EYES IN THE DARK
The four boys hit a fairly good pace as they left Todds and made along
the single trail toward the mountains, but three miles back from the
Harrapin River.
From somewhere in a little clump of trees through which they were
passing a rabbit jumped out.
“Get him!” cried Lanky Wallace, slinging his rifle around to catch it
in his free hands.
The little fellow, scared out of a warm spot in the grove, or perhaps
out foraging for something green to eat, was getting across the surface
of the snow in a hurry.
Crack! Bang! Crack! Bang!
Each of these boys had pulled his firearm around at sight of the streak
of motion, almost the color of the snow. And each of them had pulled
down a quick bead on the animal; letting fly two bullets and two doses
of shot.
“Came close!” called Frank, for the snow spat upward in several spots
just ahead of or to one side of the rabbit, but the little fellow kept
on and disappeared in the next grove.
“First shot of the expedition,” Buster Billings said. “I came nearest
because I shot first.”
This brought a laugh from the other boys. For it was difficult to tell
who had fired first.
“That was good work, fellows,” said Frank. “All four of us, from an
unexpected start, got our rifles and shotguns into action at about the
same time.”
The rabbit was safe somewhere else, they had shown to themselves that
they knew how to get into action, and the boys trooped on through the
snow even happier than they had been.
The sun was not shining, yet the morning was brighter than the day
before, and the snow was falling less hard.
“Wonder what these footprints are,” remarked Lanky, who was slightly in
the lead, with Frank close behind him.
“I’ve been noticing them all the way. They are headed opposite to the
way we are going, and from the fact they are not yet filled with snow,
it seems three people came in this morning,” replied Frank Allen.
Lanky continued looking toward the prints in the trail, finally
remarking about a peculiar heel-print.
“Look, Frank,” he pointed. “One of the fellows must have an iron plate
on his heels. Every now and then you can see a print in which a
crescent shape shows, like those things they use to stop a heel from
wearing down.”
But the boys were little interested in this. They looked casually at
the prints for a while, trudging onward, but did not stop for a closer
examination. A full hour passed, and they came to a dividing of the
trail.
“Here’s the one to take. Here’s where we start saving those ten miles,”
came from Frank. “They said it was thirty miles by the road around the
mountains and only twenty if we took the trail straight through.”
“What that makes me think is this,” said Lanky, swinging along behind
Frank, giving up his leading position. “How can the trail around the
hills reach Old Moose lake?”
“I presume there is another divide in the trail lower down,” suggested
Frank. “Maybe the lake is reached on one side by one trail and on the
opposite side by another.”
Another hour passed away, finding the boys well up in the mountain
trail, climbing higher.
The evergreen trees, hemlocks and pines were covered with the finer
particles of snow. The trail itself was completely covered. Now and
then the boys found it necessary to catch the overhanging branches
of a tree to swing themselves along more easily, especially where the
trail, in places, grew narrow.
A third hour passed away, indicated by Buster Billings’ watch, finding
the young fellows well in the midst of the mountains, having dropped
far down into a valley during the last half hour.
In the meanwhile the skies had become leaden-colored again, cast over
with the winter shade, and snow was flying thicker than at any other
time of the morning.
“We can’t be far from the second divide, the one where we have to make
the careful choice,” Frank said as they stopped in the valley before
following the trail up between two hills to their right, where it made
a sharp turn.
“And it won’t be so easy to find, either,” said Paul, “unless the
trails are plainer than this one is.”
Just as Buster Billings called out that the fourth hour had passed,
Frank pointed to a sign nailed on a tree just ahead of them.
“Maybe that sign has something to do with the trails.”
But they were doomed to disappointment.
“_Put out all camp fires--protect our forests_,” read the sign.
It had been placed there during one of the campaigns for forest
protection.
“But,” remarked Frank as he stood in front of the sign and thought it
over, “this sign must have been placed at this spot for some reason.
I believe we are at the divide in the trails. See? There are three
different openings leading away--look there! Footprints on the one
right there!”
Four boys stood and looked carefully, each thinking out the situation.
Though Frank was the leader, one boy cannot do all the thinking for
such a group of quick-minded young fellows as these.
“If there are three, those footprints are on the trail we were supposed
to take,” said Paul Bird.
Frank agreed that this seemed the right conclusion.
