BLUFF TAKES A HAND
A great load seemed lifted from Frank’s mind. With the coming of the
lumberman, he had good reason to believe things would brighten up. For
one thing, he was pleased to see that Mr. Darrel carried a rifle,
which he was holding in a half-threatening manner as he advanced.
“Oh, here’s where we get busy right away!” Bluff was heard to mutter.
“Now things are going to look different,” Jerry added, with
considerable satisfaction.
Frank looked deeper than the surface. He saw that the lumberman was
alone.
“There are three of the sportsmen,” Frank told himself, “and each
carries a gun. Mr. Darrel wouldn’t be able to manage the bunch if they
started to get ugly. We ought to be able to lend a hand.”
He did not think it advisable to go toward the cabin himself, but that
was no reason some one else might not make the attempt.
“Bluff!” he whispered, for it happened that the other was close by his
elbow.
“What is it?”
“Try and make your way to the cabin without attracting their
attention.”
“To get my gun?”
“Yes; and fetch mine along, too. Careful, now; and if you see them
watching you stand still and appear innocent.”
Hardly had Frank spoken the last word before Bluff was in motion.
Other things chained Frank’s attention just then. Mr. Darrel had
walked forward until he was now not more than thirty feet from the
boys and Bill Nackerson’s crowd. It might be said that they formed a
triangle, of which the lumberman was the apex, and the boys formed one
of the base corners.
Frank knew that Mr. Darrel was acquainted with Nackerson. When they
had told him about the trouble on the train, the lumberman related
some differences he had once had with the sportsman, who had been
coming to the Maine woods for a good many years.
The sight of Mr. Darrel had been anything but agreeable to the bully.
When he saw, however, that the lumberman seemed to be unattended, the
old look of anger came back to his face.
“Just keep your hands out of my business, Darrel,” he said
threateningly. “This is no affair of yours, and I don’t want to have
any trouble with you.”
“Well, that’s what you will have, Bill Nackerson,” replied the
lumberman calmly, “if you go to bothering these boys, who are good
friends of mine.”
“Oh, you don’t say!” sneered the other. Frank was of the opinion that
it was Nackerson’s intention to egg the lumberman on until finally
they might come to blows, when his superior weight and muscle would
give him an easy victory, he thought.
“What’s all this I hear about your accusing them of hurting your dog?”
demanded the newcomer, who may have heard only fragments of the talk
as he was coming up.
“Look at the poor brute and see how his nose has been treated!” roared
the bully, trying to work himself up into another passion.
“Well, it is hurt some, I can see,” replied Mr. Darrel, “but didn’t I
hear Frank Langdon here explain that it was done by some animal the
dog had tried to dig out of its burrow?”
“Yes, sir,” spoke up Jerry, eager to get in a word of explanation,
“and over there’s where the dog was digging when first we noticed him.
Then all at once he gave out a lot of yelps, and took to his heels.
Frank said he had been nipped on the nose by the animal, which he
thought must be a savage old mink. And that’s all any of us know about
it.”
“You didn’t touch a hair of his dog, then?” asked the lumberman.
“Why, none of us was within thirty or forty feet of him at any time!”
replied the indignant Jerry.
“How about throwing a stone at him?” continued Mr. Darrel, as though
meaning to have a thorough understanding of the whole matter, once and
for all.
“I give you my word, sir, not one of us even picked up a stone,”
answered Jerry. “Of course, when we saw how funny the dog looked,
running with his tail between his legs as he let out those queer
yelps, we may have laughed. Anybody would have done that, Mr. Darrel.”
“And shouted in the bargain, too!” added Will.
“You hear what these lads say again, Nackerson?” resumed the owner of
Lumber Run Camp, as he once more wheeled and faced the three
sportsmen, with the dog cowering at their feet rubbing at his injured
muzzle and whimpering.
“Oh, they gave us that song before; but we knew they were lying!”
declared the other. “Boys never tell the truth. They’ll beat around
the bush every time. I know just as sure as I’m standing here that
they did something to my dog. On the train they tried to break his
back by upsetting a heavy pack on him. And I’ve about made up my mind
to show them they’re barking up the wrong tree if they think they can
play their monkey-shines on Bill Nackerson.”
“I heard all about that incident of the smoker, Nackerson,” Mr. Darrel
told him sternly, “and they assured me they had no hand in your dog’s
hurt. He upset the pack on himself by squirming around and getting his
rope caught in it.”
