Part 29

This was quite true. Romantic Marmaduke had stumbled on the fresh track of a deer, and following on, had soon come up with it.

So much he freely confessed to his inquiring fellow-hunters. But how the deer came to give chase--whether he showed the white feather at the critical moment, or whether he chanted poetry to the hunted creature, and so infuriated it past endurance--is a question which he could not, or would not, answer.

Will’s heart beat fast. Here was a large deer within range of his rifle. If he should kill it on the spot he would achieve a valiant deed, as well as put an end to Marmaduke’s ignominious flight.

“Lemme see you gun,” the man said eagerly.

Will did not choose to comply with his request, but levelled his rifle at the approaching animal, and fired.

While hunting the last two days, he had suffered so many disappointments that he himself was perhaps somewhat surprised to see the deer plunge forward and gasp out his life in a short but awful agony.

“Good for you, old feller; you can shoot some, after all!” the forester ejaculated.

Marmaduke stopped his flight, saw Will, heaved a sigh, and said pathetically, “It is hard to see the noble beast cut off in all his pride and strength.”

“Yes, but better than to suffer from his fury, I hope;” Will replied. “But how under the sun did the chase begin?” he asked, glancing from his rifle to the deer with intense satisfaction.

But the chased one was reticent on that point, as stated above; and to evade an answer, he turned to the man with the marred silver ring, and asked, “What gentleman is this?”

“What was it you said about cutting up the buck, just now, stranger?” this gentleman eagerly inquired. “If you’re going to cut him up, I’ll help you; and for my share I’ll take a haunch.”

Alas! Though forest-born and familiar with woodland scenes and noble deer, this man had not a poetic soul, and he interpreted Marmaduke’s beautiful apostrophe as a wish that the deer should be cut up!

“_Your_ share! What have _you_ to do with it?” Marmaduke inquired, coming down to the things of this world with startling abruptness.

“Well, this here feller went and shot me; and I’m going to help you cut up your deer; and for all my trouble and suffering I only ask for a haunch. I’ll have it, too!” determinedly.

_Chapter XLI._

HOW WILL LOST HIS DEER.

Marmaduke now demanded and received a brief explanation of affairs.

Seeing a way out of the difficulty, he pointed obliquely over the injured man’s shoulder, and said, “Will, there is a plump and sweet partridge in that tree;--no, lower down;--further on;--hadn’t you better shoot it for him?”

After a moment’s deliberation the man who loved a good silver ring agreed to be satisfied with the partridge.

Yet an evil smile curved his lips--a smile that foreboded mischief to something--perhaps to the partridge.

Will had no sooner fired than a howl of awful agony burst from the man’s lips, and having spread his huge hands over the region where the ignorant suppose their vitals are situated, he bowed his body downwards, and there passed over his face a look of suffering that, in sublime tragedy, almost equalled the frightful spasms so graphically portrayed in our patent medicine almanacs.

_Almost_--nothing can quite come up to the patent medicine almanacs in that respect.

With a voice that was appalling in its unrestrained vehemence, he fell to delivering hideous ecphoneses,--too hideous, in fact, to be repeated here,--and then gasped faintly, “You’ve done it now!”

Poor Will! He was nearly crazed with grief.

“Oh!” he groaned, “have I killed him? Have I taken a fellow-creature’s life? Has my hastiness at last had a fatal result?”

“Oh,” Marmaduke murmured, “how could Will’s ball glance so as to enter that man’s body?”

For several seconds the two unlucky hunters stood perfectly still, held to the spot by devouring horror and anguish.

During this time, the forester seemed to be undergoing exquisite pain; but presently, with an effort worthy of a hero, he struggled to an erect posture, and said, with a faltering tongue: “Young men--perhaps--I’m, I’m gone.--I--can’t blame--you, sir;--a man--can’t tell--how his ball--may glance.--Go,--both of you,--go--and get a--doctor.--Bring a--doctor--you,” to Will; “and you--” to Marmaduke, “go east--from--from here--half a-mile--to my--father’s.--I--I--can stay--alone.”

“Poor, poor fellow,” said Will, with tears in his eyes. “Can you stay here alone and suffer till we come back?”

“Yes,” groaned the wounded man. “I can--stay-till--the other--fellow--finds my--father.--It won’t--be long.”

