Just as if we"d let "em go for a song, when they"re cram full of a.s.sociations for us."
"You"re not on to it yet, boys;" remarked Thad, quietly; "it"s the head of the fox which we had painted so cleverly on each tent that"s caught his eye; and he just can"t help hanging around, to keep on gazing at it, for some reason or other."
For the first time they saw a sign of emotion flit across the face of the young Indian brave. He struck himself violently on the chest.
"Me Fox!" he exclaimed, proudly. "Soon me must have teepee for self.
See picture fox on same, think can buy. Give much pelt for same. Ugh!
what white boy say?"
"Well, just to think of it, here"s another Fox, all right?" called out Giraffe. "We"re treading on his heels, so to speak, boys, when we take that name for our patrol. Glad to meet up with you; and by the way are you Silver Fox, Red Fox, or Black Fox; though to be sure they all belong to one family?"
"I thought I ought to know him," burst out Aleck Rawson, pushing forward, "and now I"m dead sure of it. h.e.l.lo! Fox, you sure must remember me, Aleck; and the good times we used to have, when I lived close to the Reservation?"
The young Indian extended his hand without hesitation.
"No forget Aleck, not much. But him not with other white boys down in big timber. Where come by? How do? Much glad see again. My coyote pony, Flicker, yet in the run. Ugh! Shake!"
"He means a pony I gave him when we came away from that place,"
explained Aleck, turning to Thad after gravely shaking hands with the Indian. "The Fox is a Crow, and one of the smartest boys you ever saw.
He can do everything that a grown warrior could; and some day they say he will be a chief in his tribe. We used to have great times racing our ponies, and chasing coyotes over the prairie. And I"m right glad to see him once more; though it puzzles me to know why he is up here, so far away from the homes of his people; and armed, too."
"Well, if he"s an old friend of yours, Aleck, and you can vouch for him, why, of course he"s going to be welcome at our fire. And it tickles me to think that the bright painting of the fox head on each of our tents was what attracted his eye, so that he just _couldn"t_ keep from hanging around at that other time. But surely that didn"t draw him away up here; he"s got some other business in his head; for he only discovered our camp just now, and was coming in to see us, I reckon, when Step Hen mounted his back, and then called to us to help him."
"Anyway, I had him gripped good and tight, you all saw," grumbled Step Hen. "When these good husky arms of mine get locked around anything, it takes a heap to break me away. If he had been a hostile Injun I"d a hung on like grim death, believe me."
No one ventured to try and take away any of his laurels. He had certainly yelled for help in a way that could not easily be excelled, they all thought.
Thad led the way to the fire, after inviting the Indian to join them.
He confessed to having just a little curiosity himself as to what had caused the Fox to desert the teepees of his tribe, and wander so far away from the reservation; but of course Thad knew better than to ask about the personal affairs of the other. If the Fox chose, later on, to take them into his confidence, well and good. He might only stay with them for a night, and then slip away; but since he was Aleck"s friend, and seemed to be connected with the great family of Foxes, of which they were a Boy Scout branch, why, he would be welcome.
As the Indian confessed that he had not broken his fast since noon, when he had munched a handful of dried deer meat, known as pemmican, some of the boys took it upon themselves to cook something for him. He appeared to be very grateful, and could be seen to sniff the air eagerly while the coffee was boiling; showing that he appreciated the white man"s drink at its true value; for his people on the reservation enjoyed many of the comforts of civilization, and some of the luxuries, too, even to pianos that played themselves, and boxes that sang songs, and played the violin, and gave all sorts of orchestral music, so Aleck observed.
And while the boys talked on various subjects, as they sat around, Thad happened to be watching the face of the Fox when one of the scouts casually mentioned the name of Colonel Kracker. He actually saw the dark face grow stern, and that the Indian ground his teeth together, as if in anger.
Seeing which Thad put things together, and came to a conclusion, whether right or wrong, of course he could not yet say.
"He knows Kracker, for he started when Davy mentioned the name," Thad was saying to himself. "And the chances are that the prospector has done something to injure the Fox, or some member of his family. These Indians hate savagely; and perhaps this young fellow, hardly more than a boy, has taken to the warpath, bent on having a settlement with the big bully. Well, it isn"t any of our business; but I know I"d hate to have the Fox camping on _my_ trail, with hatred burning in his heart."
CHAPTER VIII.
PLANNING WOE TO THE BIG HORNS.
"If we get along in this way," Giraffe was saying, as he sat there watching the young Indian eat what had been set before him; "two at a pop, not that they"re just as welcome as the showers in April, though, we"ll have to hustle some lively so"s to provide grub."
"Keepin" open house, Giraffe!" sang out Davy Jones, looking up from his job of placing another new film in his snapshot camera.
"Well, we"ve got our sign out to the Foxes; that"s right," grinned the other, as he glanced proudly at the head that had been painted in really a clever fashion on the canvas of each tent.
They sat up a while longer, and canva.s.sed the situation; but the hour getting late, and several of the boys showing signs of being sleepy, it was finally decided that they had better turn in.
So b.u.mpus had to pretend to blow "taps," with his fist for a bugle; and as usual he acquitted himself splendidly. The young Indian"s eyes sparkled when he heard that imitation of the real thing; and Thad imagined the Fox must at some time or other have rubbed up against the regular cavalry of the United States Army, so that he understood what b.u.mpus was doing.