“Bah! Tell that to the marines!” snarled the other, now looking
dangerously ugly, so that Frank felt a great relief when he discovered
out of the tail of his eye that Bluff was slipping from the cabin
door, and that he carried both guns.
Given half a minute more, and they would not feel they were an
inferior force.
Fortunately neither of the men with the bully had noticed what Bluff
was doing.
“Well,” said Mr. Darrel, “you don’t think that I’ll stand here and see
you lay a finger on any one of these boys without protesting, do you?”
“I’d advise you to keep out of this mess, Mr. Darrel,” continued the
other. “I’m not the man to be interfered with, once they get me riled
up. And both of my friends here are going to stand back of me. So
don’t you try to raise that gun of yours, or somebody will get hurt.”
“That’s so, Mr. Nackerson,” chimed in another voice just then, “and
the first one to feel it will be you!”
Frank knew it was Bluff who made this assertion. He could see that the
other had leaned one gun against a tree, and was leveling his own
weapon straight at the intruder.
Neither of the other men made the slightest movement. They seemed to
think that as Nackerson had brought all this trouble on them he should
stand for it.
Frank started toward Bluff, for he wanted to get his hands on his own
rifle.
“Hold on there, you young fool; that gun might go off!” exclaimed the
sportsman, showing extreme nervousness; for he did not know what a
reckless boy might be tempted to do.
“I expect it to, unless you clear out of this!” retorted Bluff, true
to his name; for such a thing as actually firing was far from his
thoughts, though as a last resort he would have been capable of it.
This seemed like adding insult to injury, in the eyes of the bully. It
was bad enough to be baffled when bent upon carrying out his plan
through brute strength, but to be ordered away by a mere boy galled
him.
By now Frank had slipped behind Bluff, so as not to distract his
attention, and snatched up his own rifle. Nackerson must have realized
that the tide had changed and was now setting heavily against him.
“You’ll all be sorry for this, see if you ain’t!” he growled, for
somehow that is always the threat of a defeated man.
“Well, I advise you to clear out while you have the chance,
Nackerson,” the lumberman told him, perhaps more than a little pleased
to see how ably the boys could look out for themselves.
“Are you going to stand back of me or not, Whalen?” snarled the big
sportsman, not daring to make a hostile move himself while Bluff was
holding that gun leveled at him.
The man he addressed gave a nervous little laugh.
“Well, we would, Bill,” he went on to say, “if we thought you had a
clean bill; but it strikes us both that in this affair you’re away off
your trolley. These boys didn’t have anything to do with the hurts of
the dog, they say, and we can’t prove they did. So we’d best clear
out.”
“Good for you, Whalen!” remarked Darrel. “And let me say right now,
that if there’s any suspicious business attempted while you’re up here
in this section of the Big Woods, you’re apt to get a pack of my
lumberjacks hot on your trail. You’d better go slow about what you do.
They’d as soon give you a coat of tar and feathers as not.”
Whalen did not make any answer. Apparently he and his companion felt
ashamed of being caught in association with the bully.
Seeing that he was deserted by his friends, Nackerson realized that
there was now nothing left for him to do but to give up. He was a hard
loser, Frank saw, as he noted the muscles of the man’s face working.
“Oh, I’m going to clear out, Mr. Darrel,” he said, trying to speak
contemptuously; “there are times when it’s policy to knuckle down.
This is one of them, I reckon. But Bill Nackerson doesn’t throw up the
sponge as easy as all that. Just wait. You or these young cubs here
may be sorry for this.”
“Be careful how you make threats, Nackerson,” warned the lumberman.
“They may be brought home to you later on, if anything does happen to
these boys here.”
“Oh, I’m not threatening!” the other hastened to say. “That’s
something I always try to keep from doing, and I want you to know it.
But all the same, you may think of this time, and be sorry you rubbed
it in so hard; that’s all.”
“Come along, Bill,” urged the man called Whalen, as though fearing
that unless they got their boisterous companion moving he might bring
matters to an open rupture yet.
“Sure, I’ll go with you, Cass Whalen, even if you have deserted a pal
when he was up against it. I won’t forget that, either. I’ve got a
long memory for such things, I have. And mark me, Mr. Darrel, I’ll
often see this hour again as I think of how you insulted me. That’s
all I’ve got to say.”
He wheeled in his tracks, gave a kick at his dog that started the poor
beast to yelping again, and the party moved off, leaving the chums and
Mr. Darrel exchanging looks of unbounded relief.