“Let me at least see your wound before I go,” Will entreated. “Perhaps I could ease you, or even save your life.”

“Go! oh go!” urged the wounded man. “I’ll--hold out--if you are--quick.”

Then the two hunters strode sorrowfully away in their different directions--Will with a vague notion that the nearest surgeon lived several miles to the south--Marmaduke thinking that the “peasants” of his country are a hardy and noble race.

They were barely out of sight on their errands of mercy when a change most magical came over the sufferer’s face. Two minutes before, and his features wore the tortured look of an invalid “before taking our prescription;” now they wore the happy smirk of a convalescent, relieved from all pain, “after taking our prescription.”

Then, villain-like, he muttered: “I hardly expected to make so much out of the two fools--a whole deer! That’s striking it pretty rich! I don’t shoot a deer in a month; but this is just as good, for I can make off with this one at my leisure. Well, I reckoned that little ‘wound’ would work.”

A horrible chuckle escaped from his lips, he sprang to his feet as sound in health as a person could expect to be, walked up to Will’s deer, and coolly began to drag it away into the depths of the forest. All that part of the forest was known to him, and he soon dragged his prey into a place of concealment where its rightful owners would hardly find it.

“There,” he muttered, “I guess I have dragged the old feller far enough. He’s safe enough here till I can take him home. Now, they haven’t been gone long, and if they keep on, they may get lost; and it’s mean to have ’em get lost on a fool’s errand. Perhaps this’ll bring ’em back on a keen run. How they will hunt for me and the deer!”

As the thief spoke he retraced his steps a little way, discharged a pistol concealed on his person, and then slunk back to his hiding-place. Yes, he was so humane that he did not wish the two deluded hunters to bring succor to a man who did not need it.

The report of his pistol had the desired effect. Both Will and Marmaduke heard it; and fearing that the poor wretch was attacked by some foe, human or otherwise, they hastened back to the scene of bruises and wounds, meanness and trickery.

Of course they found nothing, and, although they were heroes, they were unable to track the knave to his hiding-place. Will was furious. He had felt so grieved at having wounded a fellow-creature; so proud, a moment before, of having been the first to kill a deer; and now he naturally and correctly concluded that the “wound” was a mere ruse on the rogue’s part, in order the more surely to get possession of the deer.

“Will, I took the fellow to be a very fair example of our peasants; an honest, ingenuous and hardy forester. How bitterly I am deceived.”

Will replied: “Well, _I_ took the fellow for a hypocrite and a downright knave from the first. It isn’t so much the deer,--though that is really a great loss for me,--but the depravity that the man has shown, that grieves me. And I was just going to give him a new dollar gold piece to squander his affection on! But, Marmaduke,” with a flash of his old jovialness, “don’t talk about _peasants_ and _peasantry_, for free America knows no such word. Marmaduke, I’m afraid your trip to Europe in the summer filled your mind with some ridiculous notions. Shake them off, and be yourself again.”

“Well, Will, you are in the right. Now, suppose that we look for the partridge, for I believe your ball killed it.”

“No, Marmaduke. I missed it, for I saw it fly away untouched, just as that man doubled himself up and began to howl.”

“Then you took it for granted that he received the ball?”

“Yes. Well, it is useless to remain here, so let us hurry on to the trysting-place, due west, if we want to meet the others. But if I don’t unearth that wretch to-morrow, it will be because--because his ill-gotten deer poisons him!”

Having taken this dreadful resolution, the two set off for the rendezvous, where they arrived just in time to meet with the other hunters.

“Ho!” cried Steve, when he observed Will’s gloomy looks. “Ho, old fellow! your face _indicates_ a _moody mood_.”

“Well,” snarled Will, “have you shot some school-boy’s grammar, and read it through?”

Then he narrated his encounter with the man in the forest.

It was received with plaintive cries of astonishment, anger, and horror.

“Well, Will,” said Steve after the first paroxysms of rage had subsided, “I gather two morals--morals full of instruction, too--from your narrative.”

As no one inquired what these “morals” might be, the speaker was obliged to resume his discourse rather awkwardly. But no one could cow Steve into silence.

“Yes, boys; two morals----”

A pause--in vain.

