Part 16

Then George shouted; and, hurrying over to him, Ed saw the entrance to the den. It was in the side of a sandy bank beneath a ridge of yellow pines. About it were tracks, and near-by some signs. The searchers felt sure this was the abode of the crafty animal which had tried by every means in its power to lead them astray.

While they stood there another fox, smaller and paler than the first, rushed from the entrance and dashed away into the woods.

“That’s the mate!” declared Ed, excitedly.

“Must be,” agreed George. “Now’s our chance to get the young ones,” he added, kneeling down and placing his ear to the hole in the bank.

“Can you hear them?” Ed inquired, eagerly.

“Not a sound. I shouldn’t be surprised if the den is a long ways back from the opening. Say, here are some grouse feathers.” And he held up several which they believed had come from the bird whose taking-off they had witnessed.

The boys hardly knew what to do. They did not wish to kill either the old or the young foxes, although they recalled that Ben had declared these animals destructive to game, and therefore a nuisance in the woods. Still, they did not care to murder the sly old fellow and his timid mate, for at that season the pelts were of little or no value, and the destruction of the animals would seem entirely unwarranted. However, they were anxious to possess one or more of the baby foxes. Ben had often told them what admirable pets these little fellows grew to be if taken very young.

At last they decided to dig out the den, take what pups they desired, and leave the rest for the old foxes to remove to a new home, which, according to the guide, they would be sure to do.

“You stay here to keep them from taking the little fellows out, and I’ll go back to the cabin and get something to dig with,” said Ed, hurrying away.

George sat down beside the entrance of the den. He expected one or both of the foxes to return, and wondered what they would do when they found him there. Then he began to think; and the more he thought, the less enthusiasm he had for the undertaking in hand. Somehow it did not seem right to destroy the home which represented so much hard labor on the part of the old “red” and his mate. If they could get one of the young ones without demolishing the den and leaving the others deserted and homeless, he would have felt better about it. He believed that Ed would feel much the same. George thought that by watching the den they might find one of the youngsters playing before the entrance, when it might be a simple matter to capture it.

Then his alert ears caught the sound of snapping twigs. He looked toward the sound, and his heart gave a great bound of joy. It seemed that his noble resolutions were about to be rewarded. There in plain sight, and but a short way from the den, was a small, brown-furred creature. In his eagerness George instantly mistook it for one of the young foxes.

He dashed forward; but it turned at sight of him and ran into the bushes, squealing lustily. George ran after it, but was unable to overtake the little fugitive before it had concealed itself in the dense cover. He searched around in the low undergrowth, and finally frightened his supposed fox from its hiding-place and endeavored to seize it with his hands.

Then there was a great crashing of brush behind him, and the lad was almost startled out of his senses by a savage roar. His frightened glance showed him the head and shoulders of a large black bear, which was coming directly at him. In an instant the truth flashed across his mind--it was one of her cubs he had been chasing.

Wheeling in panic, George sprinted toward a tree, and luckily gained it several yards ahead of the bear. He lost little time “shinneying” to a high branch, where, white and shaky, he sat looking down at the infuriated animal below.

Fortunately, the tree was of small circumference, and after sniffing about the trunk, the bear decided not to climb it. The lad watched her anxiously as she gathered her cubs--there were two of them. Then his heart sank, for she evidently intended to remain at the base of the tree until he came down.

George sat on his dizzy perch and blamed himself for his stupidity in mistaking a bear cub for a baby fox. Now that he saw it plainly, he was unable to note any resemblance.

The old bear rose several times and placed her fore feet against the tree. Each time she did this, poor George nervously meditated the distance he would be obliged to drop to reach the ground before the bear reached him. When she finally walked off and sat down some little distance away, he felt greatly relieved.

Then a new thought came to him. What about Ed? He would soon return from the cabin, and, unless warned, would walk right into the ugly brute. As he saw the danger his impulsiveness had placed his friend in, George grew sick at heart. If he could only hear him approaching, perhaps he might be able to warn him before it was too late. What worried him was the fear that Ed would draw near unheard. Anxious and troubled, he sat aloft straining his ears to catch some sound that would proclaim the return of his friend.

Suddenly the mother bear rose to her feet, and, growling angrily, stood facing the direction from which Ed would come. George yelled as loudly as he could, for he felt sure his friend was advancing to his doom. His shout was immediately answered, and George groaned.

“Hey, Ed, look out--go back--there’s a bear waiting for you!” he screamed, at the top of his voice.

Ed shouted something in reply, but George could not understand what he said. He realized that his warning had been useless. Again he shouted, and kept on shouting; but either Ed would not or could not understand. He was quite close now, and George could hear him forcing his way through the brush.

Then the savage roar echoed in George’s ears, and he saw the bear charge.

“Run, Ed, run! She’s after you!” he cried.

