FUR AND FEATHERS
Crack!
That was Frank’s rifle, as Bluff well knew.
“Hurrah; he’s down, Frank; you got him that time! No, there he’s on
his feet again, as sure as anything. Oh, why didn’t I have buckshot
shells in my gun? There! That time you did drop him for keeps! Bully!
bully! bully!”
Bluff immediately got upon his feet, and, as well as his burden would
admit, started to run toward the spot were he had last seen the buck
go down.
Frank was following close at his heels, calling to him to go slow,
because it sometimes happened that a wounded buck proved himself a
dangerous antagonist.
It turned out, however, that there was nothing to fear. The deer was
dead when they arrived beside him.
“See, here’s where your first bullet struck him, Frank—just back of
the shoulder. He must have been swerving when you fired that shot
Would that have killed him, even if you didn’t fire again?”
“In time it would,” the other assured him, “though I’ve known deer to
run miles before dropping, after being hit in the body. That was a
poor shot for me.”
“But, when a buck is humping himself to get away, it strikes me a
fellow is doing pretty well to be able to hit him at all,” Bluff
remarked.
“I’m not proud of it, I can tell you. I had a fair chance, too,” Frank
continued. “The second shot was better, and finished him at once.
Well, here’s your venison, Bluff. What are you going to do with it
now?”
“He’s a whole lot bigger than any of the little deer we shot down in
Florida, that’s sure,” Bluff observed, “and, as we must be some miles
away from camp, excuse me from helping to lug him there. Suppose we
cut up the carcass, Frank? You’re a clever hand at that sort of work.
We could make up a pack of the best parts; and hang up some more so
it’d be out of the reach of foxes and skunks, and the like.”
“Yes, and pick it up to-morrow, or another day, when perhaps luck
fails us,” ventured the leader, as though the idea appealed to him. “I
think that is the best plan, Bluff, so here goes.”
Accordingly he set aside his gun, after replacing the two spent
cartridges so as to always have the full set of six in magazine and
chamber. After that he got busy with his hunting knife.
Bluff hovered around, ready to assist when asked. Frank knew
considerable about such things, for he proved very deft with his sharp
blade.
The buck’s head was hung from a tree, high enough to keep any animal
from reaching it.
“Of course,” Frank explained, after they had managed to do this, “if a
hungry bobcat came along we couldn’t hope to prevent it from getting
there; and a Canada lynx would think nothing of making a spring twice
that high. But what we want most of all are the antlers; and this will
save them for us.”
He also made one package of meat to take home, and another that they
hung from a limb the same way the buck’s head had been.
“Now, are we ready to start for home?” asked Bluff, when all these
things had been looked after.
“Yes, because we’ve gone far enough for one thing,” replied Frank;
“and then, besides, we have all the game we need for the present.”
“Three birds is a poor number for our crowd,” the other protested.
“Either somebody has to go without, or else they must be divided up.”
“Well, keep on the watch, and perhaps you may get a crack at another
on the way back to camp,” Frank advised him.
“Guess I will, and thank you for telling me, Frank. It was hardly
fair, though, for you to make all that venison up in just one pack.
Why didn’t you fix it so I could tote some on my back?”
“I figured that three fat partridges would be about as much as any
fellow cared to carry; and, if you should bag another, that’d make it
complete. So forget it, and be on the watch.”
That was Frank’s way, and Bluff knew it was no use trying to make him
change his plans. There was not a selfish bone in Frank Langdon’s
body—even his worst enemy would admit that much.
Before ten minutes had passed the chance came whereby Bluff was
enabled to fill out his assortment of partridges, so that every camper
could have one.
“That was a fine shot, Bluff!” Frank told him, when he had seen how
the spinning bird dropped like a stone the instant the gun was
discharged.
“That’s nice of you to say, Frank; sometimes I do manage to get where
I aim.”
They had to rest several times while on the way home. Finally the
cabin near the bank of the partly frozen creek was reached. Jerry
spied them coming, and at once set up a yell.
“Come out here, Will; hurry up!”
Immediately the other came flying into view. He carried his camera in
his hand, and there was a startled expression on his face.
“It isn’t fair to give a fellow a scare like that, Jerry,” he said
reproachfully. “I certainly thought a bear had you up a tree, and I
hoped to get the picture. It would have been the prize of my
collection, too. Now it turns out that it’s only Frank and Bluff
coming home from their hunt.”
“Well, that ought to make a good scene for a picture, oughtn’t it?”
