TOM LAYS THE GHOST.
Tom Bean's eyes, more used to the darkness than those of the boys, had
seen a dim form about ten feet away and his impetuosity had brought
forth the yell and then he knew that not a moment was to be lost. The
"devil" breaking off his cry like the snapping of a twig, gave one look
and fled. But his nemesis was close on his heels and as the toe of one
of Tom's snow-shoes came down on his heel, he pitched forward sprawling
in the deep snow. Instantly Tom was upon him, and when the boys caught
up to them all that they could see was a writhing mass of arms,
snow-shoes and legs as the two rolled over and over in the snow. It was
so dark they were unable to tell who was who and they could do nothing
except stand by and watch, but they had little doubt as to the outcome.
But as the minutes passed and so far as they were able to see neither
had gained any advantage over the other, they began to fear that at last
Tom had met his match.
"We'll have to get into it," Bob declared, as he stepped close to the
struggling mass.
But at that moment the thrashing about ceased and one of the men lifted
his head. But which one was it who was on top? Bob held his breath as he
leaned forward.
"Now kape quiet or I'll be after chocking the life out of yez," and both
boys gave a glad shout as they recognized Tom's voice:
"Sure an' he's a tough nut all right," the latter declared, as he,
panting for breath, got to his feet.
The other man evidently having lost all desire for fighting, lay still
in the snow.
"Up wid yez," Tom ordered, as he seized him by the collar and slowly
dragged him to his feet.
"Now ye dirty skunk what yer got ter say fer yerself?" he demanded, as
he picked up his cap and beat it against his leg to knock off the snow.
The man made no reply and Tom, rapidly losing his patience, grabbed him
by the arm and pulled him around.
"Ain't ye got no tongue?" he demanded. "Ye sure was makin' good use of
it a minute ago," he added; and then, as the man still remained silent,
he again took hold of his arm. "All right, mebby the kitty's got yer
tongue. Now ye come along wid us an' mind yer no funny business."
But the man hung back. "Non, me no go," he muttered.
"Now by the saints, but ye will go and mighty quick too, or I won't lave
enough o' ye to make a good meal fer a wolf."
But still the man refused to move. "Me go back camp. Me ver' seek."
"Sick is it?" the Irishman shouted, his patience now entirely gone.
"Well, here's sumpin to make yer sicker," and he struck the man a heavy
blow on the point of the chin.
He dropped to the snow like a log and lay still.
"Bad luck ter him," Tom said, as he looked down at the fallen man. "Sure
an' I hated ter do it, but 'tis the only language they kin understand,
so it is."
A handful of snow rubbed in his face quickly brought him to, and with a
groan he opened his eyes.
"Me go," he muttered.
"Sure an' it's meself as knowed thot all the time," Tom laughed, as he
dragged the man to his feet.
Fortunately none of the snow-shoes had been broken in the fight and
after waiting a few minutes for the man to recover his wind they started
back. No word was spoken until they reached the clearing.
"Now take off yer snow-shoes," Tom ordered, and as soon as the order was
obeyed he led the way back to the bunk house.
Most of the men were awake, some of them sitting on the edge of their
bunks, while others were gathered about the stoves talking excitedly.
"Here's yer howling spook," Tom shouted, as he pushed open the door and
pulled the frightened man inside.
For an instant all was still as the men turned their heads to see who
had spoken, then as they recognized the boss, a glad shout went up.
After a moment Tom held up his hand and the shouting quickly died down.
"Now tell 'em you made thot yelling," he ordered, turning to his
captive. "Spake," he thundered, as the man remained silent, "or I'll be
after giving ye another taste o' this," and he shook his huge fist in
the man's face.
A sight of that fist was all that was needed to loosen that man's
tongue.
"Me mak' der noise," he said, in a tone trembling with fear but loud
enough for all to hear.
"Come on, we feex heem," one Frenchman shouted, and a number sprang
forward but Tom waved them back.
