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[Illustration: THE COLLEGE PRESIDENT AND THE YOUNG TAXIDERMIST.]
TWO WAYS
OF BECOMING
A HUNTER
BY
HARRY CASTLEMON
AUTHOR OF "GUNBOAT SERIES," "ROCKY MOUNTAIN SERIES,"
"WAR SERIES," ETC., ETC.
[Illustration: Logo]
PHILADELPHIA
PORTER & COATES
COPYRIGHT, 1892,
BY
PORTER & COATES.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. PLAYING TRUANT, 1
II. THE BUSHWHACKERS, 16
III. OSCAR AND HIS TROUBLES, 34
IV. THE YOUNG TAXIDERMIST, 50
V. OSCAR RECEIVES A LETTER, 66
VI. THE AMATEUR DETECTIVE, 79
VII. OFF FOR THE RIVER, 94
VIII. A FORTUNATE DUCK-HUNT, 109
IX. THE CAMP ON THE ISLAND, 129
X. AN ASTOUNDING OFFER, 140
XI. MR. SMITH MAKES AMENDS, 156
XII. AN EVENING WITH THE PRINCIPAL, 172
XIII. THE BLACK FOX, 187
XIV. WHO DESTROYED THE SNARES? 202
XV. BUGLE SEEKS REVENGE, 218
XVI. GOOD AND BAD NEWS, 234
XVII. PAYING THE FIDDLER, 247
XVIII. LEON MAKES UP HIS MIND, 261
XIX. PLANS AND ARRANGEMENTS, 271
XX. LEON DRAWS HIS MONEY, 282
XXI. THE RUNAWAYS, 290
XXII. THE PRAIRIE HOTEL, 300
XXIII. A FRIENDLY HUNTER, 312
XXIV. ON THE TRAIL, 325
XXV. FRANK STARTS FOR HOME, 335
XXVI. EBEN SHOWS HIS COLORS, 346
XXVII. ALONE AND FRIENDLESS, 357
XXVIII. A FAMILIAR FACE, 371
XXIX. A VOICE FROM THE SNOW-DRIFT, 384
TWO WAYS OF BECOMING A HUNTER.
CHAPTER I.
PLAYING TRUANT.
"I declare, Frank, it is time we were off. It is almost nine o'clock.
I wish to goodness there were no such things as school-houses and
school-books in the world."
"I am not going to school to-day."
"You're not?"
"No, sir. I'm going to take French leave."
"Do you mean that you are going to run away?"
"I suppose that is what you country fellows call it."
"Well, now, you had better take a friend's advice, and think twice
before you do that. You'll get yourself into trouble, sure. The rule
of our school is that you must bring a written excuse every time you
are absent."
"That was the rule of our school in Boston, too; but it didn't keep the
fellows from staying away whenever they felt like it."
"Where did you get your excuses?"
"We wrote them ourselves, and signed our father's name to them; that's
the way we got them."
"You can't fool our teacher that way. He knows our hand-writing too
well. He knows yours, too, by this time."
"I can disguise it so that he'll not recognize it, I bet you! Don't
let's go, Leon. I am heartily sick of school, and everything connected
with it."
"So am I."
"Then suppose we spend the day in the woods."
The conversation above recorded took place, one gloomy autumn morning,
between Leon Parker and his city cousin, Frank Fuller.
They were about sixteen years of age, and were bright, honest-looking
boys; but one of them, at least, was just the opposite of what he
appeared to be.
Leon Parker lived in the little town of Eaton, in one of our Northern
States. His father was a practising lawyer, and the boy was given every
opportunity to prepare himself for usefulness in after-life. But Leon
was too indolent to study, and the consequence was that he always stood
at the foot of his class, and saw boys younger than himself carry off
the honors he might have won if he had been willing to work for them.
Leon was not such a boy as you would have chosen for a companion. He
was cross and overbearing, and his father was often obliged to take him
to task for some of his misdeeds.
This always made him very angry. Other boys seemed to get on without
having the least trouble with their parents or anybody else, and Leon
finally came to the conclusion that his father was a tyrant, and that
he would be much happier if he could go so far away from him that he
would never see him again. And yet there were a good many boys in
Eaton who would have been glad to change places with him.
While his father insisted that he should behave himself, he was, at the
same time, very indulgent, and he had supplied Leon with a good many
things which the majority of the boys in Eaton regarded as necessary to
their happiness. He owned a beautiful little skiff, a jointed bass rod,
and a light fowling-piece. He had ample opportunity to use them, too.
