THE BUSHWHACKERS.
"Who is Oscar Preston?" asked Frank, as he seated himself on the log
beside his cousin.
"Oh, he's the village pot-hunter!" Leon answered, throwing as much
contempt into his tones as he could.
"Pot-hunter?" repeated Frank.
"Yes. He's a market-shooter. He doesn't hunt game for the fun of it,
as you and I, and all other decent fellows do, but he does it to make
money out of it. He is too lazy to earn a living in any respectable
way; and, besides, as he comes of a dishonest family, no one in town
will employ him. You see, he and his brother used to work in Smith &
Anderson's grocery store. Oscar was one of the clerks, and his brother
was book-keeper and cashier. Just before you came here, his brother
disappeared all of a sudden, and has never been heard of since. After
he was gone his books were examined, and it was found that he was a
defaulter to the amount of three thousand dollars. Smith & Anderson
didn't like that very well, and believing that if there was one thief
in the Preston family there might be another, they thought it was best
to give Oscar his walking-papers."
"Does he make any money by shooting for the market?" asked Frank.
"I should say he did. There is a mortgage of five hundred dollars on
his mother's place (his father is dead, you know), and Oscar has paid
off a hundred dollars of it since he left the store. He's got a leaky
old scow, a double-barrel blunderbuss that you and I wouldn't pick up
in the street, and a half starved hound. The scow he uses for hunting
ducks on the river, and with the hound he runs foxes and rabbits. When
summer comes, I suppose he will fish all the time. He can catch black
bass where nobody else would ever think of looking for them, and he can
sell every one of them for ten cents a pound."
"But what right had he to destroy your snares?"
"He had no right to do it, for he is not game-constable."
"What sort of a constable is that!" asked Frank.
"Why, you know there is a law in this State which says that game shall
not be shot except at certain seasons of the year, and a game-constable
is a man whose business it is to see that the law is obeyed. It
is against the law to trap partridges and quails, and if we had a
game-constable in town I shouldn't have set these snares, for I should
have rendered myself liable to prosecution; but the office is vacant
now, for there was no one elected to fill it last year."
"I think Oscar was taking a good deal upon himself," said Frank.
"So do I; and the reason he did it was because every partridge or
rabbit that I catch leaves just one less for him to shoot for market.
But these are my father's grounds, and I shall give him to understand,
the first time I meet him, that I want him to keep away from here. You
and I can shoot all the birds there are in these woods."
"I wouldn't take the trouble to say a word to him," replied Frank. "I'd
pay him back in his own coin. If he wouldn't let me snare birds, I
wouldn't let him hunt foxes. Do you ever see that hound of his running
about the woods?"
"Oh, yes, I often see him!"
"Well, the next time you put eyes on him just bushwhack him and send a
charge of shot into him."
"I can do that, can't I?" exclaimed Leon, growing excited at once.
"But what if Oscar should find it out?" he added, after he had taken a
second thought.
"Very likely he will find it out. He will know that somebody has shot
his hound when he finds him dead, won't he?"
"But I mean--suppose he should find out that I did it?"
"I don't see how he can do it. The hound, if he is following a trail,
will probably be some distance in advance of his master, and all you've
got to do is to knock him over and dig out. It isn't at all probable
that Oscar will ever find out who did the shooting; but if he does, you
can tell him that you did it to square accounts with him for destroying
your snares."
"I'd like to do it, but it would be sure to raise a storm in the
village," said Leon, shaking his head in a very significant manner.
"All the folks used to like that boy, and he's got a good many friends
yet."
"Then show me the hound, and I'll shoot him!" said Frank impatiently.
"I thought you had more pluck. _I_ am not afraid of that fellow, or his
friends either. Now, let's set these snares again, and go on and see if
we can find some birds. But in the first place, explain one thing to
me: What did you build that fence for?"
"To stop any rabbit or partridge who might come this way," answered
Leon.
"I shouldn't think it would stop them. They could easily jump over it,
for it isn't much more than a foot high."
"But they won't do it," said Leon. "Whenever they come to an
obstruction of this kind they never attempt to cross it--that is, they
are not alarmed, but run along by the side of it to find some way to
get through or around it. When they reach one of these openings they
try to squeeze through it, and that is the time they get caught. Now
I'll show you how the snares are set."
Leon placed his gun against the log on which he was sitting, and
producing a piece of fine, strong twine from one of the pockets of
his game-bag, he made a running noose in one end of it. The other he
fastened securely to a small hickory sapling which grew near one of the
openings in the fence. This done, he bent the sapling over and placed
the noose in the opening, and confined it there with a short notched
stick which he cut from a neighboring bush. Then, in order to show his
cousin how the snare operated, he pushed the notched stick out of its
place by giving it a gentle tap with his finger, whereupon the sapling
straightened itself up with a jerk, and the running noose was fastened
firmly about his wrist.
