours had gone.
Both boys were growing very tired after their long tramp, and now with carrying their human burden, too. But Phil buoyed up the spirits of his chum by saving that they were close on the camp.
"I can see where the lake lies over yonder," he remarked, when they chanced to be on a rise that gave them a chance to see around more or less; "and away over in that direction there"s a black smoke rising that must come from the camp of that other party with James Bodman."
"But that isn"t where we"ve just come from, Phil?" observed Ethan, shrewdly.
"Far away from it, to tell the truth, and I see what you mean, Ethan. It doesn"t look as if this chap could ever have wandered away from _that_ camp this morning, because he would have had to cover miles, which he could never have done with all the deep snow."
"And, Phil, it must be that he"s a Baylay; but we"ll find all that out when he comes to himself again in the camp. I"m rested now, so give me a chance to spell you."
Both of them were more pleased than they would have liked to say when they discovered the little shack they had built close to the sh.o.r.e of the lake; with X-Ray just starting out ax in hand to cut some wood.
Ethan gave a whoop, and Lub came running out of the shelter, all excitement.
"Bringing home the bacon, are you, fellows?" he called; "well, you do seem to be staggering under a bully old load, Ethan. Have you bothered getting the moose"s head, horns and all to camp? Might have left that hanging up till--well, what"s this I see? Great Jehosophat! this isn"t a moose"s head; it"s a child!"
X-Ray was equally astounded. They crowded around, and stared, and seemed ready to fairly burst with curiosity.
"Wait till we get him between blankets, boys, and then you"ll have the whole story," said Phil.
Lub rushed in ahead of the others, and it was his blanket that he held up in front of the fire to "get it good and warm for the poor little chap," he explained.
There was more color creeping into the face of the unknown child, Phil discovered. He did not believe anything serious could have come upon him, and hoped for the best.
"I really think he"s sleeping from exhaustion and fright now," he told the others, after they had bundled their charge up snugly, and were sitting there before the glowing fire, with both Lub and X-Ray impatiently waiting to hear all about the remarkable occurrence; for it is not often that hunters start out after moose and return bearing a child that they have saved from being frozen to death.
By degrees the story was told, first how the two hunters managed to get close up on the cow moose so that Phil could take a couple of snapshots; and then later on when aiming to discover the beaver village how they had run upon the lad in the thicket, where he had gone to try and make a fire.
"Think of the little duffer having matches in his pocket, and believing he knew all about the job of making a fire, too," said Ethan, as though he considered this the most remarkable feature of the whole thing.
The little toy gun had been carefully carried along with their own larger weapons and Phil held it up as he went on to say:
"And he was trying to find his deer just as much as we were, it seems like, from his having this "repeater" in his possession. That"s why I think he must belong to a backwoodsman or a guide, because children in such families take to doing all these things like ducks do to water."
"And," continued Ethan, solemnly, "so far as we know there"s only one party up in this neighborhood who has kids of his own, because you remember Mr. McNab told us about him."
"Gee! you mean that terrible Baylay, don"t you?" asked Lub, aghast, as he glanced apprehensively toward the place where the child was snuggled in his blanket, and then toward the adjacent woods.
"Yes, Ethan and myself have about come to the conclusion he must be a chip of the old block, a Baylay, afraid of nothing; though he did bite off more than he could chew when he started off on a hunt for big game in winter time, and found himself lost in the forest, with the snow half way up to his neck in places."
They talked it all over, but no one could suggest any particular thing they could do, save to keep the boy in camp, and wait to see what would turn up.
It came time for them to think of getting supper. X-Ray generously offered to "spell" Lub, for he was afraid they were overdoing it in allowing the stout youth to fill the office of cook continually, and that he might suddenly rebel.
"I don"t mind having some help, since you are so kind, X-Ray," Lub told him; "and so the first thing you do fetch me some more wood."
X-Ray had perhaps thought to be the "chief-cook-and-bottle-washer"
himself for once, as he himself expressed it, for he made a wry face upon being ordered about in such a summary fashion. However, he nodded his head toward the autocrat of the culinary department, and went off to get his arms full of fuel, saying as he did so:
"Anything to keep peace in the family; and besides I"ll have some say about the bill of fare we put up at our hotel this night."
While supper was cooking Ethan caught hold of Phil"s sleeve and pointed over to where the little chap had been placed, rolled up in Lub"s blanket. He was now sitting bolt upright, and rubbing his eyes with his knuckles as though he did not know what to make of it all.
Phil immediately hurried over, and threw himself down beside the little fellow.