HUNTING TIMBER WOLVES
As the door was thrown wide open, Snadder and Blinky staggered in
and fell to the floor, almost completely exhausted, breathing hard,
excited, afraid!
Frank slammed the door shut immediately, dropping the latch into place
while the other boys gathered in a circle about the two tramps.
“What is the matter?” he asked, looking down at Snadder.
“Wolves!” gasped the tall fellow, trembling in every part of his body.
“Wolves! Almost got us!”
“Wolves!” The word passed around the circle of boys, bringing with it
the fear and, too, the longing to get these beasts whose reputations
had long been known from books.
But how did timber wolves happen to be in these Eastern woods? This
question at once passed through Frank’s mind. He had been led to
understand that the great, gray wild animals which prey on anything
alive belonged to the northwestern woods. He knew of their wild habits
and of the havoc these animals wrought on the sheep ranches of the
West, but he had never heard of any of them in the eastern part of the
country.
“Are you sure they were wolves?” asked Frank. “Where are they now?”
Snadder was sitting up, as was Blinky, and Snadder now staggered to his
feet, making his way shiveringly to the fire.
“Up in the hills. We stopped up there in one of the valleys where the
wind wouldn’t strike us, behind some trees, when we heard them all of
a sudden. They came at us with a rush and we got into the trees out of
their way. Then along came Jeek and the other two guys, and the beasts
went after them. They ran for all they were worth along the trail, but
they had to climb some trees, too.”
“How did you get here?” asked Frank, keeping up the questioning.
“When the beasts went after Jeek and the other fellows we got down and
ran this way, because we thought we could get here ahead of them,”
answered the tramp. “And we kept coming, too!”
By further questions the boys learned that Jeek and his two cronies
were probably out there in the mountains, held in the trees by these
snarling brutes which would keep them up until daylight, or maybe
longer. The boys did not know enough of the habits of these animals to
know what they would do.
“With this freezing wind blowing, Jeek and his friends will get rather
cold, won’t they?” asked Frank.
“They’ll freeze to death right where they are,” moaned Blinky in the
same whining voice. “They had climbed part way up a hill and I’ll bet
the wind is getting them.” He shivered at thought of the blizzard-like
wind blowing outside, the wailing and moaning of which, and the
whistling, all could hear as they stood around the cozy fire.
“Fellows,” decided Frank, “four of us will take our rifles and shotguns
and go after them. Snadder and Blinky must come along to show us where
they are. We mustn’t let men freeze to death!”
They decided on the four, and Frank, knowing that the newcomers wanted
to be in on any excitement, choose Jack Eastwick and Tom Budd, the
third being Lanky Wallace, Lanky, whom he knew he could always trust to
act quickly and to think largely as he thought.
It was fully an hour before they came to the hill where Snadder said
the wolves had the three men treed.
“Right over in this valley, on the other side.” He pointed along the
trail.
A new moon was just rising over the hills, and a faint, pale, trembling
light filtered through the few clouds. A high wind blew, but the sky
was extraordinarily clear for this season.
Dropping down the trail into the valley, picking their steps as they
went, listening against the whistling and humming of the wind through
the trees, the four boys followed the lead of the two tramps, both of
whom peered ahead fearfully.
“There they are!” Snadder suddenly stopped in his tracks, pointing to a
place several hundred yards ahead of them. “I can hear them now!”
Sure enough, the snarling sounds of the wolves came to all of them, for
they had dropped so far below the top of the hills that the wind was
merely a moan above them.
Slowly the boys made their way along the trail, their eyes trained
hard on the spot which Snadder had indicated. Blinky was shivering and
shaking with fear, while Snadder kept close to the boys, not permitting
himself to get too far in front.
A hundred yards away the wolves must have sensed the coming of some one
else. There were at least eight in the pack.
Through the faint light, aided by the whiteness of the snow, the boys
saw three animals wheel from beneath a tree, sniff the air, snarl
several times, and then the three wolves charged straight toward the
boys!
“Scatter! Quick!” commanded Frank. “Get behind trees! Shoot to kill!”
Suiting his own action to his words, Frank Allen leaped behind a tree
just as Blinky shinned up as far as he could from the ground. Snadder
dashed for another tree near-by.
Crack! Frank’s rifle spoke as he hastily drew bead on the leader of the
small pack. The shot missed!
Snarling and barking, the three gray wolves came on, all in a bunch,
straight toward the spot where Frank stood.
Again he drew bead on the leader, this time trying for its breast
instead of the head.
Crack! Crack! Two shots reverberated through the little valley as Frank
pulled the trigger of his rifle and Lanky also fired.
In a heap went the leader, and instantly the other two animals stopped,
reared high in air, and turned on the body of their mate.
Crack! Crack! Bang! Bang! Four shots rang out, as all the boys had
positions and had their rifles and shotguns in line. The other two
wolves dropped where they had turned. At this the rest of the wolf pack
turned and went howling away through the timber.
Just then three human forms came from out of the shadow of the tree,
Jeek, Fallon and Carey.