“Two morals, I say. In the first place, when you are in a forest like this, always protect the fourth member of the left paw with a sculptured silver ring. In the second place, never fire at a partridge when a jewelled rustic occupies a log some thirty feet southeast of your left ear, as Marmaduke hints this one did. It is as dangerous as a nest of hornets on the North Pole.”

“Don’t be so atrocious,” said Charles. “In my mind’s eye, I can look back eight years or so, and see a battered-knuckled urchin called Steve Goodfellow, wriggling on a bench in a certain Sunday School, and turning idly round and round a _beautiful_ silver ring, that adorned first one and then another of his fingers.”

Steve sat down so suddenly that he burst the paper collar around his neck. However, he took no notice of this, but changed the subject and diverted the boys’ attention by saying: “I say, Will and Marmaduke, George, as well as you, has had disappointments to-day. I shouldn’t relate this little anecdote, if George hadn’t given me permission; because it would be too mean for even _me_, and _that_ is saying a good deal. O dear! I’m sorry, boys; but I can’t help it!”

“Well, Steve, there is one thing in your favor,” Charles said soothingly. “You always confine what you are pleased to call your _meanness_ to us boys; and we can survive it all--in fact, we expect it from you, old fellow.”

“Thank you, Charley; you can see below the surface, and see just how heavily and guiltily my great heart beats when I attempt to insult over you boys. But now for my anecdote. George and I meet in a ‘bowery glade.’ Though we glare wickedly round in search of prey, I see nothing but Nature’s loveliness. George espies a phenomenon high up in a monster of the forest, ‘an old primeval giant,’ whose branching top fanned the blue sky. In other words, he espies something queer, perched high in a grand old fir. It is large; it is strange; it moves. ‘It is a creature of the air,’ thinks George. ‘It _is_! It is a bird new to science! Oh, what pleasing discovery do I make? Am I about to cover myself with glory? I am! I feel it in my inmost heart, my heart of heart. Steve,’ he continues, ‘I know my destiny--the pursuit of science. My fate is now marked out; I shall write _ornithologies_! Now I must shoot this percher down; I cannot climb to catch it, though more’s the pity.’ O boys, it was, alas! a bird’s nest! A great big bird’s nest! And when he fired, it was no more. This is my mournful tale: this is my anecdote.”

“Steve, don’t relate any more such anecdotes,” said Charles, “or you will burst your ‘great heart’ as you have burst your paper collar.”

“Steve, did George tell you _how_ you might relate that incident?” Will asked suspiciously. “But, Steve,” he added gravely, “be good enough to tell me what you have shot to-day to make you so merry.”

“With the greatest pleasure,” Steve replied grimly. “_I shot the barrel of my gun all to pieces._”

“What?” Will asked, at a loss to take Steve’s meaning.

“In other words,” Mr. Lawrence said, “Stephen overcharged his gun, and it burst--burst with a vengeance.”

“It seems to me that a good many things have burst, or failed to burst, to-day,” George muttered.

Then they proceeded to their camp,--as Marmaduke loved to call the miserable shanty that barely afforded them shelter,--affecting to carry their guns and their almost empty game-bags as though they were veteran hunters.

Each one was thinking about the deer which was rightfully Will’s, and each one felt that the affair was not over yet.

* * * * *

It is with some real reluctance that the scene with the forester is introduced, because romancers take altogether too much delight in parading villainy; but at one time this scene seemed, in a measure, to be necessary to the construction of this story. Afterwards the writer had not the moral courage to leave it out.

Most readers can remember that in almost all novels that they have read, (excepting, of course, the “intensely interesting” ones,) there was at least one chapter which, taken by itself, seemed tiresome and useless; but which, woven in skilfully, and taken in connection with the whole, was necessary to the perfection of the novel.

After writing these two paragraphs, in order to disarm all hostile criticism, we shall imagine a conscientious reader’s referring to this chapter, after he has carefully perused the entire story, and saying, with a horrible fear that his usual insight into things has forsaken him: “Well, I can’t see the particular need and worth of this chapter,” while we furnish this consoling information--“_Neither can we!_”

Now, carpers, if you can apprehend the meaning of all this, draw out your engines and bring them into play.

