Quincy Allen - The Outdoor Chums in the Big Woods - or, Rival Hunters of Lumber Run

“Just what I do, son,” the lumberman told him. “I spent one winter in it, and that gave me a chance to travel over this whole section, so finally I organized the company that purchased this tract.”

The boys exchanged pleased looks. Really, things were coming out better than any of them had dreamed.

Mr. Darrel showed them where they could leave their packs. There was a bunk for each in the building where he had his own sleeping accommodations. This suited Frank much better than if they had had to stay with the loggers, some of whom were a rough lot, as he saw when they came trooping in.

It was an experience the boys enjoyed to the full. At the supper table they heard considerable talk about lumbering, and picked up some valuable information by using their ears.

Afterward they sat with Mr. Darrel before the fire in his smaller building, and listened to what he had to tell them. The paper had been duly signed in the presence of witnesses. One of the lumberjacks, really the foreman of the crowd, being a duly appointed notary public, was in a position to handle the affair according to law.

The paper was now safely fastened in Frank’s inner pocket, where it could hardly be lost, no matter what happened.

After the lumberman had spoken of many things of which the boys manifested an eager curiosity to hear, he in turn began to ask questions. This resulted in their telling him some of the queer happenings that had accompanied their numerous past outings; in all of which he evinced great interest.

“I must say you are boys after my own heart,” he said, as the evening grew late, and Bluff had even yawned openly as many as three times. “If my little fellow had lived I would have wished him to be built on just the same pattern. I meant that he should love the Great Outdoors, and yet never be cruel in his pursuit of what we call sport. But he was taken away from me. What I am piling up now will some of these days go to a poor little crippled nephew in a New England town.”

As Bluff again yawned at a fearful rate their kind host realized that the boys were more or less played out after their long journey, and the task of “toting” their heavy packs into the Big Woods.

So he told them it was about time they all turned in, an invitation that was joyfully accepted by every one, not even excepting Frank.

It is doubtful whether they knew anything from the time they rested their heads on the pillows, made of hemlock needles stuffed into cotton-sacks, until there was a tremendous din that made them think of the fire signal at home.

“That’s the getting-up gong!” they heard Mr. Darrel call. “Breakfast will be ready in fifteen minutes, so perhaps you’d better hurry. My men have big appetites these brisk days, and might clear off the table before you had a show.”

Of course the lumberman was only joking, for Cuba had gone to extra pains to have an abundance of food prepared. He had made fresh biscuits, and there was also oatmeal and coffee, with some fried ham and potatoes, as well as an egg apiece for the favored young guests of the “boss.”

Pretty soon the big lumberjacks started off to their daily work of chopping down trees. These would be trimmed into logs, and eventually be drawn by teams of horses to the river, where their voyage down to the sawmills or the pulp factories would begin.

The boys had never been in a lumbering region before, and numerous things interested them. Each brawny axman shouted good-by to the boys ere departing, for they were a jovial as well as a brawny lot. Frank could see how a life like this must develop any one physically.

Having received full directions from their host how to find his lonely lodge in the heart of the Big Woods, the four chums set out. Mr. Darrel would have accompanied them but for the fact that he had his hands full just then, and was expecting a new lot of employees to arrive that day.

“But a little later on you can expect a visit from me, lads,” he told them, as he squeezed each boy’s hand in a way that made them wince. “I’ll be looking forward to seeing you again with considerable pleasure.”

So the chums started off. Being fresh after a good night’s sleep, they did not mind the weight of their packs so much now. Later on in the day, if the tramp proved protracted, they might murmur again, particularly Bluff. He was addicted to that habit, though he really did not mean anything by it, as Frank knew from experience.

They tramped for more than an hour. Frank was always on the watch. He had been given explicit directions, which he was following closely. For a mile they had kept along the little creek, now beginning to freeze. Arriving at a spot where a spruce tree hung half-way across the bed of the stream, they had turned sharply to the left, and commenced making their way through a dense wilderness of firs.

In this way the second mile had been covered, while a third had taken them to what seemed to be quite a little hill.

“Sure we’re on the right track, are you, Frank?” asked Will, when they had left this elevation behind them nearly half an hour.

“Yes, we’re going as straight as a die,” Bluff hastened to say, before the leader could utter a word. “I know it because right ahead of us I can see that other little stream Mr. Darrel was saying we’d strike. Down that two miles and we’ll come to his cabin.”

“I only hope we find it unoccupied, that’s all,” ventured Will.

“No danger of anybody breaking in,” Frank declared. “Up here in the Maine woods there’s a queer sort of law among the natives. They are honest as the day in that way. Nobody ever thinks of locking his door at night.”

“Small game seems to be plenty enough,” Bluff went on to say. “But where are all the deer they’ve been telling us about? I’d like to run across something worth taking a crack at with my pump-gun.”

“Then there’s your chance, Bluff!” suddenly remarked Will. “Why, it looks for all the world like a gray wolf to me!”

“It must be a wolf, because Mr. Darrel said they sometimes come down here from over the Canadian border!” exclaimed Jerry.

“I’ll wolf him with that buckshot charge I’ve got ready for a deer!” muttered Bluff fiercely, as he dropped his pack and started to bring his repeating shotgun up to his shoulder.

“Hold on!” cried Frank, pulling the weapon hastily down. “Look again, Bluff, and you’ll see that’s no wolf, but a dingy dog. Yes, and we’ve seen that dog before, too!”

“Here’s trouble ahead!” declared Jerry, in evident disgust; “because sure enough that’s certainly the ugly beast we saw on the train.”

“Bill Nackerson’s dog!” exclaimed Will.

Bluff was still staring. He seemed half-inclined to doubt his eyesight. Just then the dingy-looking animal gave a series of snappy barks; after which expression of defiance to the boys he turned and scampered away at a rapid pace.

“For three cents I’d knock him over,” muttered Bluff angrily.

“It would be silly for you to try it, Bluff,” Frank told him, “and only give the dog’s owner a good reason for taking the law in his own hands.”

“But, just think of it, that crowd must have got off at the next station, Frank!” declared Bluff.

“Well, they had a right to, if they felt like it, I suppose,” he was told. “Since when did the railroad company give us charge over the trains up here in Maine, that we could object to anybody leaving the cars? We did that when we felt like it.”

“Yes, but we’re going to have that bunch around here, and they’ll be our rivals in the hunting,” Bluff continued vigorously.

“If half they tell us is true,” laughed Frank, determined not to cross rivers before he came to them, “there’ll be plenty of game here for us all.”