A MIDNIGHT PROWLER
“Yum yum!” exclaimed Fred, “I’ve eaten lots of beans in my short
lifetime, but never any that tasted half as good as these.”
“They are just about what the doctor ordered,” conceded Bobby.
“And when we get through these, how would a nice can of peaches taste?”
put in Lee.
“Scubbity-yow!” shouted Fred. “Peaches, did you say? Say, I think I’d be
contented to spend the rest of my life here. Bobby, we certainly owe you
a vote of thanks for getting us here the way you did.”
“It was mostly luck,” disclaimed Bobby. “If I hadn’t happened to notice
that arrow on the rock we’d be wandering around in the cold, cold world
yet, probably.”
“Well, after all the hard luck we’ve had, I think we had a little good
luck coming to us,” said Lee.
“Looks as though we had it, for the time being, anyway,” replied Bobby,
as he sawed away at the can of peaches. “Here, you fellows pass your
cups and I’ll fill them up with something that will make your hair
curl.”
His friends were not slow in accepting this invitation, and they ate the
luscious fruit with an appreciation sharpened by the privations they had
been through. As Bobby remarked, “nobody knew how good things were until
they hadn’t been able to get them for awhile.”
“I don’t know about you energetic Indians,” said Lee, when he had
finished his peaches with a sigh, half of contentment and half of regret
that they were gone, “but I’m just going to lie on the floor in front of
that fire and loaf for awhile,” and suiting the action to the word, he
threw himself down full length on the floor.
“I don’t know how Bobby feels,” said Fred, stretching luxuriously, “but
I don’t think I’d mind a little rest myself. Most of that energy Lee’s
talking about seems to have oozed out of me, someway.”
“Same here,” admitted Bobby. “And it’s funny, too. Outside of fighting
alligators and panthers and ducking mudholes and quicksands, we haven’t
really been doing anything the last few days.”
“A little more of this,” remarked Fred, “and a football game will seem
quiet and restful. We’ll be going to sleep in the middle of it.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Bobby, “but I do know that it won’t be
very long before I get to sleep to-night.”
“I suppose that whoever owns this cabin won’t thank us for eating his
food,” went on Fred, as all three boys lay luxuriously at ease and gazed
into the radiant heart of the fire.
“If we ever get out of this wilderness, I’ll find out who the place
belongs to, and we’ll pay him for what we take,” said Lee; “I know if it
were mine, I wouldn’t grudge the food to any one who needed it as badly
as we did.”
“I wonder who _does_ own it,” speculated Bobby.
“I haven’t any idea,” admitted Lee, “but lots of the people around here
keep places like this for hunting, and I suppose that’s what it’s been
used for.”
“Nobody would have to hunt very long around here before he found
something, it seems to me,” said Bobby. “It seems as though it were the
other way around, and the animals come and hunt us.”
“Well, that doesn’t matter, as long as they don’t get us,” said Lee,
“and I guess we’re as safe in this cabin as we would be sleeping at
Rockledge.”
“Yes, or safer, in one way,” said Fred. “If the cabin should catch fire,
all we’d have to do would be to open the door and walk out, while when
the school caught fire we didn’t have it quite so easy.”
“That’s true enough,” agreed Bobby. “But while we’re talking of this
place being safe, I vote we fasten the door better than it is now.
There’s nothing but a latch holding it, and I’d feel safer it we could
make it a little more secure.”
“We might jam a chair against it,” suggested Fred, “the floor is pretty
uneven, and we could jam the chair in between one of the planks and the
door, so that an elephant would have a hard job getting in.”
“That’s certainly the way we want it,” said Lee, laughing. “The harder
it is to get that door open, the better I’ll sleep.”
“Wow!” exclaimed Fred, with a tremendous yawn. “Speaking of sleep, let’s
fix things up and go to sleep. I feel as though I could win the long
distance sleeping championship without half trying.”
“You’ll have to go some to beat me out,” laughed Bobby, scrambling to
his feet. “Let’s see if Fred’s plan to fasten the door will work.”
“Nothing surer in the world,” boasted Fred, “just watch me.”
Just in front of the door one floor board was warped so that it was
perhaps half an inch higher than those alongside it. The cabin was
equipped with three rude but very strong chairs, and seizing one of
these, Fred jammed it in between the door and the uneven board so that
any one or anything attempting to enter would have to tear up the floor
before it could gain admittance.
“There!” exclaimed Fred, stepping back to view his handiwork, “I guess
any one that wants to come in here now will have to ask our permission
first.”
The windows of the little cabin were small and criss-crossed with stout
scantlings, so there was no chance of any denizen of the woods making
them an unwelcome visit by means of that route. It was Lee who suggested
the only remaining possibility.
