"Like it! Alec, he"ll be tickled silly. He wrote me that you had promised him one," cried Walter. "It"s perfectly bully! Good old Spud! I wish he could be here with us now to make a little sunshine. Not that we need it," he hastened to add, "but he sure would enjoy this. I bet he"s green with envy if he knows that we fellows are up here now."
"He knows, all right," Hal broke in. "Wrote him when I first thought of this trip, but he couldn"t get away."
"I wanted to get that skin to him for Christmas, but didn"t have a chance to pack it out," explained Alec. "Guess I"ll send it out when you fellers go. A little old barskin don"t begin to pay what I owe that boy. If it hadn"t been for him I"d probably died up there in that hide-out where he found me. And if it hadn"t been for the little doctor here I"d likely have died anyway. Anyhow I"d have lost my leg. There"s a barskin coming to you too, some day."
Walter flushed. It made him uncomfortable to be called the little doctor, as Alec persisted in calling him, yet at the same time he was conscious of a warm glow of pride which he tried hard to stifle. "Pooh, Alec, that was no more than any of the other fellows would have done if I hadn"t been here. You know all Scouts know what to do for first aid to the injured," said he.
"Just the same I don"t believe there was one of us would have had the nerve to tackle that broken leg of Alec"s. I wouldn"t for one," declared Hal.
To relieve Walter"s embarra.s.sment Pat abruptly changed the subject.
"What was that you hinted at when we first got here about signs of some one else in these diggings?" he asked, turning to Alec.
The Scotchman"s face darkened. He threw a couple of big logs on the fire and then as the others made themselves comfortable he told his story briefly. For the last two weeks there had been little fur in the traps, especially on the forty mile line to the north. He had made the round of this line twice in this time with only one marten, a fox and a few rats to show for it, but he had found signs which led him to believe that some of the traps had been robbed. He was morally certain that some one had been systematically making the rounds of the traps, timing the visits so that there would be no danger of running into him and so cunningly following his trail that it was only by the closest study of the tracks that he had made sure that a stranger had been on the line.
At one unsprung marten trap he had found a couple of drops of blood which indicated that there had been something in the trap. At another there had been the faint imprint of the body of an animal laid in the snow off at one side. In one trap he had found the foot of a muskrat, nothing unusual in itself, but it had been cut off with a knife and not twisted or gnawed off.
These things he had discovered on his trip two weeks ago, and on his return trip he had thrust tiny twigs into the snow of the trail in such a way that they would not be noticed. On his second round from which he had returned only the day before, he had found some of these crushed into the snow, sure evidence that they had been stepped on. He had kept a sharp watch for a strange trail joining his own, but had discovered none, doubtless due to the fact that the thief or thieves had come across the bare ice of one of the lakes near the farther end of the line and then it had been an easy matter to step into his trail where it skirted the edge of the lake. On this last trip he had found an empty rifle sh.e.l.l which apparently had been dropped unnoticed.
Pat"s face had hardened as he listened to the recital. "Any signs of the b.l.o.o.d.y minded thaves in the Holler or on the short lines?" he asked.
Alec shook his head. "They"ve kept away from here. The catch on the short lines has been fair, and on the long line it ought to have been better."
Pat stood up and shook himself. "Arrah now, "tis time I was back on me job," he growled. "Wance I lay the two hands av me on the thafe "tis the last time he will be wantin" to look wid the eyes av envy on fur thot don"t belong to him. A thafe who would shtale another man"s fur would rob his own grandmother. This storm will cover up all tracks, but "tis like there will be a chance for some real scouting after it is over.
"Tis thaves we"ll be trappin" and not fur for a while. Did Big Jim say anything about a silver fox when he was here?"
"No," replied Alec, his face lighting. "Why?"
"He told Doctor Merriam that he saw one on his way out, and we"ve been wondering if it was over this way," Hal broke in eagerly.
"Likely he saw it on his way out of the Hollow," replied Alec. "There"s one here. I"ve seen him twice, but didn"t get a shot. I"ve got traps set for him, but he"s been too smart for me so far. He"s a big feller, and his skin will grade No. 1 prime. If we can get him the thieves are welcome to all the rest of our furs."
"No, they"re not!" retorted Pat. "They"re going to fork over every pelt they"ve taken, to the smallest rat, or Pat Malone will know the reason why." He shook a big fist by way of emphasis. "Now, let"s turn in and forget our troubles," he ended with a mildness that brought a general laugh.
CHAPTER IX
s...o...b..UND
All that night the storm raged and in the morning the snow was still falling. Pat and Alec from force of habit were up early, but seeing that there would be nothing doing outside they forbore to waken the three visitors and were not averse to returning to their blankets for a couple of hours of extra sleep. How long the three boys would have slept is a question had not Alec dropped a pan which clattered noisily. Upton poked a sleepy face out from his bunk.