“Say, young fellow,” stammered Jeek as he joined the group standing
around the three slain animals, “I’m much obliged to you boys for
coming. I was freezing to death up in that tree and I didn’t know
whether them animals was going to climb up and get us or not!”
He held out his hand to Frank, who took it in the most friendly way,
realizing that Jeek was really thankful and grateful to the boys for
what they had done.
“You owe your thanks to Snadder and Blinky,” he said to Jeek. “They
came to the camp and got us out. My, but it is cold down in this
valley!”
They moved each of the animals with their feet, to be certain they
were dead. One of them was not quite gone, but it was gasping, and
Lanky stood off to fire a fatal shot into its head to put it out of its
suffering.
“What are timber wolves doing in these woods?” Frank could not refrain
from asking the question, even though he felt the others knew no more
about the answer than himself.
“I’ll tell you where they’re from!” Jeek exclaimed as they stood
looking down at the animals, thinking over Frank’s question. “They’re
from a circus! Remember that circus that had a fire about a year ago
down at Bellport? Frey’s circus? Remember some of its animals got away
and they never did get all of them back?”
Frank then recalled, as did the other boys, the furor which was caused
at the time when announcement was made that wild animals had broken
loose from their cages when a fire had destroyed one of the tents of
the circus.
“As I recall it,” Frank said, “one of the keepers said he opened some
of the cages rather than see the animals burn to death.”
“That’s it! That’s it!” Jeek replied enthusiastically. “These must be
the animals that were in that fire.”
This appeared to be the only possible explanation, in view of the fact
that no wolves of the kind were known to be in this particular section
of the country.
“Well, which way are you fellows going? You can come back to our cabin
and get warm, if you wish,” said Frank.
“Naw, we’re going right on to Todds. Might as well keep on. It ain’t
much further than to go back to your cabin. Much obliged to you,” Jeek
turned and started up the hill, leading his two cronies. The two tramps
followed slowly behind them.
The four boys, again looking to see the animals, turned up the opposite
hill, following the trail back to their own camp.
“Peculiar,” remarked Lanky. “Mighty peculiar. Here, we went through
all sorts of trouble to capture those fellows. Then we sent them back
toward civilization hating us, and we didn’t like them any too well,
and then we rushed out here and saved them.”
“That’s the way things go, I guess,” replied Frank. “But we couldn’t do
anything else, could we?”
The boys heartily agreed they could not. Not to have succored these
men when the call came for help would have been a most inhuman thing,
despite what they had done to the boys in the several days past.
More than an hour later, with the alarm clock pointing to an hour well
past midnight, these four boys trudged up to the Parsons’ house, all
lighted, with smoke pouring from the chimney, to find the other four
sitting around the fire in various attitudes, all waiting for their
return.
It took another hour to tell the story, to recite all the details, and
to hear the questions which, quite naturally, were asked by those who
had stayed on guard and had missed the adventure.
To their bunks finally went all of them, a weary crowd but a decidedly
happy one, and when the alarm rang out its summons in the morning,
before the break of day, eight partly refreshed boys sat up to rub
their eyes and wish that all alarm clocks were buried deep in Davy
Jones’ locker.
“Why this unseemly hour, when graveyards yawn, and so forth?” sleepily
said Lanky, as he stretched himself and drawled out a very poor
quotation of Shakespeare.
“That’s not a careless alarm clock,” laughed Frank. “That fellow is on
the job.”
“Buy one, says I, that isn’t so honest about its work,” muttered Jack
Eastwick. “Alarm clocks aren’t any good, anyhow.”
But the boys tumbled out of their bunks, dressed, made up the dying
fire in the living room, and then prepared their breakfast, eating
heartily.
Their skates were strapped on when they reached the edge of the lake,
their rifles thrown across their backs, Paul’s camera hung from the
other shoulder, as eight young fellows left the camp for a roam around
the lake to see what might be seen.
Straight across to the opposite side Frank led them, having decided
they would try going through the woods on the north side of the lake,
hoping thus to run into something that might satisfy the longing of all
of them for more adventure.
The sun was well up when they touched the opposite side, removed their
skates, threw them across their shoulders by straps, and started
through the woods, led by Frank. For a while nothing was heard, there
was no sign of life. Then in the far distance they heard the sound of
an axe, steady, persistent, and a moment later came to them the booming
sound of a great tree falling to the ground.
Somewhere in that direction was a logging camp. Frank led that way. A
mile passed under their feet as they trudged ahead, the snow a little
less than knee-deep, making the going hard.
Straight ahead of them they saw several men at work in the woods, using
axes on the pines and hemlocks. The boys headed for the place where the
nearest men were chopping. Two were wielding a saw, after one had used
the axe on the opposite side.
The boys stood watching the work, unnoticed by the men. Yet they were
within fifty feet.
Suddenly the two sawyers stopped, drove a wedge in the place where the
saw had been, and the tree started over.
“Look out!” yelled Frank, seeing it was falling their way. He ran as
quickly to one side as possible, stumbling over a log as he went,
falling flat on his face, and the great pine was toppling down on him
before he could rise to his feet!