HEADED FOR THE BIG WOODS
On the second day after leaving home, the four chums found themselves
upon what Bluff called the “last leg” of their railroad trip.
They were already in the State of Maine and heading north, bound for
the station where they expected to get off, and somehow find their way
to the place where Mr. Samuel Darrel, the well-known lumberman, was to
be found, according to his letter to Uncle Felix.
This was a logging camp known as Lumber Run. It lay in the depths of
the Big Woods, and was surrounded by a virgin growth of fine timber
that would consume some years in the cutting.
No doubt the crews were already starting in to work, and the boys
anticipated considerable enjoyment in seeing how the loggers dropped
their trees. Of course, the most picturesque part of the business came
in the spring when, after the customary freshets, the logs were rafted
down the rivers to the accompaniment of thrilling exploits by the
lumber jacks.
The train was filled with people, every seat having been taken in the
day coaches at the time the four boys got aboard. As a consequence,
although they did not much fancy it, they were compelled to sit in the
smoking car. At times they opened the windows a bit, so as to get some
fresh air.
Of course there was a motley assortment of rough-looking men aboard.
Some of them may have been honest tillers of the soil returning home
after a visit down in Boston or Portland. Others were undoubtedly
lumbermen, heading for regions farther north, where they anticipated
doing a season’s chopping, for as a rule they carried their axes with
them.
There were sportsmen on the train, too, and naturally these claimed
more than a share of attention from Frank and the other boys. Anything
that had to do with hunting interested them. They listened whenever
they heard some of these men discussing the chances for making a
record bag that season.
“Sounds from the way they talk,” remarked Bluff at one time, “as
though there never was so much game in the woods as this year.”
“I only hope it turns out that way,” Jerry went on, “because we’d be
nearly tickled to death if we bagged a big moose, after all our past
hunts. That’s one thing I’ve dreamed of doing many a time.”
“As for me,” ventured Will, with a long sigh, “I’d rather be able to
get a picture of the moose than plant a bullet back of his shoulder. I
think I’ll let the rest of you supply the game for the pot, while I
spend all my time trying for something that will give us pleasure
later on, whenever we look at it.”
“Every one to his taste,” said Bluff. “I admit that I wouldn’t give a
snap of my finger for crawling around in the night, trying to take
pictures of silly little ’coons and foxes that have been baited to
come up and pull a string. When I hunt, I want to see something worth
while drop.”
“Like that grizzly bear we ran across when we were out West?”
suggested Jerry, his eyes kindling with vivid recollections.
“I was thinking,” remarked Frank, “how some of these city sportsmen
aboard here, togged out in the latest clothes, and seeming as though
they’d stepped out of bandboxes, keep looking over at us every once in
a while, just as if they wondered how a pack of boys had been able to
break away from the apron strings of their mothers.”
“If we up and told ’em one-half of what we’ve been through,” suggested
Bluff, “I reckon they’d either think us descended from old Baron
Munchausen, who could tell the biggest whoppers ever heard; or else
they’d believe we’d broken loose from some lunatic asylum.”
“Watch that hard-looking fellow the other two call Bill Nackerson,”
remarked Will, in a low tone. “He’s forever taking a nip out of a
flask he carries, and then offering it to each one of the bunch. Both
his mates accept, but that big boy I’ve seen shake his head. He
doesn’t seem to like the stuff.”
“Well,” Frank observed, “can you blame him, when he sees such a
horrible example in his uncle, for that seems to be the relation he
bears to the big hunter. There, look the other way, he’s scowling at
us as if he might have guessed we were talking about him. Pretend
we’re admiring the scenery in this patch of woods where the snow hangs
on the pines and hemlocks and firs. It’s pretty enough to admire,
you’ll all admit.”
“Think of the nerve of that Nackerson, fetching his old partridge dog
in here, when all the other dogs are chained in the baggage car,”
observed Jerry.
“Well, the brakeman wanted to throw the dog out, but when he saw that
would be sure to start a row, he gave it up, and went off growling,”
said Will.
“Yes, but I saw one of the other hunters slip something into his hand
that looked like a bank-bill,” Frank told them. “They’ve all got
plenty of money, that’s sure; and such men always believe they can buy
whatever they want. He’s still looking over this way from time to
time.”
“I hope he doesn’t take a notion to make trouble for us,” mentioned
Will, who was the most peace-loving of the chums. “He’s been taking
more than he ought to, and is hardly responsible for his actions. I’d
hate to get into a quarrel with such a fellow.”
“All the same,” muttered Bluff, “a dozen like him couldn’t make me
knuckle down, if I knew I was in the right.”
“Sh! not another word; he’s coming over here!” hissed Frank.