For some moments a strange, uncanny silence followed the noise of the bear crashing through the bushes.

“Are you all right? Answer me, Ed!” he implored.

“Yes--I’m--all right--so far,” came the labored reply, as if Ed had been either badly frightened or completely “winded.” “I’m in--a tree--about half-way up. Say, it looks like she is coming up after me!” he yelled nervously.

“Go on up higher!” urged George.

“Can’t--I’m--stuck on this--blamed--stub!” was the alarming reply. Then, after a pause: “All right, I’m free. I don’t believe she’ll come up, after all.”

Peering out in the direction of the voice, George finally saw his friend in the top of a tall tree. Ed saw him at the same instant, and gingerly waved an arm. The trees were near enough together to prevent either of the boys from sliding down and making off to the cabin without being seen and attacked by the angry bear on guard between them.

“Watch out, she’s going back to you!” warned Ed, after they had been treed for some time.

Back came the bear to the tree George was in, and, what was more, she started to climb it. Beads of cold sweat came out on his forehead, as the worried lad watched the great ungainly beast struggling upward along the slender trunk. The weight of her body and the force of her exertions swayed the tree so that George feared he would be shaken from his perch.

There seemed but one thing to do when the bear should finally reach him; and that was to hang suspended by his arms and work his way, hand over hand, to the end of the limb. It would be a risky undertaking, for the limb was none too strong. However, it was far less risky than a drop to the ground, some thirty-odd feet below.

But suddenly, when the bear was half-way up, she halted, and then began to descend to the ground, where her cubs were calling. Once down, she drove her babies gently before her and disappeared into the woods.

For some time the boys were afraid to slide down for fear the bear might be hiding and watching. At last they mustered up sufficient courage to descend, and, gathering up the spade and other implements which Ed had brought, they hurriedly left the spot.

“I didn’t care about digging out that den, anyway,” said Ed, when they were well on their way. “It seemed like a nasty trick, when I began to think it over.”

“That was exactly the way it struck me,” replied George, “and I intended to speak to you about it when you came back.”

Then he told Ed about his blunder, and they laughed heartily.

That evening Ed explained the tear in his trousers by saying he had been treed by a bear. When asked for particulars, he said George had attempted to capture one of her cubs. He generously refrained from stating that his friend had mistaken it for a young fox.

“Well, I guess if I want to get you fellows to the lumber camp alive, I’d better start soon,” laughed the guide. “Maybe we’ll go to-morrow; I’ve got some business to attend to over there, anyhow.”

The boys were overjoyed, for this was the trip they had been looking forward to for months. They plied Ben with all sorts of questions regarding the life of such a place. He told them enough stories to raise their anticipations, and then ordered them to pack the things they wished to take, for, as usual, they would be away by daybreak.

It seemed useless for the lads to close their eyes that night. Sleep was impossible while their minds were filled with the details of log-drives, and jams, and birling contests, and all the things incidental to life in a lumber camp. Accordingly, restless and impatient, they tossed about in their blankets, waiting for daylight and the time to be off.

XXIII OFF TO THE LUMBER CAMP

To reach the river which would take them thirty miles on its racing waters to the lumber camp on its shore, the three voyagers were obliged to traverse the length of the lake, portage through the woods to the splendid sheet of water from which they had gone to the beaver-dam, and paddle the entire length of this large lake, whence they must take to land and carry to the river.

The morning was well advanced when Ben set the canoe down on the river-bank and wiped the moisture from his forehead.

“Very warm, isn’t it?” said Ed, slipping his pack and dropping down to rest in the shade.

“You bet!” declared George, as he did likewise.

Ben stood with his back to them, and seemed to be thinking about something. He gazed intently at the yellow water gliding swiftly along beneath him. He noted the effect along shore of the “going out” of the ice with the recent flood.

Great trees had been gashed and splintered by the resistless rush of huge, grinding cakes borne along and piled one upon the other by the raging, snow-fed river. Others had been uprooted and carried down with the flood, or piled in a tangled jam along the shore. In some places the steep banks themselves had been undermined, until large portions had crumbled and fallen into the water, taking trees and rocks with them. It was the annual toll of the river, exacted and collected by its freshet-swollen waters each spring.

“She’s still quite high. Guess we’ll go some when we hit the rapids,” he laughed.

“Are we really going through the rapids?” inquired George, eagerly.

“Yes, we have two sets to run,” Ben replied.

The boys did a double shuffle in their delight. They had read thrilling tales of shooting rapids. Now they were to shoot rapids themselves.

Ben carried the canoe some distance along the bank and launched it in a quiet backwater. The boys brought the packs, and the guide stowed them skilfully away in the canoe. He made sure that the light craft would be evenly balanced. He shifted the bags several times, until the canoe floated on a proper keel.