"What you fellers doing?" he demanded.
Pat grinned. "Getting dinner. Will you have some or will you wait for supper?"
Walter felt for his watch and looked at it. Then he tumbled out in a hurry. "Hey, you fellows!" he yelled. "Are you going to sleep all day?
It"s eleven o"clock and Alec is cooking dinner. We"ve missed breakfast and----"
"My tummy, oh, my tummy!"
murmured a sleepy voice from the opposite bunk. "What you giving us? It isn"t morning yet." Hal thrust out a tousled head and blinked stupidly.
"It isn"t to-morrow morning, but it will be this afternoon in about an hour," laughed Pat. ""Tis the way they do in Noo Yor-r-k, turn day into night," he explained to Alec.
"No such thing!" protested Hal indignantly. "It isn"t more"n daylight now."
There was some foundation in fact for Hal"s statement, for the little cabin, but dimly lighted at best, was even at this late hour in a semi twilight, due to the snow that partly covered the windows; the effect was very much that of daybreak. The odor of frying bacon, however, was a potent inducement to get up, and by the time dinner was ready the boys were ready for it. There was considerable good-natured joshing over their ability to sleep and Pat warned them that if they repeated the performance they would be taken out and dropped in a snow-bank. It had been a good thing for them, however, just what they needed after their strenuous experience of the previous day, and beyond some stiffness they confessed that they never had felt better in their lives.
"What are we going to do this afternoon--start scouting for those thieves?" Hal asked as he wiped the dishes.
Pat laughed. "Not so that you"d notice it, me bye. We"re going to stay right here. The storm"s not over yet, and if it keeps on I"m thinking we"ll be buried completely. However, it looks to me as if it will break away shortly, and then you"ll have a chance to show what good little diggers they raise in Noo Yor-r-k."
"And in the meantime?"
"We"ll enjoy all the comforts av home." Pat yawned and stretched.
"Which means, I suppose, that we"ll sit around and play Simon says thumbs up, or something like that, all the afternoon," laughed Hal.
"Perhaps ye"d like to sleep some more," suggested Alec slyly.
"And perhaps you"ve got another guess coming," retorted Hal. "What"s that thing you"re whittling on?"
"A stretching board for marten," replied Alec.
"What"s a stretching board, and how do you use it?" Hal was all interest.
"To stretch skins on. Dinna ye know that all skins have to be stretched?" Alec tossed the board one side and reached for another.
"Don"t know a thing about trapping or furs except that Dad has promised me a new fur coat when I get back," retorted Hal. "I"m painfully and sublimely ignorant, but willing to learn, and I have a hunch that there are others. Suppose you elucidate the facts by way of killing time."
"Here, here! That will do for you, Hal!" cried Upton. "Your alleged poetry is bad enough without springing anything like that. What have you been doing at that prep school--confabulating with the profs or flirting with the dictionary? Elucidate! I move, fellows, that if he springs anything more like that we throw him in the snow. I would suggest doing it anyway if his idea wasn"t so good. Go to it, Alec, and tell us about fur."
"I dinna ken where to begin," protested Alec as he carefully rounded the smaller of his board to a point so that it looked much like one of the shingle boats every boy knows.
"Begin with that thing you"re making--stretching board, I believe you called it," said Hal.
"That would be holding the gun by the wrong end," protested Pat. "The story all happens before one of these things is needed." Pat was himself at work on a stretching board.
"Begin with the kinds of fur, and the ways in which it is trapped, and the life of a trapper and all that sort of stuff," suggested Upton.
"Just tell us what youse do every day and how youse live all alone and de sc.r.a.ps youse gets inter wid de bears "n" things, and how youse has t"
foight for life, an" pa.s.s it out hot--right off de fire."
"That"s the stuff, Sparrer! That"s what we want," cried Hal, as everybody laughed. "Give us the story of trapping right off the griddle."
"Ye dinna find anything very hot aboot a trapper"s life." Alec paused in his work to gaze reflectively into the fire. "It"s mostly cold and lonesomeness and hard work. There"s no fighting with the beasties worth mentioning; it"s mostly fighting with storms and sometimes hunger, and a struggle with nature. I"ve sometimes wondered if some of the grand ladies and men, too, would be so proud and take so much pleasure in their fine furs if they knew what it has cost in suffering to man and beastie to get them. And yet I am no complaining, laddies. Ye ken that.
It"s a hard life, and yet there is something aboot it that gets down into a man and calls him, and he has to hit the trails and is no happy until he does.