A NOCTURNAL VISITOR
It was in that dark hour that precedes the dawn, which for some reason
or other is always the blackest of the night. The three boys were
sleeping soundly. Suddenly Phil awoke and sniffed the air. For a moment
or two he was dazed, then he gave a shout.
His cry of alarm woke the others, and they were about to leap from their
beds when Phil's warning shout prevented them.
"What's the trouble, Phil?" asked Garry. "Are there snakes in the shack
or are you just having a nightmare? Whew!" Garry had no need to ask any
further questions.
The nocturnal visitor was nothing more nor less than a polecat, that
little animal of the woods about the size of a cat, but commonly called
a skunk.
Phil retained his presence of mind, and reached to the bottom of his
bunk and hauled out one of his heavy shoepacks. With a well directed aim
he heaved it at the unwelcome little intruder, which at that moment was
near the door. The force of the blow carried the animal out into the
night, and then the boys hopped out of their bunks and seized their
clothes. Keeping a wary eye, they dashed through the door and out of the
way. The animal by this time was scampering away.
Going back to the shack was almost out of the question, for he had left
his unmistakable scent behind him.
"There goes my night's sleep all shot to pieces," exclaimed Phil in an
aggravated tone. "First I go on a wild goose chase to hear a plot and
hear nothing, then this comes up, and blooie, there is goodbye to rest.
Bet you I take a nap this morning. Wonder if that smell will evaporate
or will we have to build a new shack. Also there is going to be a door
on the next one. I don't want any more night visitors like that chap."
"Hush a minute," whispered Garry. To the ears of the boys, trained by
their work in the woods to catch the slightest sound, came the soft
noise as of someone walking towards the bunkhouse. In a moment Garry was
flat on the ground, wiggling along as does an Indian on the war path in
a manner that the boys had often practiced when they were Scouts.
He was back in about five minutes. The others were all curious to know
what had made him act in such a mysterious manner.
"Someone was prowling about, and just a moment ago went into the
bunkhouse. I could hear him when he dropped his shoes as he got ready to
crawl into the bunk. Here's what I think. That wood pussy may have
wandered into the shack all by his lonesome, but for my part I think it
is the first event in a campaign to make things so unpleasant for us
that we will cut short our visit and go away," whispered Garry.
"They couldn't have picked on anything much better to make it
unpleasant," answered Dick. "What will we do now?"
By this time the first faint streaks of dawn appeared, and in a little
while the camp would be astir.
"It is almost morning, and now that we are wide awake and up, we might
as well stay so," answered Garry. "First thing we do this morning is to
get a few more boards and fashion a door for this shack. Also I saw some
heavy screening yesterday,--you notice that all the windows are
screened,--and we will tack a double thickness of that over the window.
That will afford us some slight protection against the invasion of more
friends such as the one that paid us an unwelcome call."
In a little while the camp was starting to come to life. First appeared
the cookee who favored the boys with a knowing grin, then came the cook,
who immediately started the work of getting breakfast. Finally,
struggling into their clothes as they came yawning through the doors,
appeared the lumberjacks.
Garry cautioned his chums to say nothing for the moment about their
experience of the night. They passed several moments in chatting with
those of the lumberjacks with whom they thought they might make friends
that would perhaps stand them in good stead later on. Garry was telling
a funny story and at its conclusion the men burst into a roar of
laughter.
The red headed cookee happened to be passing just as the men began to
laugh, and he looked sharply at the boys. While he was serving them
breakfast in the smaller room,--they happened to be alone as Barrows had
not yet arisen,--he remarked:
"Understand you chaps didn't sleep very well last night."
"No, we didn't," answered Garry, looking up quickly.
"Well, better luck next time," and still grinning the cookee shambled
out of the room.
"Well!" exploded Garry. "If that chap didn't go and give himself clean
away first shot out of the gun!"
"Looks as though your hunch about its being a part of the campaign of
ruthlessness was a fact," said Dick with a laugh.
"Only question in my mind," said Phil, "is did he think of it himself as
a sort of a practical joke, or was he put up to it by Barrows?"
"Looks pretty certain to me that Barrows was the instigator of the
matter," answered Garry.
When Barrows appeared, the boys explained the matter to him, and asked
him for the necessary lumber with which to construct a door, also some
screening for the window. Barrows told them they could go to the saw
mill and select whatever they wanted in the way of boards.
As they were getting the boards, an old grizzled lumberman chatted with
them. He asked why they wanted a door in that kind of weather, and Garry
told him the story.
"They do leave a reg'lar trail behind them, don't they?" laughed the old
man. "I'll tell you what you can do, though, and it will fix things up
pretty well. I always keep some sulphur on hand when I'm in the woods.
