DICK DROPS A MOOSE
The loss of the cache, more than anything else, had cast its shadow of
gloom over the spirits of Dick and Sandy. Toma, however, who had made
the discovery, seemed not so deeply concerned.
“We catch um meat,” Toma attempted to cheer the boys. “Mebbe bye an’ bye
we eat.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” declared Sandy, thinking of the lonely
strip of bacon and the one handful of flour, which were all that
remained of the provisions the grizzly had destroyed. “To tell you the
truth, I haven’t seen very much game lately. Have you, Dick?”
Dick shook his head, forced to acknowledge the truth of Sandy’s
statement.
“When a fellow’s hungry,” Sandy complained, rubbing his lame ankle,
“he’s hungry, that’s all, and a mouthful of bacon is about as much good
to him as a drop of fresh water in the ocean.”
“Me no eat one time for whole week.” Toma reminded them.
Both boys looked up in astonishment.
“A whole week!” gasped Dick, “great guns! I hope we don’t come to that.”
“Mebbe set snare for rabbit tonight,” encouraged Toma. “Toma good ketch
um rabbit.”
“I could eat two or three rabbits,” Sandy grumbled, taking up the slack
in his belt.
As they made their way onward, Dick seriously considered their plight.
Thoughts of the ruthless, cold-hearted rifling of the cache by Bear
Henderson’s men filled him with an anger that was difficult to suppress.
But anger or resentment could not help them now. The thing to do was to
abandon any attempt at further progress that day and put in a few good
hours hunting while it was yet daylight.
“Boys,” he decided, “we’d better pitch camp here for a while, until we
can bag some game. My suggestion is that each of us start off in a
different direction. We must keep track of the time and be sure to get
back to camp by dark. The chances are that at least one of us will be
successful.”
“It’s hunt or starve,” agreed Sandy. “Which way do you want me to go?”
“Toma had better try his luck here in the creek valley,” said Dick,
“because game is apt to be more plentiful here and he’s the best hunter.
You and I can make our way into the hills, keeping about half a mile
apart. Shoot anything at all that has meat on its bones,” and he winked
slyly at Toma.
“I could eat a skunk and like it,” groaned Sandy. “By the way, before we
start don’t you think we’d better divide that bacon?”
With a queer, inexplicable feeling, Dick produced the last morsels of
food from their packs and divided them carefully. If he gave Sandy a
little more than an equal portion, no one, with the possible exception
of a tiny sparrow perched on a branch overhead, could have noticed it.
They ate in silence, and in silence they arose immediately after their
inadequate meal and started off for the hunt.
“I don’t think I’ll ever see anything,” Dick muttered to himself, “or if
I do the chances are that the pesky thing will get away. Hang it all,
why did Govereau, or whoever it was, have to find that cache?”
Dick’s mood brightened a few minutes later as he came up through the
autumn sunshine to the foot of a slope, thickly covered with stunted
pine. It looked like a very good hiding place for ptarmigan, or possibly
even deer. He unslung his rifle and went forward as cautiously as he
could, one finger hovering close to the trigger of his gun.
But, after an hour’s slow progress, Dick had begun to lose hope. He had
seen nothing. Apparently the forest was as devoid of all animal life as
a city street. Except for a hawk, circling lazily about high overhead,
there was neither bird nor beast anywhere in that lonely stretch of
wilderness.
Mopping his perspiring brow, the young hunter finally sat down for a
moment’s rest, before continuing his course to the top of a high ridge.
Then an abrupt, totally unexpected crackling in the heavy Saskatoon
thicket ahead caused him to start—almost in wonderment. His breath came
quickly. He half rose, then fearing, that even his slightest sound might
spoil everything, he sank down again, his left hand nursing the cold,
blue barrel of his Ross rifle.
More crackling, a sudden parting of the bushes, and Dick’s heart almost
stood still. A large bull moose, majestic in his stature, crashed into
view.