"Oh, I see!" exclaimed Frank. "When a bird or rabbit tries to pass
through one of these little gates, he knocks out the stick, and is
pulled up by the neck before he knows what is the matter with him."
"That is just the way the thing works," replied Leon; "and the noose is
drawn together so quickly, when the sapling flies back to its place,
that nothing can get out of the way of it. Nine times in ten, when you
find one of your snares sprung, you will find game in it."
"Give me some of that string and I'll help you set them," said Frank,
leaning his rifle against the log beside his cousin's double-barrel. "I
know how it is done now."
The boys had a good hour's work before them. The fence was nearly a
hundred yards long; there were a good many openings in it, and the
person who destroyed the snares, whoever he was, had made sure work of
it. He had not only carried off all the strings and thrown away the
notched sticks, but in some places he had broken down the saplings to
which the strings were tied.
Leon had a good many hard things to say about Oscar while he was
engaged in repairing damages, and when he found how completely all his
care and patient labor had been undone by the despised market-shooter,
he grew angrier than ever.
"All the foxes he catches with that hound this winter he can carry in
one of his vest pockets!" declared Leon, as he trimmed the branches off
a sapling with his knife. "The very first time I get within range of
him, I'll fill him so full of holes that he will answer for a window! I
don't care if Oscar sees me when I do it, either."
At length the repairs were all completed, and the snares were set in
readiness to snatch up anything in the way of small game that might
chance to come within their reach.
The work had given Frank an appetite, and he proposed that they should
go further back in the woods, shoot a couple of squirrels, if they
could not find any birds, roast them over a fire, and eat them with
their lunch.
His cousin readily falling in with the idea, they shouldered their
guns, and before setting out, turned to take a survey of their work
and make sure that nothing had been left undone.
At that moment the bugle-like notes of a hound rang through the woods.
"There he is now!" exclaimed Leon, in great excitement. "Isn't it
lucky? Keep perfectly quiet until we find out which way he is going."
"Are you sure that is the dog you want to see?" asked Frank.
"Of course I am! There's not another hound about the village. If he
comes in sight of us, you will see that he is a large, tan-colored
animal, with ears like an elephant's. Everybody says he is just
splendid. He has brought his owner many a dollar to go toward paying
off that mortgage, but I'll bet he'll not bring him many more if I get
a fair chance at him!"
Again the deep-toned bay rang out on the frosty air, awakening a
thousand echoes among the hills: and this time it sounded nearer than
before. The hound had evidently struck a warm trail, and Leon told his
cousin, in a suppressed whisper, that the trail led directly toward
them.
A few seconds, and even the inexperienced Frank became satisfied of
this fact. The hound now gave tongue almost continuously; the melodious
notes grew louder every moment, and presently a rustling in the bushes
told the boys that he was close at hand, and coming nearer with every
bound.
Leon cocked one barrel of his gun, planted his feet firmly upon the
ground, and just then a hound, which answered to the description he
had given to his cousin, except in one particular, emerged from the
thicket. He ran along with his nose close to the ground, wagging his
tail vigorously, and so intent was he upon his work that he did not
immediately discover the boys.
When he did become aware of their presence, however, he merely lifted
his head long enough to give one look at them, and then took up his
trail again. He was not at all afraid of them. Bugle--that was the name
of the hound--knew everybody in the village; and everybody knew him,
and liked him, too.
"That is the last trail you will ever follow, my four-footed friend!"
Leon exclaimed, as he raised his gun to his shoulder and waited for the
animal to come out from behind a fallen log, which just at that moment
concealed him from view.
"Mind what you are doing," Frank whispered, laying his hand upon his
cousin's arm, "That isn't the dog you want."
"Yes, it is," was Leon's reply.
"Why, you said Oscar's hound was half starved, and this one is as plump
as a quail," protested Frank.
"I guess I know what I am about!" answered Leon impatiently.
He shook off his cousin's hand, drew his gun closer to his face, and
just then the hound came in sight around the end of the log.
Leon took a quick aim at his head and pulled the trigger. There was
a commotion among the leaves, a howl of anguish, and when the smoke
cleared away, the boys saw Bugle running at full speed through the
woods, yelping loudly at every jump. He was out of sight in an instant.
"There!" exclaimed Leon. "Go and hunt up your master, and tell him to
keep his hands off my snares in future."
"Let's dig out," said Frank hastily. "Oscar can't be far away, and you
don't want him to find you here."
No, Leon had not the slightest desire to meet Bugle's master after what
he had done. He had talked very glibly about teaching Oscar to mind
his own business if he could only get within reach of him for a few
minutes, but he knew very well that that was something he could not do.
Oscar was a young athlete, even if he was nothing but a market-shooter.