“And the sign was posted at this spot because of its being a place
where all men going through this trail must stop,” he went on, after
agreeing with Paul.
They followed the trail on which the footprints were being rapidly
obliterated by the falling flakes.
Heavier and heavier fell the snow as the boys proceeded, making their
way around a hill and then dropping again into a small valley, catching
here and there on bushes to hold themselves back on the stiff incline.
Reaching the bottom of the trail, which turned off to the left again,
the snow was falling so hard they were able to see but a short distance
ahead.
“Fellows,” Frank stopped at the bottom and looked in all directions,
“we’re not on any trail. This is a blind one. It takes us nowhere.”
The other three boys looked about them, in one direction, in another,
and back up the way they had come.
“It’s sure this doesn’t go any farther,” agreed Lanky Wallace.
“Let’s get back to the top and look things over again,” Frank
suggested, leading the way.
Reaching the top, where the trails had seemed to divide, they studied
the situation.
“I believe that one to the right is the plain one,” Frank nodded toward
the one he meant. “It isn’t the way they told us to go, if these three
are trails. On the other hand, if that over there is a trail, then the
one right there is the correct one.”
The boys studied the problem over carefully, each one making sure that
he would leave nothing out of consideration. Then they determined on
the one which Frank had mentioned.
Another twenty minutes led them to an old tumble-down hut near a clump
of hemlocks which had been out of sight from the top--and this trail
proceeded no further.
“This thing is dangerous to enter. A little wind will knock it down,”
Lanky leaned against the hut gingerly as if to push it gently over.
“Why enter it at all?” asked Paul Bird.
“Because it looks as if we might not get very much farther,” said
Frank. “I don’t know how it looks to you fellows, but it is afternoon
now, and we are not on the right track. Best thing we can do is to keep
our bearings pretty well so we can come back to this place in case we
have to.”
“Oh, it won’t come to that,” spoke up Buster Billings. “We can find
our way all right. Let’s go back to the top, Frank, and go over the
directions we were given.”
This was also Frank’s idea, and they trudged back through the almost
blinding snow, not soft in its texture, but hard and packing as it
fell. At the crest they very carefully talked over the instructions
which they had been given. Then they decided on another apparent trail,
and set off.
One hour passed, with the four boys fairly butting their way through
the heavy snowstorm, hearing a bitter wind sweeping through the trees
far above their heads.
“Look! To our left!” called Lanky Wallace, stopping, and pointing off
through a small clump of brush.
“It’s the same hut!” said Frank. “Only we’re looking at it from the
other side!”’
A council again was called. Here were four boys out in the mountains,
fully ten or twelve miles from Todd’s, and, if their estimates were
good, about eight or ten miles from Old Moose Lake, unable to figure
out which way they should go.
“Shall we go back to Todds and get a fresh start?” asked Paul Bird.
“Sure not!” Lanky Wallace gave the answer. “If we went back there we’d
get the same directions we got before, wouldn’t we? And then we’d come
to the same place. I believe we lost ourselves somewhere else.”
“That is exactly what I think,” Frank agreed with Lanky. “I’ll tell
you, fellows, what I think we should do--let’s pitch camp right here
by this hut. Just as Lanky says, it would not be best to get under it
because of this wind, but let’s get near, protected by the brush and
trees, and stay all night. It is getting late in the day, and we ought
to rest. Then to-morrow we’ll start again.”
So the packs were unlimbered, blankets drawn out, a fire was soon
started, and, without taking any food, for they had brought only enough
for one meal from Todds, they camped in the clump of hemlocks near the
hut.
Until dark they stood around the fire and talked, for a time forgetting
their plight and joking about things which had happened during the
weeks past. At dark they prepared to turn in, rolled in their blankets,
the snow continuing to fall heavily.
It was some time in the middle of the night, with no moon up, that
Frank was suddenly startled from his sleep by a mysterious sound. He
sat bolt upright. Ahead of him a pair of glaring balls of green fire
danced!
He realized that some one else was at his side, and saw, from the
corner of his eye, Lanky Wallace staring at the same thing.
The pairs of fire-balls moved slightly, then one went out as the other
moved, and then they both showed up again.
Stealthily, very slowly, Frank reached for his rifle, his eyes on the
balls of fire.
He got the rifle steadily to his shoulder, took careful aim, and pulled
the trigger.
Crack!
Instantly the balls of fire disappeared--and the other two boys awoke!