Another point: Let not the conscientious reader rack his brains in a vain endeavor to discover what particular “follies,” or “foibles,” are attacked in this chapter, for the writer himself does not know; though he is morally certain that he has not written these two chapters just to injure the trade in silver rings.

_Chapter XLII._

WHAT CURIOSITY COST THE HUNTERS.

Next morning the mighty Nimrods breakfasted, in imagination, on their deer; and then struck out into the forest, resolved to unearth the rogue who had gulled poor Will.

But soon the fickle hunters concluded to secure the services of an officer of the law, and on reaching the edge of the forest they were directed where to find such a person.

They came up with this man in his orchard, but whether he was gathering apples or only eating them they could not guess. He listened patiently to the story of their wrongs (they did not give it _exactly_ as it happened, but they did not falsify it at all), and then told them that they might go on with their hunt and not trouble their heads about it further, for he would soon overhaul the villain.

The hunters lingered irresolutely, but the man seemed to know his own business best, and with a peremptory “good day” he scrambled into a patriarchal apple-tree, and fell to shaking down his apples so recklessly and disrespectfully that they thought it prudent to withdraw.

“I will catch the rascal myself, after all,” Will declared.

“Yes, let us penetrate far into this old forest,” Marmaduke added. “If we explore its length and breadth, perhaps we shall find some trace of our game.”

“Perhaps, if we set to work in earnest, we shall be more successful hunting for man than we have been for beast,” the young man who used to be called the Sage observed.

With that the hunters struck out boldly.

“Boys,” said Charles, (they still used the familiar appellation of former years,) “did any of you ever read a romance in which a scout figured as the hero, or in which the hero sometimes played the part of a scout, or spy?”

“I have,” said two or three.

“Well, how did they go about it?” Charles asked.

“Oh,” said Stephen, who took it upon himself to answer, “they always wore leather breeches, moccasins, and shot-belts; they always struck the trail at once, smoked the chiefs’ peace-pipe, and slew the common Indians; they always followed their trade _alone_,--or if they had a mate, _both_ went alone,--and chewed home-made tobacco with the few tusks still left them; they always tomahawked deserters, other people’s spies, or scouts, and wild-cats; and finally, they always found out secrets that got them into trouble, but lived to receive a gold snuff-box on the occasion of the hero’s wedding. What they did with the gold snuff-box I don’t know; for there the romancer, being too much exhausted to write ‘The End,’ which has six letters, always wrote ‘Finis,’ which has only five.”

“Thank you, Steve,” said Charles. “But according to that, it is hopeless for us to act the orthodox spy, so we shall have to go on blindly and take our chances.”

And they did go on blindly--so blindly, that five hours later, when hunger began to show her hand, they perceived that they were lost! Lost in a vast forest, which, for all they knew, was infested with robbers!

“It is strange that we have not travelled in a circle,” George mused. “You all know, of course, that when a man loses his way, it is a fundamental principle that he should travel in a circle.”

“Well, if we keep on diligently, probably we shall have the pleasure of finding that we are travelling in a circle,” Charles commented.

“I tell you what it is, boys;” Steve said, making use of an expression that had left his lips at least once daily since his twelfth year; “I tell you what it is, boys; now that we are lost, let us make the most of it. I have had a hankering to get lost ever since I cried myself to sleep over the mournful tale of the ‘Babes in the Woods;’ and now I am going to enjoy the novel sensation of being lost! Hurrah!”

And in the exuberance of his spirits careless Steve plucked off his hat and flung it aloft so adroitly that it caught in a tree and dangled there tantalizingly, quite out of his reach. However, a ball from Charles’s rifle induced it to fall.

“That is the most useful thing I have shot, Steve,” he confessed dejectedly; “and if it had been a thing of life, I should have terminated that life,” pointing to a ghastly hole in the crown of the hat.

“Don’t be so much moved, Steve,” George observed; “for you may fare worse than even the ‘Babes in the Woods.’ Poor little creatures, they died happy, at least.”

“Oh,” said Marmaduke, also delighted to think he was actually lost, “we can live very well for a few days in this magnificent old forest. We can, of course, procure all the animal food we shall need, together with roots, herbs, and berries--no, it’s too late for berries. A man can live on fish, fruit, and roots, without injury to his system; and in a few days we shall find our way out, or else be rescued by others.”