"No, byes, sure an' he's had enough, an' besides he's only a tool," and,
taking the man by the arm he quickly pushed him out the door and closed
it behind him, after Bob and Jack had followed him.
"Now ye listen ter me," he began, as soon as they reached the edge of
the clearing where they had left their snow-shoes. "Go back ter yer camp
an' tell Big Ben thot if he tries iny more of his funny business we'll
be after trying some too an' don't yer fergit it."
The Frenchman said nothing, but after fastening his snow-shoes slunk off
through the woods and was almost immediately lost to sight.
"I guess that's the last of the spook business," Bob said thoughtfully,
as they made their way back to the bunk house.
"Perhaps, but he'll try something else. Big Ben doesn't give up so
easily," Jack declared, and subsequent events proved that he was right.
The "ghost" having been laid, as Jack put it, the boys were glad the
next morning to note that the men had fully recovered their spirits.
Snatches of song interspersed with frequent shouts of laughter rang
through the forest, as ax and saw bit into the great trees.
"They're sure a happy lot when there's nothing on their minds," Jack
declared, as he buried the blade of his ax in the trunk of a
particularly large spruce.
"If it'll only last," Bob returned, sitting down on a log for a moment's
rest.
Somewhat to their surprise Jean Larue had not left the camp after his
fight with Bob. The lot of a dethroned bully in a lumber camp is not an
enviable one. Once lost, his power can seldom be regained.
"Kape yer eyes on thot Larue," Tom had cautioned Bob only that morning.
"He wouldn't be after staying on here after thot batin' ye gave him if
he wan't up ter sumpin."
"Oh, I guess he's all right," Bob had replied easily.
But now, as from his seat on the log he glanced across the space from
which the trees had been cut, and saw the Frenchman staring at him, a
look of fierce hatred in his eyes, the foreman's warning returned to his
mind.
"Guess I had better look out for that fellow," he thought, as he slipped
from the log and attacked a large spruce. "He certainly has it in for me
if he ever gets the chance."
When at noon time the loud blast of the dinner horn rang through the
woods, Bob had nearly finished the felling of an extra large spruce.
Fearing that if he left it as it was the rising wind would blow it over
in the wrong direction, he decided to finish it before leaving.
"You trot along and I'll be with you by the time you get to eating," he
said to Jack who had just finished trimming a tree.
"Well, make it snappy," Jack replied, as he followed the last of the men
leaving Bob making the forest ring with the sound of his blows.
He had almost finished and the big spruce was beginning to totter when,
just as he drew back his ax for what he thought would be the final
stroke, he felt rather than heard something whiz past his head. Quickly
he glanced up and there, sticking in the trunk of the tree upon which he
was at work was an ax minus its helve. A cold chill ran down his spine
as he realized how narrowly it had missed him. A quick glance behind him
revealed Jean Larue, standing about twenty feet away, and holding in his
hand a helve minus an ax.
Immediately the Frenchman came forward and Bob could see that he was
shaking, but whether with fear or anger, he was uncertain.
"Head fly off ax. Wedge, she work loose, come out," and he held out the
helve for Bob to examine.
"So I see," Bob replied, as he took the helve in his hand. "But how is
it that you haven't gone to dinner with the rest of the men?"
"I feenesh trim tree first," he replied uneasily. "I ver' glad ax no
heet boy," he added as he pulled it from the trunk.
"Thanks, so am I," Bob returned dryly, as he struck the final blow which
sent the tree crashing to the earth.
"You no tink I do eet purpose, heh?" Jean asked as he nervously shoved
the helve back into the ax.
"We'll let it go at that," Bob evaded the question. "But please see to
it that nothing like that happens again," he added as he started for the
camp. "We don't want it to get to be a habit, you know."
"I drive wedge in ver' hard thes time," Jean promised, as he fell in
behind Bob.
"You go ahead," Bob ordered, stepping to one side.