Occasionally you get a rash from the browntail moths in the woods, and
the best thing for a cure is a poultice made with a little sulphur. When
you put your door on, take a few extra boards and board up your window.
Then take the sulphur that I give you and put it in a pan and set it on
fire with a hot coal from the kitchen range. Then you hop out and let
the shack get thoroughly filled with the fumes o' the sulphur, and
you'll find after a couple or three hours that you'll have your place
fumigated as pretty as if you had ten boards of health do the job for
you."
The boys thanked the old timer, and left with their lumber. A few
minutes later he appeared on the scene with his sulphur, and the work of
boarding the window and making a door being completed, they did as he
had directed and went on a tour of the camp.
As they were wandering about, with Sandy at their heels, they were again
approached by the man who had wanted to go on a coon hunt. This time
they accepted his invitation, and arranged to go that night.
The day passed quickly, for there were many things about the camp to
attract their attention, and they asked numerous questions of such of
the lumberjacks as seemed inclined to spend a moment or two to answer
them.
As soon as it got dark, the coon hunter appeared and asked if they were
ready to go. He was accompanied by one or two of his friends, and Garry
noticed that one of them carried a burlap bag.
The boys secured their rifles, and were about to join the party, when
one of the men, noticing the guns, said:
"You don't need your rifles, although you can carry 'em if you want. We
were aiming to catch the coon alive and see if we couldn't tame him for
a sort of pet around the camp. That's what we brought the bag for."
"Good," answered Garry. "We aren't much on shooting animals just for the
sake of shooting."
The trio of men led the way to where the man called Tom had said he had
seen a raccoon a few days before. Sandy was eagerly sniffing at the
ground, and soon he gave vent to a low growl.
"By gosh, I believe he's got the scent already," chuckled one of the
men. "It may be some other kind of an animal, but I doubt it. All I've
seen around here is the raccoon, although there were a few rabbits at
different times. Still the raccoon is the most likely to be out prowling
at this time of night."
Soon Sandy was off, with his nose close to the ground. After a few
moments he had left them entirely, and they followed only by means of
his occasional barks. After almost half a mile of chasing, they heard a
series of wild barks, and knew that Sandy had driven something to bay.
In a few moments they had caught up to the dog, and there sure enough he
had something treed and was venting his pleasure by loud and vociferous
barks.
They peered up into the tree and could see nothing. In the meantime one
of the men had discovered a hole at the foot of the tree.
"Now one of you fellows get some branches, dry ones of course, and we'll
soon have Mr. Coon all trapped as nice as you please."
One of the men, assisted by Dick, soon gathered an armful of dry sticks.
Getting a boost from his friend, Tom soon shinnied up the tree, and
stopped after he had gotten about fifteen feet up well into the
branches, for it was a small tree.
"Here's the upper end of the hollow," he called down. "Now you fellows
start your fire at the hole down there, while I spread the bag over this
hole."
The smudge was soon started, and fanning it with their coats, they drove
the smoke into the hollow tree trunk. They were always careful not to
let the flames of the fire get to the tree, or they might have started a
forest fire that would have been disastrous. As a matter of fact,
several bad forest fires have started from an unskillful attempt to
smoke some animal out of a tree.
Soon there was a shout from the man up the tree. "I've got him!"
The smoke had proved too much for Brer Raccoon, and he had sought to
escape by the hole at the top, only to walk into the bag. In a moment
more Tom had descended the tree with a squirming, snarling animal safely
tied up in the bag.
On their return to the camp they were greeted by several of the jacks
who had not yet gone to bed. The catch was exhibited, and one of the men
produced an old dog collar from the bunkhouse. The collar was snapped on
the coon's neck, a stout rope was attached to the ring in the corner to
be later tied securely to a nail at the corner of the bunkhouse.
"There," remarked Tom, surveying the result of the night's catch. "If
you fellows will lay off and not tease him, and shinny out a little food
for him once in a while, he'll get tame as a kitten, and they are a lot
of fun when they get tame. Almost as good as a monkey."
"We'll have to keep Sandy tied up for a while when he is not with us, or
he'll make short work of that coon," remarked Garry.
"Oh, I'll have 'em as friendly as two brothers in a few days," was Tom's
verdict.
The boys later found that the man Tom had a reputation for being quite a
hand with animals of every description, but future events will show why
Sandy and the coon never got well acquainted. Things were on the verge
of beginning to hum for all hands.
When the boys woke in the morning, they made two startling discoveries.
The first one was that repeated calls failed to bring Sandy to them, and
the boys had never remembered the morning when Sandy went so far abroad
that a few whistles did not bring him back on the run to join his
companions.
The second surprise was found when Garry noticed a familiar looking roll
of birch bark at the entrance to the cabin, weighted down by a stone!