ON GUARD
Everybody was awake in an instant. Even though the cry had thrilled Lub
through and through somehow he did not seem to forget about the little
fellow who was under the covers with him; for his very first act was to
lift him up, blanket and all, and struggle to get out of the shack.
They had all seen a light, though it had remained for the keen eyes of
X-Ray to discover what caused it. But as soon as they emerged from the
shelter, Phil, Ethan and Lub found no difficulty in seeing that the
alarm had not been a false one; for one side of the shack was all afire.
"Go for it, everybody!" cried Phil, as he started to throw all the snow
he was able to snatch up on the fiercely burning mass.
"Fire-fighters get busy!" echoed X-Ray, copying the other's example; nor
was Lub long in finding a place where he could deposit his burden and
join in the attack.
Thus beset on all sides the fire quickly died down as the snow melted
and drowned the ardor of the flames. Before many minutes had passed away
they had it under control.
"We want to save a part of it for our regular fire, because we'll need
it to get warm by!" observed long-headed Ethan.
"Warm!" gasped Lub. "Why, I'm fairly roasting right now."
"Well, you won't be in a jiffy, when that cold wind strikes down your
back," the other warned him; "how about the fire business, Phil?"
"It's a good idea," he was told; "but don't bother carrying any of what
is left of this stuff over; we have plenty of good wood handy, you
remember. And I want to look a little closer into this brush-heap, you
see."
"Ginger popguns; that's so," cried X-Ray; "however did that stuff get
there, I'd like to know? We didn't bank it up that I remember."
"Never mind about that yet," Phil told him; "get the fire going, and
then we can talk it over. There's something about this affair that looks
pretty suspicious to me, I want you to know."
All of them were thinking the same thing as they hurried to get their
own fire going in front of the shack.
When this had been accomplished they found time to look around. The boy
was sitting up, and Lub had seen to it that he had the warm folds of the
blanket about him, so he was in no danger of taking cold. He looked both
puzzled and full of wonder, but Phil noticed that he did not appear to
be afraid.
"He's made of good stuff, most likely," he told himself; "and is a chip
off the old block all right, if he's Baylay's boy; because they admit
the poacher is a man without fear."
"Now," remarked Ethan, after they were all seated near the fire, "let's
try and get a little light on this mystery. How did that fire come to be
started; and who put all that brush up against the back of our shack, I
want to know?"
"That's so, who did?" echoed Lub, wagging his head with the words, and
looking unusually solemn.
"Notice in the first place," Phil continued, "that it was piled up on
the windward side; that was done so it would take hold in a hurry, once
the match was struck. I even got a whiff of _kerosene_ when I was
working at putting out the blaze; and it strikes me some of it was used
over the brush to make it burn more furiously."
"Whee!" gasped Lub; "then you mean to say, Phil--"
"I mean that this thing didn't come about by accident," the other
interrupted Lub to say positively; "none of us put that stuff there, and
we have no kerosene to waste throwing it around. Besides, every one was
sound asleep inside the shack when it happened."
"Somebody meant to burn us out, that's it, Phil!" declared X-Ray.
"Baylay?" cried Ethan, on a hazard.
"Not on your life," X-Ray told him; "Baylay doesn't know there are any
such fellows as the Mountain Boys on earth. But there is one man who
does, because he ran up against a couple of the same latterly, and had
to duck. I'm referring to the eminent capitalist and financier
millionaire, Mr. James Bodman."
"Whee!" breathed Lub again, as his emotions almost overpowered him; he
did not venture to interrupt, but just sat there and listened with all
his might to the exciting talk that was going on among his chums.
"Well," said Ethan, slowly, "from the description of that sportsman, and
the way he acted when he found he couldn't bulldoze the pair of you, I
wouldn't put a thing like this past him; but how would he know where we
were camped?"
"Oh! that is easy to answer," Phil told him; "don't you remember how we
learned where they were settled by seeing smoke rising in the cold air,
straight as a church pillar?"