Jerry demanded. “See what they’ve got with them, will you? A big pack
that contains venison, I know, because that’s a deer-skin it’s wrapped
in. And see Bluff fairly staggering under his load of game. Boys,
we’re proud of you.”
“Now we can begin to live like real hunters,” Will remarked, after he
had clicked his camera deftly, getting the proper light on the
returned chums. “With partridge and venison hung up we’ll be in
clover. All I’d like to see now would be a haunch of bear meat
alongside.”
Of course they must have plenty of the fruits of the hunt for supper
that night. The birds were immediately prepared and baked in an oven
that Frank showed them how to make, using a hole dug in the ground.
“This way of baking game is an old hunter’s trick,” said Frank, while
he was excavating the oven, “and has been known among Indians and
others for nobody can tell how long. You see, it might be called the
origin of the up-to-date ‘fireless cookers.’ It is made very hot, and
then the food sealed in it so that the heat gradually does the
business.”
The others knew something about the method, although they had possibly
never been in a position to see the thing in operation. Frank burned a
special kind of hard wood in his oven until he had a bed of glowing
ashes. These he took out, and then the four partridges, plucked and
ready for eating, were wrapped in some clean muslin Frank produced
from his pack, and which had been previously dampened.
After that the oven was sealed up the best way they could. As the
frost had not as yet penetrated more than an inch below the surface of
the ground, digging had not been found unduly difficult, using a camp
hatchet to hew the crust.
Hours later, when the oven was opened, it still retained an
astonishing amount of the heat that had been sealed up in it. The
birds they found cooked through and through.
“The very best way of preparing partridges that can be found, I
think,” was the comment of Will, who had read several cook-books at
home and had a jumble of their contents in his mind.
“It certainly has made these birds mighty tender and sweet,” confessed
Jerry, as he pulled his prize apart with hardly any effort.
“Things cooked in this way are always made tender,” Frank told them.
“A tough steak made ready for the table in a fireless cooker will be
as nice as the most costly porterhouse is when broiled or fried. The
only thing I object to is that it never seems to have that nice brown
look, and the taste that I like most of all. It’s more after the style
of a stew to me.”
As the four partridges were only skimpy “racks” when the boys tossed
them aside, it can be readily inferred that all the campers enjoyed
the feast abundantly. Indeed, they even had some of the venison as a
side dish; this was cooked in the frying-pan after the usual manner.
“Might as well have enough game while about it,” Bluff remarked. “And
let me say right here and now that this sort of thing tastes a heap
finer when you’ve had the privilege of knocking over the game
yourself; or it’s been done by the party you’re with.”
When finally they had eaten until no one could contain another bite,
the boys, as was their habit, drew around the crackling fire, and
started discussing their affairs, as well as other matters that came
up.
Frank had warned Bluff that it might be just as well if they kept
still about the series of shots they had heard, accompanied by faint
shouts that might have stood for either triumph or excitement.
To his chagrin Jerry himself introduced the topic.
“While you were gone, fellows,” he went on to remark, “Will and I were
prowling around near here to find a good place to set his flashlight
trap camera to-night, when we heard a regular row some distance over
there. Must have been as many as five or six shots in rapid
succession, and some hollering, too.”
As the cat was now out of the bag, Frank felt there was no need of
keeping secret the fact that they, too, had heard the series of shots.
“Yes, we caught it just after we’d got our partridges, and before we
raised the buck,” he confessed; “I didn’t mean to say anything about
it, because there seemed no need; but since you’re wise to the fact we
can talk about it.”
“It must have been that Nackerson crowd, don’t you think?” asked Will.
“There can be no question about that,” Frank replied.
“They started a deer, and were peppering away at him in great shape,
of course?” suggested Jerry.
“That sounds like the explanation,” he was told; “but then the same
shooting would have followed the discovery of a lynx, or perhaps a
black bear in a tree. All we can be sure about is that we want to
fight shy of that country over there. We can hunt a different field;
and I’m in hopes that by doing so we’ll miss running across those men
all the time we’re up here.”
“Now, Frank, you remember you told us to remind you of something?”
Jerry remarked when the conversation flagged.
“You mean about this wonderful woods country up in the State of
Maine,” Frank went on, smiling as though the task he had been called
on to shoulder pleased him, since he was a native of the State, and
loved it dearly.
“Yes; something about the strange ways you said there were for men to
make a living in the woods,” Bluff added.