All of them felt their hearts beating faster than usual, as the big
sportsman advanced along the aisle, his eyes fastened on them.
“Does that heavy bag that fell on my dog belong to any one of you
kids?” he asked thickly, in a threatening tone.
Some time before a little accident had happened. The dog, in prowling
around as far as his tether would admit, had managed to knock over a
pack, and that it caused him a certain amount of pain his yelps had
testified. At the time the owner had been in another car, but, seeing
the dog licking his hurts, he must have forced one of his companions
to tell him what had happened.
Frank hastened to explain, not in an apologetic way, but simply
telling the facts, that it was really the animal’s fault he had upset
the pack on himself.
“It was the only place the thing could be set, and the brakeman
himself put it there,” he declared. “The dog was nosing around, and
got his rope caught in the bag, so that he pulled it over on his back.
I’ve fixed it so the accident can’t possibly happen again, sir.”
The man was in a very ugly mood. He looked Frank over with a dangerous
scowl, but so far as could be seen the boy did not quail.
Then Nackerson began to berate them for having such an unwieldy pack,
and leaving it at an end of the car he wanted for the use of his prize
dog.
“What d’ye mean, setting a trap like that?” he demanded. “I believe
you did it just to see how you could catch my dog. That sort of thing
belongs in the baggage car—and it’s time you took it there, d’ye hear
me?”
“I hear you all right, sir,” replied Frank, pale, perhaps, and yet
meeting the ugly look of the other steadily. “But you must understand
that we have a perfect right to carry any hand-baggage in the car with
us. If your dog had been where he belonged, in that same baggage car,
possibly he wouldn’t have been hurt. And it doesn’t amount to much, I
figure, sir.”
His bold words infuriated the hunter. But for his two friends, who
seized hold of his arms, he might have attacked Frank, and then, as
Bluff said afterward, “there _would_ have been the dickens to
pay.”
The other hunters must have realized that their companion was in the
wrong. They saw that others in the car would have jumped to the
assistance of the boys had a struggle been precipitated. Accordingly,
they soothed him as best they could, and in one way or another managed
to coax the big brute back to his seat.
There he sat, every once in a while twisting his head around to scowl
toward Frank and his chums, while muttering dire threats under his
breath.
Twice he even started to get to his feet, whereupon Bluff Masters
doubled up his fists aggressively, and clenched his teeth hard, as
though ready for the battle that seemed imminent. On both occasions,
however, the other men succeeded in pulling Nackerson back into his
seat before he could break loose. So all the rest of the journey was
pursued with what might be called an “armed truce” prevailing.
“I’m feeling sorry for that big boy they call Teddy,” remarked Frank
later on, when they had reason to believe that another half hour would
take them to the station where they expected to get out.
“Me, too,” added Bluff. “He seems made of different stuff from his
ugly relative.”
“He certainly looks disgusted with the way his uncle acts,” Will
declared. “How do you suppose he came to be with them up here, Frank?”
“Oh, I suppose they asked him to come along, and help out with the
cooking,” replied the other, “and he caught at the chance to get an
outing without any expense. Some men come up here just to drink and
lie around camp. They are ashamed to carry on that way at home, and
too lazy to even bother cooking, so they either have guides to do all
the work, or else fetch some half-grown boy along. I’m sorry for
Teddy, because I imagine he’s in for a bad time all around, and with
mighty little pleasure.”
“Already the boy is more than half afraid of his uncle,” Will gave as
his opinion. “Like as not he never dreamed he would turn out to be
such a brute, once he got started for the woods.”
“I hope they keep the man quiet until we can leave the train,” said
Frank. “It would be unpleasant to have a row to begin with.”
“Didn’t you say ours was the next one to this stop?” asked Bluff
eagerly, as he pressed his nose against the glass and looked out, when
the train came to a stop at a small country station.
“Yes, it’s the next,” Frank observed, “though if we chose we could go
on to Clayton, and even then be about as close to Lumber Run. I was
told we might find the trail a little better from Burnt Pine, and
that’s why I picked it out.”
“Looks pretty lonely, doesn’t it?” asked Will.
“Just what I expected to find,” Frank replied. “I’ve always known that
in all Maine this section had gone free the longest from the operation
of the loggers. That’s why it’s called the Big Woods. For many years
it’s been a favorite place for guides to bring parties of sportsmen,
because they were pretty sure to find deer, moose, perhaps a bear, and
always an abundance of partridge.”
“But,” remarked Bluff, “now that Samuel Darrel and his company, in
which Uncle Felix has a big interest, have bought up all this section,
with the idea of getting out the timber, it’ll only be a few years
before the game is thinned out. Logging always hurts hunting.”