WHAT COULD IT HAVE BEEN?
When the others reached the outside of the hut they found Boxy staring
wildly, his eyes fairly bulging from their sockets. His face was a
deadly white.
“What is it, Boxy?”
“What do you see?”
“Some wild animal, or what?”
“A ghost!” gasped Boxy. “A ghost, as sure as fate!”
“Where? where?”
“Across the ice--it just disappeared behind the trees!”
“There are no ghosts,” returned Jack, in disgust.
“Certainly not,” put in Harry.
“What did dat ghost look like?” asked Pickles, with interest. He was a
firm believer in spirits.
“It was tall and white, and had two horns on its head,” replied Boxy,
with a shiver. “I never saw such a thing before in my life!”
“You must have been dreaming,” suggested Andy, who took his brother’s
view of the matter.
“I wasn’t dreaming. I heard a noise and got up to see what it was. When
I reached outside I heard a low, long moan, and I looked across the
creek, and saw it just as plain as day.”
“Must have been that extra-heavy supper that didn’t set well on your
stomach,” commented Jack.
“It wasn’t anything of the sort,” retorted Boxy, half angrily. “It was
a ghost, or something like it. The moon was shining right on it.”
“Maybe it was a man dressed in white,” said Harry. “One of the old
deer-hunters from up in the mountains.”
“A hunter wouldn’t go around moaning like a cow with the toothache,”
returned Boxy.
“Well, you don’t mean to say that you believe in ghosts?” asked Jack,
plumply.
“I never did before,” replied Boxy, evasively.
“Well, let me tell you that there are no such things, never were, and
never will be. Either you were dreaming, or the object was some man or
some animal.”
“Maybe you want to go after it and find out?” cried Boxy, quickly.
“That’s just what I’m going to do.”
“So am I,” added Harry. “We’ll take our guns and compel his ghostship
to give an account of himself.”
“You had better look out!” cried Pickles, nearly terror-stricken at the
idea. “Dat ghost dun cotch you an’ you nebber be hurd ob no moah!”
“Nonsense!” laughed Jack. “Which way did the thing go, Boxy?”
“It moved up the creek and then back.”
“Do you want to go along and show us the way?”
Boxy hesitated, but to refuse would look too much like cowardice, and,
somewhat against his will, he finally consented to accompany them. Andy
said he would go, too, and, not to be left behind alone, Pickles joined
the party, but on the lookout to run for life at the first sight of a
ghost.
Not a minute was lost by Harry and Jack, and once started, they set
off on a run, Boxy between them. They were soon across the creek and
hunting around the heavy brush and thicket of trees.
But though they searched for the best part of half an hour, they
discovered comparatively little. There were a few large tracks in the
snow, but these were dragged so none could tell what sort of a walking
object had made them.
“Well, we might as well give up,” said Andy, at last. “I am mighty
cold, rousing up out of a warm sleep.”
They searched around a little while longer, and then one after another
returned to the camp. Pickles replenished the fire, and signified his
intention to sit up for the balance of the night. It was then a little
after three o’clock.
“I wonder what it could have been?” queried Harry, as he threw himself
on his resting-place once more. “Boxy certainly saw something.”
“Perhaps time will solve the mystery,” responded Jack, sleepily, and he
was right. The near future solved it in a most unexpected manner.
Boxy could not sleep at all after the excitement through which he had
passed, and at five o’clock he left the hut to join Pickles by the side
of the fire. He found the colored youth dozing away over the oven that
had been built, and in great danger of having his woolly locks singed
by the flickering flames.
He roused up Pickles, and by a little after six both had a fine
breakfast ready. Then the others got up, one after another, and soon
daylight broke, and Camp Rest was once more astir.
“Now for nothing less than two or three deer!” cried Harry,
enthusiastically.
“That’s the talk,” returned Jack. “And we’ll get them, too, if we go
far enough up in the mountains.”
“That is if we don’t all get buck-fever and forget to shoot when we
have the chance,” laughed Andy.
“Da is lots ob fellers wot gits dat fever,” remarked Pickles. “I
reckerlect my dad a-speakin’ ob a party ob six gen’men from de city
gwine up in de mountains to shoot deer, and when day had de chance to
knock ober foah of dem, not a single gen’men t’ought to pull trigger,
an’ de consekences was dat de deer all got away!”
“We’ll try to do better than that,” laughed Harry, and all agreed with
him.
As they expected to be away from camp until sundown, enough meat and
crackers were taken along to serve for dinner. This was stowed away in
Pickles’ haversack. Then the traps to be left behind were stowed away
in the hut, and off they started on what was to be one of the best
hunts of the outing.
Boxy wanted to take the sled along to bring back at least one of the
deer, but Jack said they could make a drag, if they were lucky enough
to get the animal.
Instead of following the creek, they now struck off directly for the
mountains. The sunshine of the day previous had settled the snow,
and crusted it over in many spots, and they found traveling not as
difficult as some of them had imagined.
“I trust we meet no more wolves,” said Jack, as he and Harry trudged
along side by side. “One experience with those chaps is enough.”
“Especially such an experience as we had,” was the reply.
“When will we get to the deer territory?” called out Andy, from behind.
“We ought to strike a run by eleven or twelve o’clock,” replied Harry.
“Not habing a dorg is gwine to bodder us considerbul,” remarked
Pickles. “It takes a good dorg to stir up de animiles.”
“Well, we’ll do the best we can without,” returned Jack. “Come on, for
we have still several miles to go.”
On they went, over half-a-dozen hills and creeks, and up steep rocks
and across deep ravines. Sometimes they traveled rapidly, and at others
with extreme caution.
“Don’t fall into some hollow or hole and break a leg,” was Boxy’s
caution, and it was a timely one.
Overhead the sun had been shining, but now it went under a bank of
light clouds, and, as a consequence, it grew colder.
“I don’t like the cold,” remarked Jack. “But we can hunt better now
than when the sun is too bright, to my way of thinking.”
Twelve o’clock found them ascending the side of a long hill, the last
before the mountains should be reached. The thickets were almost
impassable, and they looked in vain for some kind of a pathway.
“Don’t make too much noise,” cautioned Harry, as they proceeded.
“Beyond this hill, I imagine, there is a wide valley, and if so, that
ought to make a good spot for deer. We don’t want to frighten any
possible game.”
“I’m most played out,” muttered Andy. “We’ll have to rest a bit when we
reach the top.”
“Unless we see something, we can stop and have dinner there,” answered
his brother. “Quiet now, for the top is not far off, and the wind will
carry our voices down into the valley as soon as we reach the ridge.”
They went on after this in silence, all following Harry and Jack in
Indian file. Five minutes later the crest of the long hill was before
them. With the greatest possible caution they crept forward and peered
over into the valley on the other side.
At first they saw nothing. Then Harry motioned them to silence, and
pointed to a little opening among the bushes far away to the south.
Four animals were bunched together there, and a second look convinced
all of the boys that they were deer.