The Frenchman hesitated a moment, seemed about to speak, then changed
his mind, and without a word struck off at a rapid gait toward the camp.
"That was a little too close for comfort," Bob thought as he followed a
few feet behind. "Of course it was no accident, but I hardly think he'll
dare try it again, but it's dead certain that I've got to keep a sharp
lookout or he'll try something else. If he'd hit me I imagine he had it
all planned to light out, but when he missed he knew that he'd give
himself away if he did, so he decided to face it out."
By the time his thoughts had reached this point he had struck the camp
and making a hasty toilet was soon at Jack's side eating with, as he
told his brother, "a regular Maine woods appetite."
"Did you get the tree down?" Jack asked between mouthfuls.
"Sure did, and if she don't scale 800 feet I miss my guess," Bob
replied, helping himself to a big dish of baked beans.
"Didn't I see you coming in with Larue?" Jack asked a moment later.
"Yes, he waited to trim a tree." Bob had made up his mind to say nothing
even to Jack about the "accident," knowing that it would only worry him.
"That's a funny thing for Jean to do. Whence his sudden inclination to
extreme industry?" and the boy glanced suspiciously at the Frenchman who
was shoveling food into his mouth near the other end of the table.
Bob made no reply and after a moment Jack declared:
"If I'd known he was hanging behind you bet I'd have waited. I don't
like it a little bit."
The next day was Sunday and the boys had planned to spend the day with
an old Indian friend of theirs who lived alone in a little log cabin
about eight miles farther up the lake. The Indian's name was Kernertok,
meaning, "he is black," and, as told in a previous volume, the boys had
on two occasions saved his life. Naturally he was intensely fond of them
and they in turn thought that there was no one quite like Kernertok. The
Indian had taught them much of woodcraft of which he was a master and
the boys never tired of listening to his stories of the far north where
he had spent his younger days.
It was a beautiful day, clear and cold as they set off soon after
daybreak. Their way led up the lake for about seven miles, then in
through the thick forest for a trifle over a mile. The snow was fairly
well packed and their snow-shoes sank but slightly making easy going.
"My, but it's great to be alive," Jack declared, breathing in deep
breaths of the spruce laden air.
"Particularly up here in the Maine woods," Bob agreed.
"You said a mouthful," Jack laughed, as he stopped to tighten the thong
of one of his shoes. "I don't believe there's another place in the world
that's so fine. Just taste that air."
They were out on the lake some distance from the shore which, at this
point curved sharply inward, as the traveling was much easier than
through the woods.
"There's the old cabin," Bob said, after they had made about three
miles. "Had we better go in and see if everything is all right?"
The cabin referred to was one belonging to their father and in, or
rather, about which, they spent the most of their time in summer.
"Guess we might as well," Jack replied. "It won't take but a few minutes
and we've got plenty of time. You got the key?"
"I think so, but wait a minute and I'll see. Yes, here it is," as he
pulled it from his pocket.
They headed in and in a few minutes were on the porch of the cabin where
they removed their snow-shoes.
"My, but it seems colder in here than outside," Jack declared, as he
stepped inside. "We'll have to come up some Saturday before we go back
and stay over Sunday. What do you say?"
"I say yes. We can keep a good fire going in the fireplace and I guess
we won't have any trouble to keep warm."
"Let's make it next Saturday, then."
"Righto, next Saturday it is," Bob agreed.
It was just nine o'clock when they reached Kernertok's cabin. They found
the old Indian washing his breakfast dishes and they knew that he was
overjoyed to see them, although his stoical nature made it impossible
for him to be demonstrative.
"Injun very glad see white boys," he said as he took both their hands.
"And you bet we're tickled to death to see you," Jack declared, and
Bob's greeting was no less warm.
At the sound of their voices a large collie dragged himself from beneath
a bunk at one side of the room, and the way he jumped at the boys
striving to lick their faces gave abundant evidence that the dog also
was overjoyed.