"I reckon they could see the same if they happened to look this way,"
admitted Ethan, "because Lub uses all kinds of wood, and some of it
makes a black smudge. Well, I'll admit for the sake of argument that
they could easy enough learn where our camp lay; but do you believe that
stout sportsman would go to the trouble to sneak all the way over here,
several miles it must be, just to try and make us some nasty mean
trouble?"
"No, I don't," replied Phil, instantly.
"Then what follows?" demanded the other, desperately.
"He knows the power of money, because he uses it right along to further
some of his big schemes," Phil exclaimed.
"You mean he could bribe a couple of his guides to come over here and do
the burning racket; is that what you have in mind, Phil?" asked Ethan.
"Yes, there's no doubt of it in my mind," he was told.
"But we'd always have to just guess at it, because we could never know
for sure," X-Ray went on to say, in a dubious tone that told of
disappointment.
"Perhaps not," Phil remarked; "come over with me, and let's take a look;
for I've got a notion we can settle that thing in our minds, even if
nothing might ever be done to punish the sneaks who did the job."
He picked up a burning brand from the fire that promised to serve fairly
well as a torch; and with this swinging from his hand led the others to
the back of the scorched shack.
"Close by we've all trodden things into a mass," he explained; "but
let's look further away. Here's a place where it happens we find only a
couple of inches of snow, and you can see footprints plainly marked.
Look again, and tell me if any of us made those tracks coming and
going?"
"They carried the brush along here, too, Phil, because you can see
little twigs lying on the surface of the snow!" announced Ethan.
"But examine the footprints, because they will tell the story," said
Phil.
"Why, they are not like our tracks at all," said X-Ray, immediately.
"None of them show any sign of heels, Phil!" exclaimed Ethan; "does that
mean they can be moccasins made of tough hide, and not hunting-boots
like ours?"
"Now you're getting close to the heart of it," the leader assured him;
"for most of the guides up here in this region wear such foot coverings,
as the Indians did before them. I believe there were two men concerned
in this outrage, and that they were paid by Mr. James Bodman to come
over here and burn us out."
"The coward!" muttered Lub, indignantly, as his pent-up feelings broke
bounds; "why, they might have smothered us while we slept."
"Oh! I don't suppose the millionaire believed it would be as bad as
that, for I hardly think he's got to the point where he'd commit murder
outright; but he meant to give us all the bother he could. That was his
way of trying to get even because we refused to knuckle down to him, and
let him claim our caribou."
"Huh! guess then he's been crazy to shoot game like that for a long
time; and was a whole heap disappointed when he found it was our shots
that had downed the young buck," and X-Ray chuckled as though he felt
that after all the score was still decidedly in their favor.
"What surprises me, and makes me feel small," continued Phil, "is how I
could sleep through it all and never know that they were creeping up,
fetching that brush along with them, and piling it against the back of
the shack."
"Oh! we're all in the same boat," said Ethan, "because I was hundreds of
miles away from here, and going to singing school with Sally Andrews
when X-Ray let out that yawp!"
"And I own up that it was just by a lucky chance I happened to wake up,"
X-Ray Tyson admitted; "you know smoke always makes me choke, and that's
why I try to sit on the windward side of fires. It must have got in my
throat as I slept, because I suddenly sat upright to get my breath.
Course I knew right away something was on the boards that ought to be
attended to, and so I woke the rest up gently."
"Gently!" echoed Lub; "say, it seemed to me as if an electric current
heavy enough to execute a criminal had been shot through my system. I
bet you I've lost as much as five pounds in weight just through the
nervous excitement."
"Poor chap!" said X-Ray; "it's a pity then it doesn't happen oftener. I
think I'll take to giving you a regular shock like that every few
nights. You could drop forty pounds and be all the better for it."
"Who's running my heft, me or you, I want to know?" demanded Lub; "it
suits me just as it is. When I get a notion that I want to start to join
your Living Skeleton class I'll give you due notice. And until that time
comes please let me sleep in peace."
"Well, what can we do about this outrage?" asked Ethan.
"Nothing much," admitted Phil.
