IN PERIL
Having had a meal of the fish and having spent a jolly time around the
big log fire in the living room of the palatial camping house of the
Parsons’s and the camp clock showing the time to be nine o’clock at
night, the boys determined to go to bed.
All plans were set for an early morning expedition on skates out over
Old Moose Lake, ending in the catching of some more fish.
It was not yet break of day when the boys got out of their bunks, all
eager, fresh from the night of solid rest. Their breakfasting was done
in a hurry, since it was their intention to be far out on the lake at
sunrise or a few minutes thereafter.
Paul Bird grabbed up the camera as they started away from the camp,
remarking that he might need some pictures of himself catching the
longest string of the biggest fish.
“I surely hope the lake is well frozen over,” said Lanky, as he stooped
with the others at the shore line and adjusted his skates.
“It is.” Frank got to his feet and glided around easily. “The lake
has been chilled a long time and it hasn’t required very much of this
freezing temperature to put a thick surface on it.”
The boys had found four inches of ice at a point an eighth of a mile
from shore, and they had little reason to expect that thinner ice would
occur anywhere else.
Before they left, they built a good fire in the living room, there
being two reasons in the mind of Frank for doing this. First, it would
be comfortable when they came in, probably considerably chilled, and
second, the smoke would guide them when they were ready to return to
the camp.
Out over the lake they started, all four of them swinging along
rhythmically, all four having guns strapped on their backs, their
fishing lines carried in small packs in one hand, while Paul carried
his camera in the free hand, and Lanky carried an axe.
They were fully a mile from shore, going across what appeared to be the
narrow end of the lake, when the first of the sun’s rays came up to
light a waiting world.
“Fellows,” muttered Frank, as he looked and saw the colors change and
merge one into the other and then become bolder in shade as the sun’s
rays shot over the horizon, “if a painter were to put that on a canvas,
if it were possible for him to do it, people would criticise him and
say it wasn’t true to nature.”
“I believe you’re right,” Lanky agreed. “I would never have believed
it myself--yet there it is. It isn’t well to criticise a person too
quickly about a thing of this kind. You never know what he saw. Paul,”
he added as he turned toward his chum, “you can’t get that, can you?”
nodding his head toward the sunrise.
“Not a chance with this machine,” Paul replied dolefully. “I only wish
I could. It would be a wonderful picture.”
The boys looked forward again, skating around a part of the lake before
attempting to fish.
“What’s that?” Lanky pointed quickly off to their left, bringing
himself to an immediate stop.
The boys looked after the excited Lanky’s pointing finger.
Just at the shore of the lake, perhaps a quarter of a mile distant,
stood three moose cows, huddled together, and to one side from them
stood, pawing the ground, a bull moose.
Further along, across a little clearing between two clumps of hemlocks
and pines which fringed the lake, the boys saw a monster animal, with a
spread of horns which seemed several times larger than the body itself.
It was a giant moose bull, its head held back, and they heard a roar of
battle issue from it!
“P-s-st!” Frank hissed through his teeth. “The wind’s blowing our way.
Let’s keep close together and move that way very, very slowly. Don’t
talk, don’t move fast, don’t even breathe. Let’s see if we can get one!”
Like Indians of an older day, sneaking upon their prey, they formed
in single file, presenting only one body to the animals, and started
forward very quietly. But four pairs of eyes were watching the shore
like hawks making ready to swoop down.
Suddenly they saw the larger bull put his head toward the ground and
charge directly at the smaller one. Not lifting the head, he came
forward at an increasing pace, evidently intent on running the other
animal down by the sheer weight of his great body.
The smaller bull moose stood at bay, his forepaws scraping at the
ground, waiting the oncoming antagonist.
The boys stopped to watch the result of the charge.
Just as the giant reached the smaller one, the latter leaped aside
agilely, his right paw lifted up and came down, outstretched with
tremendous force, tearing a piece off the shoulder of the large fellow!
“Fine!” breathed Frank, enjoying the stroke which the smaller animal
had made.
Quick as a flash of light, however, the giant wheeled on his hind legs,
hurling himself into the air, and darted against the other. A roar of
defiance was heard by the boys from the smaller animal that now leaped
again to one side, his forepaw striking sharply at the giant.
But the big fellow was not to be easily beaten. He could use pawing
tactics, too! So he raised himself on his hind legs and fairly sprang
at the smaller moose, his great forepaws striking downward in sharp
cutting movements, though neither struck its target.
The boys moved forward again, trying to get as close as possible to the
fray before it was ended.