“I wonder if any friends of that cougar could get down the chimney,” he
speculated.
“We’ll soon see,” said Bobby, crossing over to the fireplace. He glanced
in under the hood that projected from the fireplace to keep the smoke
out of the room.
“I don’t think there’s any chance of that,” he stated. “The flue isn’t
more than eight or ten inches square, and anything that could get down
there couldn’t do us much damage. Besides, the fire will be going most
of the night, and I guess that would do the trick, even if the chimney
were four times as big as it is now.”
Reassured on this point, the boys threw more wood on the fire, for the
sake of light as well as warmth, and selected their bunks for the night.
There were four of these built against the wall opposite the fireplace,
and they were filled with twigs and dead leaves, making a comfortable
enough bed for those who were tired enough not to be particular about
where they slept.
“I guess there’s not much choice,” said Bobby, “so I’ll just tumble into
the one nearest me.” Which he proceeded forthwith to do. The others each
selected a bunk, and followed his example.
The fire crackling cheerily on the hearth made the cabin pleasantly
warm, and the boys were just dropping off to sleep when they were
suddenly brought back to wakefulness with a jerk by a stealthy
scratching sound at the door, followed by a low growl. For a few seconds
after this there was silence, and then the boys could hear the door
creak as some strong body pushed against it.
Thanks to the strong barricade against it, however, the stout door
defied the efforts of the would-be intruder, and the boys, sitting up in
their bunks with every sense alert, could hear the soft pad-pad of feet
encircling the cabin. Then there was a sudden fierce scrambling and
scratching, and the beast, whatever it was, was on the roof. It prowled
restlessly about, stopping every now and then to tear at the roof with
rasping claws. But the cabin was constructed in stout fashion, and was
not to be entered so easily.
“What do you suppose it can be, fellows?” questioned Lee in a low voice,
which trembled a little in spite of himself. “Do you think it can be
another cougar?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” whispered Bobby. “Maybe it’s the mate of the
one that we killed to-day. She may have tracked us to get revenge.”
“I’ll bet that’s just what it is!” cried Fred. “Suppose we had had to
sleep in the woods to-night. We’d be goners, sure.”
The others nodded, and they all three listened to see what the night
prowler would do next. The brute examined every foot of the roof, and
the boys could hear it sniffing suspiciously at the chimney. They
blessed the man who had constructed the cabin with such a wary eye for
such contingencies, and congratulated each other on being safe within
instead of out in the woods and practically at the mercy of the savage
brute.
The beast overhead finally seemed to come to the conclusion that it
could not get in from the roof, and it leaped to the ground and the boys
could hear it going away. For a long time they listened for it to come
back, but it did not, and at last, far away, they heard the same wild
scream they had heard while on the island in the swamp, but this time
there seemed to be a note of grief as well as ferocity in the cry. It
rose, cut wailingly through the darkness, and then died away.
For a long time the boys sat tense and expectant, not knowing at what
moment the beast might return. But as nothing further happened,
drowsiness at last overcame them, and after throwing a fresh supply of
fuel on the fire, they dropped off into deep slumber, from which they
were only awakened by a golden shaft of sunshine that pierced in through
one of the little windows.
“Gee,” said Bobby, sitting up and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, “I
feel fit for anything now, and hungry enough to eat nails. It’s your
turn to cook, Fred. Hustle around and see if you can get breakfast as
well as I got supper last night.”
“Huh! I’ll show you what real cooking is like,” said Fred, leaping out
of his bunk. “What shall it be—humming-birds’ tongues or bird’s-nest
soup?”
“I think I’d rather have some bacon, if it’s all the same to you,” said
Bobby, with mock seriousness. “There’s a fresh jar of it in the closet.”
“Oh, well, if you’d rather have ordinary, everyday bacon,” said Fred,
“I’ll have to give it to you, I suppose,” and he soon had some
appetizing slices sizzling in the pan.
“That cougar last night seems like a bad dream now,” remarked Lee. “I
don’t mind admitting I felt mighty nervous while he was prowling
around.”
“I guess none of us exactly enjoyed it,” returned Bobby. “But it may not
have been a cougar at all. Maybe it was only a wildcat.”
“Possibly,” said Lee, doubtfully, and Fred terminated further discussion
at this point by serving out the crisp bacon, together with some
hardtack that he had fried in the grease. This was soon eaten, and after
Fred had been complimented on his cooking, the boys cautiously
unfastened the door, and, seeing no signs of the beast, whatever it was,
that had disturbed them the previous night, ventured forth to explore
their surroundings.