"Good old Sicum," Jack declared, stroking the dog's head. "You haven't
forgotten us, have you boy?" and a sharp bark of delight said as plainly
as words that he had not.
Bob had always insisted that no one could cook like Kernertok, although
Jack would never agree that he could beat his brother when it came to
baking biscuits. However the dinner to which they sat down a few hours
later, consisting of trout caught through the ice the day before, and
hot biscuits, to say nothing of the baked potatoes and apple pie, left
little to be desired.
It was shortly after three o'clock when Bob, glancing out of the little
window, first noticed that the sun was no longer visible.
"Guess we'd better be beating it back," he announced, as he stepped to
the door and threw it open. "Looks as though it might storm before
night," he said a moment later, as he came back into the room.
At the words Kernertok knocked the ashes from his pipe and went to the
door.
"How about it, Kernertok?" Bob asked, as he came back.
"Look heap like storm. White boys better hurry unless stay all night,"
the Indian replied, as he threw more wood on the fire.
"I wish we could, but Tom'll be worried if we don't get back so I guess
we'd better go," and they started pulling on their mackinaws.
A brisk wind was blowing as they fastened on their snow-shoes and bade
their old friend goodbye, after they had made him promise them that he
would meet them the following Saturday afternoon at the cabin and spend
the week end.
"And don't forget to bring Sicum," Jack called back as they waved the
old man goodbye.
"That wind's coming from the northeast and unless I miss my guess we're
in for some snow before we get very far," Bob prophesied as he cast an
anxious glance at the sky.
"Shouldn't wonder," Jack agreed. "But we'll have it at our back as soon
as we get out on the lake."
It seemed as though the wind increased with every minute as they hurried
through the thick woods, and before they were half way to the lake a few
stray flakes began to sift their way down through the trees.
"We're going to get it all right. Think we'd better go back?" Bob asked,
as a strong blast of wind tore its way through the forest.
"Nix on the going back stuff, as I've often heard you say," Jack replied
with a light laugh. "Who's afraid of a little snow? We'll make it all
right."
By the time they had reached the lake the storm had set in in earnest
and the snowflakes, driven here and there by the gusts of wind, were
coming down with ever increasing rapidity.
"It's lucky we got the wind at our backs, I'd sure hate to have to face
it very far," Jack said as they started down the lake. "This is going to
be a corker," he added a few minutes later, as driving snow began to
blot out the shore of the lake.
The walking rapidly grew harder as the freshly fallen snow increased in
depth, and before they had covered a mile their shoes were sinking
several inches at each step.
"My, hear that wind howl. It's enough to blow the hair off a bald man's
head," Jack declared as he pulled his cap down farther over his ears. "I
sure pity anyone who's coming up the lake tonight," he added.
"They'd need it," Bob agreed. "I don't think I ever saw it snow so fast.
I'll bet it's making an inch in five minutes. We don't want to get too
far from the shore, and I think we'd better turn in a bit. If we lose
sight of it and the wind should change, we could get lost as easy as
falling off a log."
They were hardly twenty feet from the shore at the time, but so thick
was the falling snow that it was barely visible and they at once took
Bob's advice and it was not long before they realized the wisdom of the
move. Almost in a moment it seemed the wind shifted and like sharp
particles of ice the snow was being driven against the side of their
faces.
"You spoke just in the nick of time," Jack shouted, as he turned his
head to the storm. "Hope it don't reverse entirely," he added a moment
later.
By this time the going was very heavy and it is doubtful if they were
making much over a mile an hour. Snow-shoeing on well packed snow
through the surface of which the shoe barely breaks is one thing and an
expert can travel at a rapid pace. But when the snow is light and newly
fallen and the shoes sink deep and at every step the wearer has to lift,
not only the shoe but the snow which falls upon it, the conditions are
vastly different and progress is very slow. The feet feel as though
loaded with lead and each step advances the traveler but a few inches.
Darkness was coming rapidly as Jack, who at the moment was in the lead,
stopped and turned around.