The country about the village was hilly, almost mountainous; the
woods and thickets were dense, and grouse, quails, and gray and black
squirrels could be bagged any day without the slightest trouble. Foxes
were more abundant than the neighboring farmers wished they were, deer
were shot within sight of the court house every winter, and now and
then a bear or wildcat was seen among the hills.
In summer, the river which flowed in front of the village offered black
and rock bass, pike and perch. In the fall it was visited by thousands
of wild ducks, which stopped there to rest during their migrations,
and some of them were so well satisfied with the feeding-grounds they
found there that they remained all winter.
The most of the boys in Eaton thought it was a nice place to live, but
Leon, as we have said, was very discontented; and matters were made
worse by the arrival of his cousin, Frank Fuller, who was sent to Eaton
because he could not be managed at home.
It was understood among the boys to whom he had been introduced that he
had come there for the purpose of attending the high school of which
the village boasted, and, indeed, his father's instructions were that
he was not to miss a single day. He had been there just two weeks, and
now he was talking of playing truant.
Mr. Parker already regretted that he had consented to receive his
nephew into his house. He began to fear that his influence over Leon
would be anything but beneficial.
He had already detected him in numberless falsehoods, and had
discovered that, in spite of his apparent frankness, he was as sneaking
and sly as a boy could possibly be. And Frank, too, was sorry that he
had ever come to Eaton. He was disgusted with the quiet life he led at
his uncle's house, and heartily wished himself back in Boston.
"Let's go up on the hill and look at these snares you told me about the
other day," continued Frank. "We may find a partridge or two in them."
"That's so," exclaimed Leon. "I never should have thought of them
again. But it will be awful slow walking about the woods all day
without our guns."
"Oh, we'll take them with us!"
"But how can we carry them downstairs, and out of the house, without
being seen by somebody?"
"We'll do it--you may depend upon that," answered Frank, as he
disappeared in a closet opening off the room in which he and his cousin
slept.
When he came out again, he carried a light, silver-mounted rifle in one
hand and a game-bag and powder-horn in the other.
"We must have something to eat, too. It gives one a fearful appetite to
climb over these hills. You go and get the lunch just as if we were
going to school, and then come out to the barn, and you will find me
there with the guns."
To this Leon silently assented, and went into the closet after his
hunting accoutrements, which he handed over to Frank.
While the latter was slinging the game-bag and the powder- and
shot-flasks over his shoulders, Leon opened the door and ran downstairs.
In the hall he met his mother.
"I was just coming to call you," said she. "You boys will be late at
school if you do not make haste. Your lunch is all ready."
"We're just going to start," said Leon. "But not for school. We have
had quite enough of that," he added to himself, as he hurried through
the hall and turned into the kitchen.
Cramming the lunch into his pocket, he slipped out of the back door and
ran toward the barn.
When Leon reached the barn, he found Frank waiting for him. He had
watched his opportunity, and, as soon as his aunt went out of the
hall, he descended the stairs, opened the front door, and made his way
around the house to the place of meeting.
"Give me my game-bag, and I will put the lunch into it. We are all
right so far," he said, with a look of relief.
"Oh, there's nothing to be alarmed about," answered Frank, as he
unslung the game-bag from his shoulder and handed it to his cousin.
"If you had been in such scrapes as often as I have, you would think
nothing of it."
"Perhaps not; but I almost wish I had gone to school," said Leon
honestly. "What will become of us when father finds out that we have
played hookey? That's what bothers me."
"It needn't bother you, for he's not going to find it out," was Frank's
encouraging reply. "We'll enjoy ourselves in the woods for a day or
two, and then we'll go back to our Latin and geometry again. I'll write
the excuse. Don't spoil a good day's sport by worrying over that."
Having put the lunch in his game-bag Leon slung it over his shoulder,
picked up his gun, and opening a back door struck out across a wide
field that lay between the barn and the nearest piece of woods, closely
followed by his cousin.
They walked rapidly, looking back now and then to make sure that they
were keeping the barn between themselves and the house, and it was not
until they had climbed the fence and plunged into the woods that Leon
felt safe from discovery. Then he drew a long breath of satisfaction
and slackened his pace.
"If I stood as much in fear of my father as you do of yours, I wouldn't
stay with him," said Frank, who seemed to be perfectly at his ease.
"I'd run away from him."
It was right on the point of Leon's tongue to tell his cousin that he
had long ago resolved to do that very thing; but he didn't say it, for
he was not sure that it would be quite safe to trust Frank with his
secret.