“Very good,” said Will; “but where are we to catch the fishes?”

“Oh,” Steve said promptly, “Marmaduke bases his argument on the supposition that whenever a hunter gets lost, he and a ‘pure stream,’ stocked with fish, presently fall into each other’s arms.”

“Speaking of _rescue_,” said Charles, “many a poor lost hunter is _rescued_ from his sufferings by wild beasts that devour him.”

“It is sheer nonsense to talk of becoming lost here,” Will declared dogmatically, “because this forest is not extensive enough for any sensible man to remain lost in it for any great length of time. I see daylight to the north, now; though where we are is more, I must acknowledge, than I can tell.”

“My compass persists that that light comes from the west,” Stephen soon said; “but of course, Will, you are too sensible a man to get lost or make such a mistake, therefore my compass has become demoralized.”

Will took out his compass, looked at it very hard, and then pocketed it with a sigh.

The hunters moved towards the light, and soon found themselves in a clearing of some extent. A strong log-hut stood in the centre of this clearing, and divers emblems of civilization and occupation were strewed around it. What seemed most strange, to even the most inattentive of the hunters, was certain implements which are seldom seen in the midst of a forest. These were such implements as are used in the construction of railroads.

“Hello!” yelled Steve, glancing at all these implements, “hello! we have stumbled on a new railroad, have we? Well, we ought to be able to find our way out now pretty easily; for railroads don’t spring up in wildernesses.”

“Yes, we are just within the woods; outside we shall find the railroad and civilization,” Will returned. “Well, I don’t see much romance in getting lost for an hour or so.”

“Hello, what is this?” Steve cried suddenly. “Here is a neat little tube, something like a cartridge. Now, _is_ it a cartridge?”

“Be careful, Steve,” Will cautioned. “There is no knowing what dangerous things may be lying about here. I remember, when I was a pretty little boy, my father told me horrible stories about gun-cotton. He made it out to be a frightful explosive, in order to deter me from meddling with things strange to me. Now, perhaps--”

But at this point the prudent one was interrupted by a shout of laughter from Charles. “Will,” he said, “what do you mean by ‘a pretty little boy?’ Do you mean, when you were a handsome, though diminutive, urchin, or simply, when you were rather small?”

George now drew on his knowledge, and prepared to enlighten them. “Gun-cotton, boys,” he said, “is a composition which con--”

Doubtless George would have given a very lucid explanation of the nature and virtues of gun-cotton; but at this point, Steve, who still held the little “tube,” said impatiently, “Now, what do I care about gun-cotton? There is no cotton here, and as for a gun--go to grass! This tube can be made to fit the blunt end of my pencil, very neatly; and what is more, it shall be put there.”

“Why, Steve, I didn’t give you credit for being so sensible,” Henry observed. “I didn’t believe you were studious enough to carry a pencil.”

“Oh,” Charles ingeniously replied, “Steve doesn’t carry a pencil for studious purposes; I doubt whether he ever takes notes; but whenever he finds a clean and smooth surface,--such as a new shingle or a solid fence built of newly planed boards,--he draws his name, or a mythological figure, or the Phantom Ship, on it, with dazzling flourishes.”

“Draws his name, eh?” asked Henry.

“Exactly.”

“Well,” sighed Steve, “it is one of the few things I can do well.”

With that he took out his penknife.

He was not the only one that had found one of the little tubes. For some minutes Jim had been silently filling his coat pocket with them, intending to take them home. It is not easy for us to guess his object in doing this, but perhaps the poor fellow, despairing of shooting anything, wished to bear away some trophy, or souvenir, of this hunt.

George, seeing all this, and that his proffered explanation was contemptuously rejected, resolved to make an “analysis;” but, acting on the spur of the moment, he went about it in a very puerile way. He set one of the mysterious little tubes on a flat stone, then seized a smaller stone, and prepared to grind his particular tube to powder.

Truly, here was Genius laboring under difficulties! Here was a scientific philosopher endeavoring to solve the appalling mystery by utterly annihilating a tube! But his hand was so unsteady with the awfulness of the revelations he was about to make that (fortunately for him) his first blow overshot the mark, and he paused before aiming a second.