Storm-Bound.
by Alan Douglas.
CHAPTER I
ON THE WRONG TRACK
"ELMER, do you believe we"re really on the right track, or have we lost our bearings in this everlasting snow forest?"
"Ask me something easy, please, Lil Artha!"
"Well, I didn"t like the looks of that sa.s.sy kid who was so eager to have you make a map from what he told us."
"Struck me he grinned too much, boys, as sure as my name"s George Robbins. I"m beginning to smell a rat, and think he played a low-down trick on us."
"That is, George, you mean he purposely gave us the wrong directions, and that instead of heading straight for the winter cabin of Toby"s jolly Uncle Caleb we"re away off our base?"
"Looks like it to me, that"s all I"ve got to say," muttered the boy who had called himself George, at the same time glancing apprehensively at the snow-clad woods surrounding them on all sides.
"Me too!" added the fourth member of the little heavily-laden party, and whose good-natured face usually screwed itself up in an odd series of wrinkles whenever he spoke with such an effort.
"Well," remarked the boy called Elmer, whose last name was Chenowith, and upon whose decisions the others seemed to depend considerably, as though he might be a leader among them; "let"s rest up a bit here, and look the matter squarely in the face. Perhaps we can figure out where we"ve gone wrong, and start on a new course."
These four well-grown lads were all dressed in the well-known khaki suits that designate Boy Scouts the wide world over. Of course they wore heavy woolen sweaters in addition, for the time was just after Christmas, and Old Winter had taken a notion to set in unusually early that year.
They belonged to the Hickory Ridge Troop of Boy Scouts, which lively town was situated many miles to the south of the place where we discover the quartette up against a puzzling question.
Toby Jones had an old uncle who was not only a scientific man, but who loved the Great Outdoors so much that of late he had come to spend most of his time at his lonely cabin in the forest. Here in the summer he studied, and experimented to his heart"s content; while during the winter he set traps, and took wonderful photographs of the s...o...b..und woods, as well as of the fur-bearing little animals that made their homes there.
The idea had struck Toby that with some of his best chums he surprise this jolly Uncle Caleb, who was a well-known professor among scientists. Many times the boy had received a warm invitation to run up and visit the old gentleman, as well as fetch a friend or two along, but until this winter Toby had somehow never entertained the idea of doing so.
Once it took hold of him, and he became wildly enthusiastic over it.
When he mentioned the scheme to Elmer, as well as two other scouts, they fell in with it so quickly that the plans were soon arranged.
Accordingly, immediately after Christmas the four lads had taken a train for the north, and about noon dropped off at a lonely station, where the operator was a new hand, and had never even heard of Uncle Caleb, so that the boys hardly knew which way to turn. Just then they happened to run across a lanky boy with a grinning face, whom Elmer "pumped," with the result that they were directed to follow certain landmarks, turn ever so many times until they came to a frozen creek, up which if they headed a mile they would discover the cabin they sought.
They had been following that same frozen stream more than two hours, and there was not the slightest sign of anything in the way of a shack or cabin. In fact, it looked as though they had managed to tramp into the very heart of what seemed to be a trackless forest. In every direction stretched that never ending array of tall and little trees, each snow splashed; for there were several inches of the white feathery covering on the ground, what Elmer called fine "tracking snow;" if only they had been hunting game instead of a shelter.
Though all of the scouts kept constantly on the alert they had failed to detect the first sign of human presence. Not a shout or a gunshot had they heard; in vain had they searched the snowy ground for the welcome trail of a trapper going to or coming home after visiting his line of snares.
No wonder then that some of the boys had begun to believe they were tricked by that glib-tongued native lad, who had chuckled so disagreeably as he accepted the silver quarter Elmer thrust in his grimy palm.
All of them bore heavy loads. For the most part these consisted of extra clothes of course for use in case of extreme cold weather; but two of them also carried guns; and Toby had strapped on his pack a pair of snow-shoes his uncle had once presented to him, but which the boy had never found a good chance to use, though he hoped the time had now arrived for putting them to some service.
"I"ve been trying to figure things out," Elmer told them, as they sat down on a log to rest, while trying to decide which way they should turn; "and while I"m liable to be mistaken just as much as anybody else, I really think we"d have a better chance to find that cabin, or run across some sign of Toby"s uncle, if we quit following this creek bed, and turned sharply to the right."
Now Elmer was not only the leader of the Wolf Patrol when at home, but had long ago qualified for the position of a.s.sistant scout master of the troop. When the regular scout master, a young man named Mr. Roderic Garrabrant, chanced to be absent, which frequently happened, the boys looked to Elmer to guide and direct them.
Consequently the three who were now in his company had come to look for great things from their chum; and Elmer often found it a difficult task to satisfy their expectations. And so it was he had in the start given them to understand that he could make mistakes as well as the next one, and they must not think him infallible.
As usual everybody seemed ready to fall in with his suggestion but George, who had a contrary streak in his make-up, and was always ready with objections and questions and serious shakings of the head. They called him "Doubting George," but grown people would long ago have dubbed him a pessimist, because he was always seeing the gloomy side of things, and wanting to be doubly convinced.
"But it seems to me," he started to say, "that we may be jumping out of the fryingpan into the fire if we do that. How do we know the cabin lies to the right?"