"I have often thought I should like to go out West and live as those
hunters and trappers do," continued Frank. "Wouldn't it be jolly
to have a snug cabin somewhere in the mountains, and nothing to do
but attend to your traps every day and hunt the big game that is so
abundant out there?"
This very thought had often suggested itself to Leon's lively
imagination, and he had made up his mind that some day he would live in
just that way.
"I shall see that country before long," Frank went on. "Father is going
to California on business next year, and he has promised that if I will
behave myself while I am here in Eaton, he will take me with him. If I
like the looks of things as well as I think I shall, you'll never see
me among civilized people again."
"Will you stay out there and become a hunter?" asked Leon.
"Yes, sir!"
"But what would you say to your father?"
"I shouldn't say anything to him. When I found a place that suited me,
I would slip away from him, and let him come home without me."
"But you have lived in the city all your life, and what do you know
about the Western country?"
"I could learn all about it, couldn't I? I am a pretty good shot with
a rifle, and I should try to work myself in somewhere as post-hunter.
Others have done it, and I don't see why I couldn't."
"What is a post-hunter?" asked Leon.
"Why, he is a man whose business it is to keep the garrison supplied
with fresh meat. If the soldiers go out on an expedition to explore the
country or hunt Indians, he goes with them and shoots all the game they
want to eat. He is regularly employed and paid by the government. If I
couldn't get a position like that, I'd hunt buffaloes for their hides.
Why, only the other day I read in the paper that one old hunter out
there had killed twelve hundred buffaloes in a single season. He sold
their skins for a dollar apiece, too."
"Twelve hundred dollars a year!" exclaimed Leon.
"Oh, some of them make more than that. And then just think of the fun
they have!"
Leon had often thought of that very thing; and he had thought of it in
school, when his mind ought to have been fully occupied with his books.
Nothing suited him better than to ramble all day over the hills, with
his double-barrel in his hands, making double shots at the game-birds
with which the woods abounded. He generally spent every Saturday during
the hunting season in this way, and he had finally come to believe that
he would rather do that than anything else.
The only drawback to his enjoyment was that when the day drew to a
close the hunt came to an end, and he was obliged to go home. That was
a place where he never saw any pleasure, especially in the evening.
His father was always deeply engrossed with his paper, his mother was
busy with her needle, and, until Frank came, Leon had no one to whom he
could safely confide his secret hopes and longings.
When he became a hunter, with a nice little cabin of his own, in some
secluded valley where game of all kinds was abundant, things would be
very different, he often told himself.
After he had spent the day in attending to his traps and fighting with
the grizzlies, he would return to his snug harbor, well loaded with the
spoils of the chase; and while his venison steaks and corn bread were
turning to a crisp brown under the influence of a cheerful fire, he
would recline at his ease upon a pile of soft buffalo robes, and think
over the events of the day, while he listened to the howling of the
wolves and the sifting of the snow upon the roof of his cabin.
Leon always grew excited when this agreeable picture arose before his
mental vision, and he longed for the day when the dream would become a
reality.
Frank, as may be supposed, had a good deal to say about the joys of a
hunter's life, and while he talked and Leon listened, they pushed their
way rapidly through the woods, and finally, after crossing several deep
ravines and climbing two or three fences, they found themselves on Mr.
Parker's hill-farm, where Leon had set his snares.
The latter led the way toward the thicket in which the snares had been
placed, and when he reached it he stopped suddenly, dropped the butt
of his gun to the ground, and uttered an exclamation indicative of
great rage and astonishment.
"What's the matter?" asked Frank.
"Why, just look at that, and tell me if you ever heard of a more
contemptible trick!" exclaimed Leon.
Frank looked, but could discover nothing to excite his cousin's anger.
All he saw was a low fence, built of twigs, which stretched away on
each side of him as far as his eyes could reach. At intervals of a
dozen feet or more were little openings about six inches wide, and it
was in these openings that the snares had been set.
The last time Leon was there the snares were all in perfect order, and
ready to catch any luckless grouse or hare which might attempt to pass
through the openings before spoken of.
But now there was not a single snare to be seen. The strings of which
they were made had all been removed.
"It's the meanest piece of business I ever heard of!" continued Leon,
backing toward a fallen log and seating himself upon it. "That
meddlesome Oscar Preston has been up here and destroyed all my work. I
wish I could get within reach of him for about two minutes. I'd teach
him to mind his own business!"
Leon struck his open palm with his clenched hand, and looked very
savage indeed.