By this time Dick was fairly trembling with excitement. Twice he
endeavored to raise his rifle to his shoulder. His arm shook so much
that he knew it would be worse than useless to attempt a shot while his
nerves were in such a condition.
“I can’t do it,” thought Dick, then across his mind flashed the mental
picture of a cache, broken into and robbed, and the sneering face of
Pierre Govereau mocking him. Then his rifle went to his shoulder, and
two loud reports rang out in quick succession. The moose stumbled, but
did not fall. Dick heard quite plainly its sudden snort of alarm and the
crash of underbrush as it struck off at terrific speed directly down the
slope in the direction from which he had but recently come.
The moose was wounded, he knew, but he also was well aware from previous
experience that a wounded moose will often travel for miles before it
falls. Galvanized into action, Dick was off, following the blood-stained
trail, hoping against hope that either Sandy or Toma might intercept the
animal before it had become lost in the intricate tangle of brush and
woodland that lay to the south.
Sliding down a particularly treacherous part of the trail, Dick’s foot
caught in an exposed root and he fell heavily. As he bounded to his feet
again, he thought he heard a distant shout—but he was not entirely sure.
For twenty minutes more, he pushed forward rapidly, sometimes almost
losing the trail of the moose. Then finally he did lose it altogether.
Search as he would, the telltale tracks had disappeared as magically and
as unaccountably as if the animal had leaped into the air and flown away
to a place of safety.
“It’s the most unusual thing I ever heard of,” Dick commented aloud,
racing about in a vain effort to discover some sign that would point out
again the trail that had so suddenly vanished.
In despair his eyes fell upon a level formation of rock not more than
thirty feet away. Could it be that the moose had passed that
way—scrambled over the level rock floor in its mad race with death? If
so, it would explain the mysterious disappearance of the tracks; but
there must be blood-stains somewhere.
“Whoop-ee!” he shouted as his quick eyes made out the signs he
sought—small splotches of red scattered across the smooth surface of
sandstone. And shortly thereafter, he hurried on again, like a young
bloodhound finding fresh scent along the path ahead.
“I’ll be more careful next time,” he assured himself. “It would be a
pity if this moose got away. I’d have been ashamed to show my face in
camp.”
Two miles further on he almost forgot about the moose. Through a screen
of willows, skirting a small creek, he caught the faint movement of some
living thing—something that stood concealed and which watched him
furtively as he made his way along through the dead and matted grass of
the little valley.
Dick felt instinctively that some danger threatened. What this was he
had no way of finding out, yet the feeling persisted that he was being
watched, spied upon by an enemy more terrible than any wild denizen of
the forest. As he advanced swiftly on his way, he was conscious of a
strange tingling of nerves, as if he half expected at any moment to be
pounced upon and overcome by an unknown assailant.
“I’ve never felt so queer about anything in my life,” he confided to the
silent trees, as he hurried quickly along. “I’m sure that I saw
something move there in the bushes, and I’m positive that it wasn’t an
animal that walks on four legs.”
Just then, an object lying on the ground, immediately ahead, drove every
other thought from his mind. With a glad cry he sprang forward, and, a
short time later, stood looking down at the prostrate body of the bull
moose, majestic even in death.
A lump arose in Dick’s throat as he stood there silently regarding it.
“Poor old fellow,” he breathed, “it was a shame to do this. But perhaps
you saved us from starving. Maybe——”
A shout close at hand roused Dick from his musings. Wheeling about his
eyes lighted with pride and happiness, as he espied the approaching
figures of Sandy and Toma.
“Good for you!” Sandy exclaimed, as he strode up to where his chum was
standing. “I just knew you’d do it. Say, I believe it’s the biggest
moose I ever saw.”
“You ketch um big fella,” complimented Toma. “It is good.”
Together the three young adventurers stood admiring the moose. So
interested had they become that not one of them caught the sound of
stealthy footsteps until a heavy, threatening form, followed by three
others, pushed its way within the circle of admiring eyes.
With a cry of warning, Dick sprang back, clutching his rifle tightly.
Then he looked at the man.
It was Pierre Govereau!