"We don"t," replied Elmer, without manifesting any feeling over his opinion being questioned, for he knew George of old, and in fact would have been considerably surprised if the other had not put up what Toby called a "kick."
"Would you like to direct us, George?" asked the tall scout, whose name was Arthur Stansbury, but whom his schoolmates had in a spirit of fun long ago dubbed "Lil Artha," which ridiculous nick-name clung to him like a leech to this day, although he was fully a head above any of the other fellows.
"Oh! excuse me from taking that responsibility on my shoulders," George hastened to say, looking almost alarmed; "if I did, and happened to guess wrong, I"d never hear the end of it."
"So you admit that it"d have to be a _guess_, do you?" pursued Lil Artha mercilessly; "well, on the part of Elmer he"s tried to reason the old thing out, and both Toby"n me feel that we can"t do better than try what he says. I only hope the walking"s better than it"s been along this frozen creek, where the ice is too slippery for us to make use of the same. Why didn"t we think to fetch our skates along?"
"I did think of it," Toby told him; "but it meant more weight to our packs; and then from what Uncle Caleb"s told me about the lay of the country up here, I couldn"t figure out how we"d find any use for skates where there was only swamp, marsh, and mebbe a few little crooked creeks nearly always covered with a foot of snow. So I fetched these bully snow-shoes instead. Don"t I hope I"ll have a chance to skim over the snow on the same, if we"re lucky enough to get a heavy fall while up here."
"Perhaps we may get a storm before we"re ready for it," observed Elmer drily, as he shot a dubious glance up at the gray sky that had such an ominous look.
Lil Artha jumped to his feet, showing signs of some excitement.
"Hey! let"s be on the hike, fellows!" he exclaimed; "if a storm dropped on top of us right now it wouldn"t do a thing to us, p"raps. We haven"t got only enough grub for a single day. I guess matches are about the only thing we"re heavy on, because we expected to eat our meals in Uncle Caleb"s cabin most of the time."
"Well, matches are good things to have up here in the snow woods,"
remarked Elmer, who was an exact contrast to George in that he always saw the silver lining of the cloud, whereas the other scout could not get beyond the pall.
"You bet they are," Lil Artha went on to say, as he shouldered his pack, which he had arranged in regular Adirondack fashion, with a band across his forehead to a.s.sist in sustaining the weight; "though for that matter, if we went shy of the same I reckon you could depend on me to get fire by making a little bow, and sawing the same on a pointed stick, South Sea Islander way. I"ve done it more"n once, though I never seem able to depend on my cunning. Something goes wrong so often; or else I"m in too big a hurry, and spoil everything. But if you"re ready lead off, Elmer. We"ll trip along in your tracks, and keep it up for another hour anyway. That rest did us all a heap of good."
The four scouts kept pushing on steadily. Elmer in the van continued to maintain a bright lookout for any sign of footprints in the snow that would give them encouragement, though as time pa.s.sed, and he failed to find any such, the rosy hopes with which they had started began to gradually fade away.
Of course the others also kept their eyes about them, in hopes of sighting a lone cabin, or discovering smoke rising amidst the trees.
Hope died hard, and only George grumbled when more than half an hour had crept on without their running upon the first sign that would mean success.
Once Elmer had pointed out to them the tracks of a fox, and of course being true scouts, they were all greatly interested in examining the trail, and speculating on whether it had been of the ordinary red variety, or a gray animal, perhaps one of those silver-black foxes, the pelt of which is often valued at as much as fifteen hundred dollars.
Elmer had settled this question by picking up a hair he found caught on the split end of a branch that grew low down, and which the body of the fox, as well as his brushy tail, must have sc.r.a.ped as he slipped past.
It was plainly a red hair, and even George could not find any cause for disputing that evidence, though he was far from happy, and in a fit mood for argument if the occasion arose.
Several other times Elmer pointed to the unmistakable track of a bounding rabbit, and had they had more time at their disposal the boys would have liked nothing better than to follow these, so as to figure out what was chasing bunny to induce him to take such enormous jumps.
But the fact of their being astray in that unknown forest, with night not far away, and a heavy snow-storm brooding over them, rather discouraged them from turning aside from the main thing that engaged their attention, which of course was the finding of the trapper"s cabin.
n.o.body paid the least attention to George when they heard him grunting away in the rear, because George would not have been happy unless he was miserable, strange though that may sound. There is generally a boy built after that fashion in every crowd of scouts. As a rule he has some good qualities that make his friends forgive his bad ones, and finally they get so accustomed to his grumblings that they pay little attention to them. In fact George"s complainings had little more effect on his boon companions than so much water poured on a duck"s back would. It amused him to grunt and object, and hurt them very little, so what was the sense of making any trouble?
Another fifteen minutes crept along. There did not seem to be any particular change in things, except that the light was showing signs of failing, and perhaps George stumbled more frequently, for he was not as spry on his feet when carrying a pack as the other fellows.
"Don"t seem to be over this way either, Elmer," suggested Lil Artha, finally.
"That"s right, Uncle Caleb"s cabin appears to be as hard to locate as a needle in a haystack," admitted the leader of the Wolf Patrol, cheerily; as though it would have to be something more than this to discourage him, because he had made it his business in life to always look at the bright side of things; and knew that no matter how gloomy the prospect might be it could seem much worse.