Although he was a few months younger than Leon, he was a good deal
larger and stronger, and it would have been no trouble at all for him
to take Leon by the collar with one hand and Frank with the other, and
give them both a hearty shaking.
Probably Leon was afraid he would do it if he caught them, for he lost
no time in acting upon his cousin's suggestion to "dig out." He ran so
swiftly that he very soon left Frank behind, and the latter, who was
quickly out of breath, begged him to hold up.
"What makes you take to this rough ground?" panted Frank, as he toiled
up a high hill which his cousin had climbed in his rapid flight.
"Because the woods are thicker up here, and afford us better
hiding-places," was Leon's answer.
"Well, there's no need that we should run ourselves to death," said
Frank, as he seated himself on a huge bowlder and drew his handkerchief
across his forehead, "and I'll not go another step."
"There's no need of it, for we are safe now. It is lucky there is no
snow on the ground, for if there was, Oscar could follow us all day.
We'll have a few minutes' rest, and then we'll see if we can shoot
something for our dinner."
Leon took his seat upon another bowlder a short distance away, and
during the ten minutes he remained there he never said a word to his
cousin. The latter did not speak to him either. Frank had no breath
to waste in words, and Leon was busy with his own thoughts. He was
by no means proud of the act he had just performed. He was a bad
boy, but he was not wholly depraved, and his conscience smote him
when he reflected that he had, in a moment of anger, deprived an
industrious, hard-working youth of almost the only means he had of
earning a livelihood and keeping a roof over the head of his widowed
mother. He knew very well that the ambitious and high-spirited Oscar
was not a market-shooter from choice. He followed the business for
the same reason that a good many others follow a business they do not
like--because he could find nothing else to do, and he was not the
one to stand idly by and see his mother suffer for the want of the
necessaries of life.
"Father says he deserves a good deal of credit, and that there isn't
one boy in a thousand who would do as well as he has done," thought
Leon; and then he grew angry again. "What do I care for what father
says?" he added mentally. "He is always ready to praise other boys,
while for me he has nothing but scowls and cross words. I am glad I
killed that old hound, and I am only sorry that Oscar hadn't got a
dozen, so that I could shoot them all. He needn't think he owns all the
birds in the country, simply because he makes a living by shooting them
for market. Are you rested now, Frank? If you are, we'll go on."
The young hunters did not have far to look to find the dinner of which
they were in search. The squirrels were busy gathering their winter's
supply of nuts, and on almost the first hickory tree they saw, they
found three plump little fellows, and bagged them all; two falling to
Leon's double-barrel, and the other coming down with one of Frank's
bullets through his head. As soon as they had secured their game Leon
led the way to the bottom of the deep ravine, where they found a stream
of water, beside which they built their fire. The squirrels were
roasted on forked sticks over the flames; and when the bones had all
been picked clean, and the last morsel of the lunch had disappeared,
the truants stretched themselves at full length beside the fire, and
listened to the howling of the wind which shook the leafless branches
of the trees on the summit of the hills above them, and watched the
little flakes of snow that now and then found their way into the ravine.
The snow-storm, that all the weather-wise people in the village had
been predicting for several days past, was now raging above their
heads; but it did not reach them in their sheltered camp, for the thick
screen of evergreens, which lined the foot of the high hills on both
sides of the stream, effectually protected them from its fury.
"It is of no use to think of hunting as long as it snows and blows like
this," said Leon; "so we may as well stay here."
"I was just thinking of something," said Frank. "Suppose we had found
your snares all in order, and a partridge or rabbit in each one of
them? What would we have done with the game? It wouldn't have been safe
to take it home with us."
"Of course it wouldn't," answered Leon. "We should have exposed
ourselves at once. What _could_ we have done with it? I never thought
of that before, but there's one thing I have been thinking about all
day: What are we going to say to father when we go home to-night?"
"We'll not say anything to him. We'll hide our guns in the barn, and
walk into the house as we do every night when we come from school."
"I wish I needn't go home at all," said Leon spitefully. "I could have
enjoyed myself to-day if I hadn't been continually haunted by the
fear that something is going to happen. I declare, it is growing dark
already. What time is it?"
"Three o'clock," replied Frank, consulting his watch.
"Is it as late as that?" cried Leon, jumping to his feet. "Where has
the day gone? We mustn't stay here a minute longer. We have four miles
to go, and if we are not at home within fifteen minutes after school is
dismissed, we shall hear of it, I tell you!"
Leon noticed that Frank did not appear to be quite so indifferent to
the consequences of playing truant as he did when they started out in
the morning. He sprang to his feet with all haste, and, after throwing
his game-bag and powder-horn over his shoulder, assisted his cousin to
put out the fire. When this had been done, the two boys clambered up
the hill and struck out at a rapid walk for the village, where a great
surprise awaited them.