THE TERRIBLE ROAR
It was all of half-past four when the boys arrived at the place selected
for a camp. Immediately all of them became very busy, for considerable
work had to be done before night set in, so that they could feel fairly
comfortable.
One staked out the horse so that he could crop the grass, and be
contented, after being watered at the spring that ran close by. This fed
a pond that Max told them could be reached in ten minutes or less, and
which he believed might afford them some early fishing, if they felt
inclined, as what boys would not?
The tent was quickly raised in a selected spot, where the ground sloped
just enough to shed water in case of a downpour of rain; which is one of
the first things to consider when making a camp.
From the way in which each fellow bustled around it was plain to be seen
that they had had considerable experience in these things, and knew just
how to set to work in order to get the camp in shipshape condition.
Toby built a splendid stone fireplace where the cooking might be done
with a "minimum of discomfort and a maximum of pleasure," as he
remarked, though stumbling badly over the words he used to express his
meaning.
They had a grating taken from one of the ovens at home; it was open like
a broiler, and about two feet square. When placed on the stone
foundation that was to serve as a fireplace, it could not be equaled as
a steady foundation for coffeepot, kettles, or fryingpan. The boys had
once used metal rods, but found these apt to slip unexpectedly, and
several mishaps had led Max to suggest this better way of arranging
their stove.
This camping-out business is like everything else that boys run after.
After a spell they are apt to tire of it, and eagerly welcome home
cooking with all the frills; but there remains the longing for the open,
and the smell of the burning wood, so that after a certain time has
elapsed they are just as eager as ever to go out again, and put up with
all manner of inconveniences in order to be free from restraint for
awhile.
From Max down to Toby all of them were bubbling over with happiness as
they started to get their first meal ready. Even Bandy-legs seemed to
have forgotten his woes in connection with Nicodemus, for he laughed and
joked with the rest. Perhaps some of that forlorn look had been artfully
assumed so as to cause Toby to believe he was breaking his heart over
the necessity of having to part company with his pet cub. It might be
possible that Bandy-legs was not so averse to getting rid of the
prank-loving bear as he pretended to be.
The night settled in around them finally, while they were still in the
throes of cooking that first supper in the woods. As this was just
before Easter Sunday, and that event always comes immediately after a
full moon, they could expect to be favored with more or less heavenly
illumination during their stay in camp.
When later on they finally sat around to enjoy the supper that had been
cooked it seemed as though their cup of happiness must be complete.
Everything tasted wonderfully fine to the boys, because they had their
appetites along with them. But the surroundings no doubt had a good deal
to do with it, for there was something of a tang in the air, it being
only April; and from the woods arose a dank odor of rotting logs and
leaf mold that was very pleasant to these lads.
Then the wood they were burning was for the most part hickory, ash or
oak, hard stuff every inch of it; and the fumes that were wafted into
their faces with each change of wind, while making their eyes blink and
smart, were mighty gratifying to their sense of smell.
Those who really love the woods never pass through city streets, and get
a whiff of hard-wood smoke, but what they draw in a big breath, and
immediately picture the camp fire burning, with good chums seated around
enjoying a tempting meal; and the boardinghouse spread looks less
appetizing than ever after that glimpse into Paradise.
"I hope all of you have brought some lines and hooks along," said Max,
after the first edge had been taken from their hunger, and they felt
disposed to talk more or less; "because, while the bass season won't
open until the end of next month we might pick up some big pickerel in
that pond I spoke of. I've heard tall yarns about their size there, and
the savage way they take hold."
"Fresh fish wouldn't go bad," Steve went on to say, reflectively, as he
took a second helping of fried potatoes from one of the fryingpans, and
then fished out another nicely browned sausage from the other.
"But seems to me it's pretty early to expect 'em to take hold,"
Bandy-legs ventured to say, as he filled his tin cup from the coffee
pot, and then added some condensed milk of the kind known as evaporated
cream, because it has not been sweetened in order to keep it.
"W-w-what, for p-p-pickerel?" exclaimed Toby. "Why, they're ready to
b-b-bite any old t-t-time, ain't they, Max?"