"How far do you think we've come?" he asked.
"Pretty hard to say," Bob replied, as he glanced at his watch. "It was
four o'clock when we struck the lake and it's a quarter past five now.
I'd say not over two miles or two miles and a half at the most. We've
been creeping for the last half hour."
"And I'm mighty tired already," Jack said, as he turned his back to the
wind. "I sure wish we'd accepted Kernertok's invitation and waited till
morning."
"Yes, it would have been better," Bob agreed, "but we must be pretty
near half way down so I suppose we might as well keep on as turn back."
"Who said anything about turning back?" Jack laughed. "I'm worth a dozen
dead men, so come on."
"On it is," Bob shouted, "but it's my turn to break trail," and before
Jack could object he had pushed ahead of him. "It seems as though the
snow keeps coming down faster and faster all the time," he declared as
he started off.
"Yes, and wouldn't I like to get hold of that fellow that wrote the poem
about the beautiful snow," Jack growled, as he fell in close behind.
For another hour they struggled on without a word being spoken. They
both knew that they needed to husband all their strength, and talking so
as to be heard above a Maine blizzard, takes breath. It was now so dark
that although he was scarcely six feet behind, it was all Jack could do
to see the form of his brother.
"We'll never make it," Bob declared, as he stopped and waited for Jack
to come close. "But, thank goodness, we must be nearly to the cabin and
we'll stop there."
At the words Jack let out a wild yell of joy. "And to think that I never
thought of the cabin," he said, adding: "If we can only find it."
"All we've got to do is to follow down close to the shore till we bump
into the wharf," Bob said cheerfully, as he started off once more. "Here
we are," he shouted ten minutes later, and soon they were removing their
snow-shoes on the porch of the cabin.
"I don't believe I could have held out much longer," Jack panted, as he
followed Bob inside.
"I don't feel exactly rested myself," Bob laughed. "Now if you'll get
the fireplace going I'll do the same by the range and we'll soon have
the molecules in here dancing about a little more lively."
There was plenty of wood piled under cover just back of the cabin and
soon the range was roaring and the fireplace, as Jack declared, was
doing its best to hold up its end.
"That heat sure does feel good," the latter remarked, as he held out his
hands to the cheerful warmth.
The cabin was well stocked with provisions and it was not long before
supper was on the table and never did a meal taste better.
"This sure beats plugging through that storm out there," Bob declared,
as he listened to the howling of the wind which showed no signs of
abatement.
By the time they had the dishes washed and put away the living room was
good and warm and, drawing their chairs up in front of the fireplace,
they were soon deeply interested in the books which they had chosen from
the well-filled bookcase.
Outside the wind still howled and drove the flying snow against the
windows with fierce energy, but inside the cabin was warm and cozy. They
had been reading for the better part of two hours, stopping only to
replenish the fire as the logs burned away, leaving a thick bed of
glowing embers.
"I say, Bob, who is the funniest writer you know of?" Jack asked,
looking up from his book.
"James Whitcomb Riley," Bob replied after a moment's thought. "Why?"
"Oh, nothing, only you're wrong. He was funny all right, but you see the
man who wrote this poem Snow Bound, which I've been reading, was
'Whittier.'"
Bob caught up a sofa cushion and was about to hurl it at his brother,
when suddenly he paused, holding the cushion in the air.
"Listen," he cried.
Slowly the hand holding the cushion dropped to his side and both
strained their ears.
"What was it?" Jack asked, after a moment's pause.
"I thought I heard a cry," Bob replied, still listening. "But I guess I
was mistaken," he added, as he picked up his book from the floor where
it had fallen.
But he had hardly started reading again when he sprang to his feet and,
rushing to the door, flung it wide open.
"There, I knew I heard something," he shouted, as a faint but distinct
cry reached their ears above the wail of the storm.
"Help, help."
The last time the call was barely audible and although they listened
intently it was not repeated.