"It would be silly to think of going over and entering a complaint to
that red-faced grunter," declared X-Ray; "because we'd only be insulted
to our faces. Why I wouldn't put it past him to threaten to have us
kicked out of his camp, though of course James would have too much sense
to try the job himself."
"We'll have to pocket the insult, and try to guard against having it
happen again, that's all," was Phil's conclusion. "And let me tell you
we have to be thankful it turned out no worse than it did. The damage
isn't worth mentioning, and it's opened our eyes to the fact that we
have dangerous neighbors who will bear watching from this time out."
"But, Phil, we don't mean to let them chase us away from here, do we?"
interposed Lub, who came of good Revolutionary stock, and was a sticker.
"Well, I guess not, if we have to keep on the watch every single night,"
retorted X-Ray, belligerently.
"Are we going to sit here till it's time to get breakfast?" asked Lub,
casting a solicitous glance over toward the spot where the boy was
wrapped in his blanket--it would be hard to say whether Lub were
concerned about the welfare of the little fellow, or coveted the warmth
of the said blanket; perhaps he might have been influenced by both
motives, for his heart was warm, even when he shivered with the cold
breeze on his back.
"No use of that, when it's hardly an hour after midnight right now!"
declared Phil, with a look aloft to where the star-studded sky gave him
the information. "The rest of you toddle back to the shack and let me
sit here a while," Ethan told them, as he gathered his blanket closer
about him, after picking up his gun, as Phil noticed.
"I was just going to say the same thing myself, Ethan," remarked the
leader.
"But first come, first served, that's the rule we go by, remember,
Phil."
"I'll agree, on one condition," he was told.
"Name it then, Phil."
"There's Jupiter away up yonder; in just about two hours he'll be
setting below the horizon. Promise to call me before he disappears from
sight, will you, Ethan."
"Agreed, though I wouldn't mind sticking out the watch till daylight,"
said the other, and his manner told that he certainly meant every word
of it.
"But how about me?" complained X-Ray; "there's another star up yonder
that will set by five o'clock; you've got to promise to let me stand
guard from then on to daylight. I refuse to be left out in the cold in
any deal."
"And don't I have any show at all?" whined Lub, though rather faintly,
as though he knew very well they would not consent; for he had a failing
with respect to going to sleep on his post, having been tested on
numerous occasions and found wanting.
It was presently arranged then that Phil would arouse X-Ray when the
second star was about to disappear. He smiled faintly when making this
concession, but X-Ray did not appear to notice it. The fact of the
matter was Phil knew very well that there had been a serious
miscalculation on the part of the ambitious sentinel, because that
second star would still be half an hour from the horizon when the sun
was due to send his flaming banners athwart the eastern sky to herald
his approach.
The fire had scorched the back of their shelter but no serious damage
had been accomplished. That was owing to the fact of smoke affecting the
sensitive throat of X-Ray Tyson; a thing that may have caused him more
or less discomfort in times past, but which certainly stood them all in
good stead on this particular night.
On this account they could sleep just as well as before, granting of
course that their nerves had not been too much disturbed by the sudden
peril, and the fight they had had to put up in order to save their
possessions.
The fire was now to be kept up without intermission, day and night.
Should any of those unprincipled men come over again from the other
camp, bent on doing them an injury, they might well pause and abandon
the attempt when they discovered how the boys maintained a constant
watch, with arms in their hands, and sufficient light to discover a
creeping figure, which they would be justified in firing at.
True to his promise Ethan aroused Phil when Jupiter was about to dip
behind the horizon.
"All well, and getting colder right along, so that the fire feels
bully!" was all the report the late sentry thought fit to make, after he
had seen Phil take his place on the log, gun in hand, and blanket about
his shoulders.
"Then crawl in, and go to sleep," advised the new guard, as he watched
Ethan trying to smother a huge yawn.
"Guess I will, because it's quite some time to daylight, and there's
little use for a pair of us to stand sentry duty."
So Ethan vanished inside the shack, and Phil was left to insure their
safety, as the brilliant heavenly bodies kept up their steady western
march, and the night breeze sang mysterious chants through the
snow-covered branches of the firs.