"I never knew the time when they wouldn't grab at bait," the other
replied. "You know they're built on the order of a pirate, and that's
what a pickerel or a pike is, a regular buccaneer. Why, I've been out on
the ice on a big lake in winter where dozens of little cabins and tents
had been built, each sheltering a pickerel fisherman, who had as many as
a dozen lines rigged through holes cut in the thick ice."
"I've heard something about that kind of fishing, but never had a chance
to see how it was done," Steve went on to say.
"Tell us some more about it, won't you, Max?" Bandy-legs pleaded as well
as a fellow could who was swallowing his supper in gulps.
"If ever you eat p-p-pickerel like you're chokin' things d-d-down right
now," Toby hastened to say, "you'll have a n-n-nice lot of pitchfork
b-b-bones stuck in your throat, b-b-believe me, Bandy-legs."
"Oh! guess I've eaten pickerel lots of times," retorted the other,
indignantly; "I always go slow when I'm on a fish diet, and don't you
forget it. But, Max, tell us about what you saw that time. We don't get
such fishing around here."
"Glad of it," muttered Steve. "There must be mighty little sport fishing
through the ice when it's bitter cold; and I reckon all they do it for
is the market."
"You're wrong there," Max advised him, promptly; "for while some men
fish on the ice as a business, and make fair wages, many others do the
same because they like it. They even keep a little stove or a fire of
some sort going in those cabins and tents; and let me tell you it's
some exciting watching the tip-ups signal here and there, when the fish
are hungry, and biting fast and furious."
"Tip-ups, you call them; that has to do with the lines, don't it?" Steve
asked.
"Yes, every line is rigged so that when a fish is caught the fisherman
is notified in some way or other," Max went on to explain. "Some use
little bells that tinkle with a bite; others have red strips of cloth
that are pulled up to the top of a short stick; but the common way is to
make a crotch cut from a branch of a tree answer. It tilts up when the
line is tugged, and so you know that you ought to hurry there and get
your prize. That's how they came to be called tip-ups."
"Well, as the ice has long ago gone out of the ponds around Carson I
reckon we won't get any chance to try that queer sort of pickerel
fishing," Steve observed; "but I brought my minnow seine along, so we
ought to scoop up plenty of live bait, and they take with pickerel every
time. You can trust Uncle Steve for bringing in an occasional mess of
fresh fish."
"H-h-how about h-h-hunting!"
"Is the law on everything, Max?" questioned Bandy-legs.
"Pretty near everything," came the reply; "we'll look up the game laws
in the morning, and see how we stand. I like to hunt as well as the next
one, but all the same I don't believe in shooting game out of season,
and I'd only do it if I was starving, and had to save my life that
way."
"But whether we go hunting or not," ventured Steve, "we're all glad we
thought to fetch our guns along."
They exchanged quick glances at that.
"Which is to say," remarked Mas, smiling, "that you haven't settled it
in your mind yet, Steve, that what we saw disappearing was some barred
dog belonging to a farmer, and not a striped hyena."
"Well, you never can tell," Steve stubbornly contended, with a wise
shake of his head; "we know there must have been some beasts got away
that they never did find again. Just what they were nobody seems able to
agree. I've heard all sorts of guesses made; and a hyena might be one of
the same, as well as anything."
"They come from India, don't they?" asked Bandy-legs, smoothly.
"Found in both Asia and Africa," Max explained. "I'm not sure of any
being met with in Europe, though there are plenty of wolves. They feed
on carrion mostly, and are cowardly by nature; but all the same, they're
nasty looking brutes, and always snarling the worst you ever heard. It
makes your flesh creep just to hear them growl, worse than the ugly
tempered wildcat Toby owns."
"Well, me to carry my Marlin wherever I go up here," announced Steve;
"and if it happens that I run foul of a striped beast, that I don't like
the looks of, you'll see me knocking the spots out of him first, and
then finding afterwards what his breed is. If he turns out to be a plain
dog, then he's paid the penalty for looking like one of these hyenas,
that's all."
"D-d-don't you hear 'em?" asked Toby just then.
Steve and Bandy-legs made as though ready to reach out for their guns,
placed conveniently near; but hesitated when they saw that Toby was
grinning, and showed no signs of being worried.