Thad and Allan had arranged matters with the guide, so that there would be some one on guard at all hours of the night. With those three men hovering near, there could be no telling what might happen. While they were not outlaws, or anything of that sort; still, after learning how they had treated poor Aleck, just because he very rightly refused to give up the secret of the mine that was his mother"s property, and on which Kracker did not have the slightest claim, Thad could give a pretty good guess as to the character of the men.
The guide had told him more than enough to stamp Kracker in his mind as a very unprincipled man. Thad believed the prospector was so determined to discover the hidden silver mine that there was almost nothing he would not attempt in order to carry out his designs. And since their camp now sheltered the boy against whom all his animosity seemed to be aroused, it was at least possible that he might pay them a visit, backed by his followers, men quite as reckless as himself.
So it would seem to be the part of wisdom to keep on the watch for danger. It is the principle of scouts to avoid trouble, rather than seek it; and Thad believed in the old saying that "an ounce of prevention is always better than a pound of cure."
But the night pa.s.sed, and nothing happened.
None of the others were called upon to take a turn as sentries; indeed more than one of the boys slept like a log all that night, and never dreamed there was any watch being kept. Still, when in the morning they ascertained this fact, they reproached the scoutmaster for not having called upon them to share the vigil; since they always wished to do their share of the work.
Thad knew that the coming of Aleck Rawson was bound to add to the excitement of their stay in the mountains; but he had already taken a great liking for the boy, and admired his st.u.r.dy independence, as well as his grim determination to once more locate the long hidden mine for the benefit of his mother and sisters.
Come what might, Thad was not sorry the Silver Foxes had determined, individually and collectively that they would back up Aleck to the limit; and even give over some of the time they had expected to put in hunting, in order to help him take possession of his father"s silver lode.
That meant then, sooner or later, a visit from the bully of the mountains, this arrogant Colonel Kracker, whom so many men seemed to fear as a terror; though Thad had already conceived the idea that the other must be a coward at heart. He fancied that no really brave man would war on a widow like he was doing; and torture a mere boy, in order to force him to betray his mother"s secret.
"Let him come, then, if he wants to," Thad had said to Allan, when they discussed the subject for the tenth time, while breakfast was being made ready. "We"re able to take care of ourselves, I should think--eight husky fellows, a brave man for a guide, who will stand up for us; then Aleck, and the Fox besides. It would be mighty queer, now, if we couldn"t hold our own against three men, no matter if they are tough characters."
"Oh! I guess we"ve seen just as bad before," replied Allan, with a confident smile. "How about some of those moonshiners down in North Carolina? And tell me about that Charlie Barnes and his crowd, the hobo yeggs we ran across up in Maine. Then, remember Si Kedge and Ed Harkness the game poachers we met later on; and how they were sorry they"d ever bothered with the Silver Foxes? And to wind up the list, Thad, there were Hank Dodge and his French Canadian half breed pard, Pierre Laporte, the hard-sh.e.l.led timber cruisers, who gave us all that bother when b.u.mpus lost himself down in the big timber. How"s that for a crowd, tell me; and didn"t we come out on top every time?"
Thad laughed.
"I see you"ve got it all down pretty pat, Allan," he remarked. "And sure enough, just as you say, after getting the better of so many bad men in all our travels, we hadn"t ought to feel worried right now because three more bob up, and think to throw a scare into us. On the whole, this Kracker had better keep his hands off, or he"ll be sorry."
"But how about our hunting?" Allan went on to say. "Some of the boys are getting anxious to make a try for a big-horn. Why, there"s Smithy, a fellow we never expected would ever take the least interest in shooting, because his nature has seemed so mild, and sissy-like--I even heard him declare he wanted to make a try and see what he could do. Owned up that his father used to be a great hunter years ago; but that he guessed he"d inherited his mother"s gentle disposition; while his hobble-dehoy sister she wants to play baseball, hockey, tennis, and those kinds of games all the while. And Thad, I think we ought to encourage that idea in Smithy. It may be the making of him, if once he gets waked up."
Thad thought the same way. He knew the boy possessed amiable traits; but he had always been given too much to dress, and the little things of life, at which most fellows look with scorn and contempt. He must have the edges roughened a little, if he was ever going to hold his own when he went to college, or out in the wide world, where "sissy"
boys are held up to derision.
"Nothing to hinder our hanging over here a bit, and seeing what the next move of this cannon cracker is going to be," he remarked.
"And the hunting?" asked Allan.
"Why, a party could start out right from camp here, leaving enough behind to defend the place, of course, and keep Kracker from taking Aleck away by sheer force, if he did have the nerve enough to come here," the scoutmaster replied, after thinking over the matter for a brief time.
"Of course we ought to let the guide go along with the boys; for I wouldn"t like to trust them alone in the mountains," Allan suggested.
"That"s right," added Thad. "Some of them seem to have a weakness for getting into all sorts of trouble from the word go. We can let one party start out, and after they come back, if they"ve had any luck, and the air"s cleared some around here, why, another might take a different direction. You said Step Hen was wild to get a big horn, didn"t you, Allan?"
"Never saw him so set on anything; but then that"s his way always. When he gets a notion in that brain box of his, you can"t knock it out with a sledge hammer. And just now it seems that a real Rocky Mountain sheep with the big horns beats any old grizzly all hollow, with Step Hen."
"All right, we"ll have to let him be one of the first party. He did so splendidly when he jumped on the back of the Fox, and captured him, he thinks, that some reward ought to be coming his way. And there"s Smithy, I"ll see that he has his chance to try a shot. Giraffe could lend him his gun; or Bob White"s would do because it"s a much lighter weapon than the other."