They were fortunate, all because of the agility of the animal being
attacked, and they had cut down half the distance, being within easy
ear-shot of the grunts and angry roarings of the two animals, the one
defending his position as head of his little herd, the other determined
to maintain his right to absolute kingdom over the domain.
Three times the little fellow had struck and inflicted wounds on the
giant moose, when the big fellow got in a telling piece of work. Making
a rush as if to attack the smaller one with his hoofs, with his head
held high and his forepaws reaching out to strike, he suddenly threw
his head forward and down, put tremendous energy behind the great
body, and, just as the smaller moose threw out both his paws to strike
and tear the aggressor, the big fellow’s antlers went under the body
of the smaller one, the great body stopped, his head came tossing
backward, and the smaller fellow was thrown into the air. The large one
shook his head with a snap, and the boys saw the defender go down to
the snow-covered ground for the count.
“I got it!” almost screamed Paul when he realized that he had leveled
and snapped his camera just at the critical moment of the fight.
Instantly the great moose bull turned, sniffed the air, saw the group
of boys, and bellowed to the huddled cows that were fifty yards away.
All three of the cows wheeled and ran toward the trees, while the big
fellow darted that way, joining them as they reached the grove.
Crack! Crack! Frank had unlimbered his rifle as soon as he realized
what the enthusiasm of Paul had done, and fired twice at the big
bull--without avail. The other boys, also brought their firearms
around. But they were too late. The moose had gotten to safety and were
rushing off through the woods as hard as they could go. At the same
time, the smaller moose bull pulled himself to his legs, and injured
though he was by the tearing of the great antlers of the giant, he
limped rapidly away along an opposite path.
“Too bad,” said Paul. “It was my fault. But, gee, fellows, you don’t
realize what a picture I got! I snapped it just as the big one threw
the little fellow over!”
“You’re forgiven if you got that picture.” Frank tried to be forgiving
and pleasant, a difficult task. “But, oh, Paul, if you didn’t get it,
you’re going to hang by your thumbs for sixteen long hours.”
The excitement held the boys for a little while. They discussed the
practicability of following the trail of the moose through the woods,
hoping they might come on them and have a better shot.
“Do you know,” Frank said during the discussion, “I believe that must
be the old king moose that we’ve heard so much about.”
The boys heartily agreed, for it would seem that none other but the
monarch of these woods, so much talked of by huntsmen, would have
charged down on the herd and tried to take the cows away from their
protector.
“Well, fellows,” remarked Buster Billings, when the discussion had
seemed to go as far as it could, “the sun is getting up. Let’s do
some fishing. I want to see Lanky be a champion again, just as he was
yesterday.”
“You go to thunder,” laughingly cried Lanky.
The boys turned back to the lake, skating, under the leadership of
Frank, toward one of the islands which reared its head half a mile
away.
“Here’s a good place, boys,” called the leader. “Lanky, unhook the axe
and do some champion ice-cutting.”
“This axe doesn’t fit my hand,” muttered Lanky.
After the laugh was over he started cutting, laying out a two-foot
square, and in a very few minutes the boys had the block of ice out on
the surface, the waters of the lake exposed to view. Then one of their
lines baited quickly went in.
The sun was well up in the east by this time, and it was the observant
Frank who noticed that a shadow was cast across the opening by the boys
who were standing on the eastward side of the hole. Their attention was
called to this, whereupon they moved around to the opposite side.
Their experience the day previous had been that an immediate bite came,
but this morning it did not happen. No fish seemed in a mood to try for
its breakfast just yet.
“Maybe they’re not out of bed, yet,” said Lanky.
After a few minutes the boys decided to move farther back from the
hole. This they did, dropping back a full twenty-five feet.
In doing so, Buster’s line became tangled with one of the others, and
he ran forward to take out the tangle. The other boys were laughing and
joking at the time, and did not notice what was happening.
Without any warning, and, so far as they could afterward see, without
any reason, the ice at the hole suddenly cracked, parted from the main
body, and Buster went feet first into the lake, the four lines tangling
about his body and feet as he fell.
A cry went up from Buster as he struck the freezing cold water, and all
three of his companions darted forward in a flash, but stopped quickly
again as they saw how large was the piece which had severed from the
main body of ice.
Buster’s head did not come to the surface. Instead, he came bobbing up
against the ice at a point several feet from the hole. His comrades saw
that something must be done without waiting.
“Quick, fellows!” cried Frank. “Get down flat on the ice! We’ve got to
crawl there and get him out!”