"F-f-frogs, and heaps of the same over there in that p-p-pond you was
telling us about, Max. Yum! Yum! reckon now I'm in f-f-for some g-g-good
feasts."
All of them could now catch a distant croaking that announced the fact
as stated by the observant Toby; and they knew that with that pond so
close by they would be apt to take all the bullfrogs they wanted during
their stay.
"But we didn't fetch that little target gun along," remarked Bandy-legs,
regretfully.
"Don't need it," Steve told him; "do we, Max?"
"Not that I can see," answered the one appealed to; "I've got a piece of
red flannel with me, and some hooks. All you have to do is to cut a long
pole, tie a stout line about two feet long to the end, with one of the
hooks attached; and then fix a small clipping of the red stuff to the
hook. When you see a big greenback on the edge of the water sneak up
behind him, lower the flannel gently until it dangles in front of him,
and you'll see some of the funniest happenings you ever set eyes on;
that is they'll be funny to you, but death to the frog."
"I've caught 'em that way many a time," Steve told them. "Sometimes the
old frog will crouch down like a cat sneaking up on a sparrow, and then
make a fling up at the bright thing, which I reckon he thinks must be a
juicy sort of a bug. As soon as he feels the barb of the hook he tries
to climb up the line and jump all around like a trapeze performer. But
only a cruel fellow would stand and watch him suffer. I always try to
knock him on the head instanter, and get his boots in my creel."
"That's the only way," Max added, approvingly. "Even a sportsman can be
merciful to his game by putting it out of pain as quick as possible."
"I always do when I've shot anything I want for food," Bandy-legs vowed.
"And me, I always c-c-carry a little c-c-club along when I g-g-go
fishing," Toby declared, proudly.
"Hear him, fellows?" exclaimed Bandy-legs, pretending not to understand;
"he must think he's a policeman, and meaning to knock every sleeping
tramp on the soles of his feet to wake him up."
"It's to k-k-knock the fish on the h-h-head after you've c-c-caught the
same!" Toby hastened to inform him, grandly, as became a humane
sportsman.
"Any more coffee in that pot, Max?" Steve asked, passing his cup along,
for he certainly had a weakness for the "ambrosia" as he often called
it, though never allowed more than one helping at home, and then only at
breakfast.
The meal went on to its close, and while in the start it had seemed as
though the eyes of the cooks had been much greater than their capacity
for stowing food away, judging from the minute amount that was wasted it
would seem that they knew better; or else that the average boy's stomach
does stretch away down into his lower extremities, as some people claim.
"That was a hunky-dory supper, all right," Steve admitted, as he lay
lazily back on his blanket, and commenced to pick his teeth after the
manner of one who has dined well, and is perfectly at peace with the
whole world.
"Best I've had since the last time we ate grub together," Bandy-legs
added, as his quota of praise, although he had been one of the cooks.
"And that was up in the Great North Woods, when we spent that joyful
time with Trapper Jim, wasn't it!" Max suggested.
"I'd sure like mighty well to repeat that trip some of these fine days,"
Steve told them, "but I reckon we never will, because there are so many
other temptations all around us. And seems like we might squeeze all the
fun we can manage out of this little vacation. Here we are, away off
from everywhere, and if we want we can just think we're camping in the
heart of Africa, with wild beasts all around us and savage Hottentots or
Zulu warriors waiting to take us by surprise."
Steve liked to indulge in these little flights of fancy once in a while.
His imagination sometimes ran away with him; but he seemed to get
considerable of enjoyment out of the idea.
Hardly had he ceased speaking on the present occasion than each one of
the four boys sat upright, and seemed to be straining his hearing to the
utmost, as though some sound had come to them then and there that caused
surprise, even consternation.
"S-s-say, w-w-whatever was that n-n-noise like thunder?" asked Toby,
blankly.
Steve looked puzzled.
"That's what's got my goat, Toby," he remarked in a perplexed tone of
voice; it might be one thing or another, but it sure wasn't thunder.
"As for me, now, I'm racking my poor brains to guess whether it could
only have been a farmer's bull bellowing away off there; or we sat here
and actually, listened to a savage African lion at large!"
His words appalled every one, and it was well that supper had been
eaten, else their appetites might have suffered a decided slump.