Then he ordered the lads to take their places. Seating himself in the stern, he pushed from the shore, with a long, iron-shod pike-pole, which he used in the rapids and in pushing up-stream against the current. Once in the stream, the canoe shot forward with the current, and the eventful journey was begun.

They were carried along so swiftly that Ben needed to do little more than to steer. In the rapids waves broke along the sides of the fragile bark, and then swept on, hissing, in a swirl of amber foam along the stern. George declared it was like going to sea in a peanut-shell. The canoe raced along, steady as a rock, thanks to Ben’s care in loading it.

It was past noon when they entered a quieter stretch of water and Ben turned the bow of his craft toward shore. Beaching the canoe, they pulled it up and took out what they needed for luncheon.

Ben started a fire, and when it was crackling merrily he told his young companions to joint their fish-rods. When they had done this, he searched carefully through their stock of artificial flies and chose those he thought would be most alluring. Then he bade them follow up a little brook which flowed down through the woods and emptied into the river near-by. He told them to go along this brook until they came to a large, foam-covered pool at the base of a falls, and to fish this pool thoroughly. Then, wishing the lads luck, he dismissed them and promised to have dinner ready when they returned.

Ed and George hastened eagerly upstream toward the coveted pool. Heeding Ben’s instructions, they kept well back from the bank of the brook, to avoid frightening any trout which might be lurking between the falls and the river. They hoped to fish on the way down.

After some rough traveling over prostrate logs and through exasperating tangles of deadwood they arrived within sound of the falls. In their impatience to reach the scene of action they hurried forward carelessly, and were “hung up” many times by twigs and bushes which caught their lines and rods. But soon they were standing on huge, moss-grown boulders near the foot of the falls. The top was far above them. The water formed a glittering curtain, which fell into the rocky basin below with an echoing roar. Drifting clouds of misty vapor arose and blew into their faces. And there at their feet was the pool: deep, black, and dotted with patches of foam that circled slowly about its edges.

“Isn’t this great?” shouted Ed, endeavoring to make himself heard.

But George, who was only a few yards away, shook his head to show that he could not hear. Then he raised his rod and let his fly drop gently on the water close to a cake of foam.

Instantly there was a flash from beneath, a swirl on the surface, and with a swift turn of his wrist George struck and felt the hook go home. The line tightened, the light rod bent, and as the trout felt the barb and darted away, the reel began to sing.

“Good boy, you’ve got him!” yelled Ed.

George was too busy to reply, if he heard his friend at all. His fight was on. He was pitting skill and light rod and delicate line against the cunning and courage of the trout. Twice it leaped from the water in its struggles, and each time the glistening body shot into the air it appeared larger in the eyes of the excited boys. Then down it went into the depths of the pool again, and the taut line cut widening circles through the crust of foam.

Ed was too absorbed in the battle to think of wetting his own line. Rod in hand, he stood idly by cheering on the efforts of his friend. Several times, as the fortunes of war shifted from one to the other of the combatants, Ed almost slipped from the rock upon which he had recklessly climbed.

George played his fish skilfully, and soon began to work it, inch by inch, toward the spot where he stood. It was not yet subdued, however, and in one of its frantic rushes it caught the young angler off his guard and came near smashing his rod. After that he was more careful, and at last the plucky fish, weakened by the long struggle against the spring of the rod, was drawn slowly in; and presently George landed it on the bank, glistening and beautiful in its brave dress of dark back, vermilion spots, and ivory-lined fins.

They fished the pool for a time, and then started down the stream, fishing it carefully from either side. By the time they reached Ben they had a splendid catch of trout to show for their work.

“That’s a mighty good string of fish,” he declared, stooping to examine the larger ones. “Say, there’s a dandy; about three pounds. Who got that fellow?”

The boys gave him the full details of the battle, and he listened with interest. While they were talking he opened and cleaned the fish, which gave them a fine woodland feast. When it was over they embarked and floated rapidly down the river toward the lumber camp, which Ben hoped to reach before dark.

The boys thought it strange that they did not see more deer and moose. But it seemed that at that particular season of the year the cow moose and doe deer were hidden deep away in the woods with their young. There they would remain until the little ones were able to follow them about, later in the season.

At the same time the bull moose and the buck deer were growing new horns, having shed the old ones late in the winter. Until these new antlers grew to respectable size the bulls and the bucks remained out of sight as much as possible, as though ashamed of being seen without the formidable weapons which would later adorn their brows.

The boys learned also that when the new antlers begin to form they look like velvety knobs or bumps. These are at first pulpy and tender, and filled with blood. Then they begin to grow into the shape of real horns, and are covered with a moss-like protection, known to woodsmen as “velvet.” Later in the summer, when the new horns have attained full length and hardened, they are rubbed against trees and bushes to free them of this outside covering, which then comes off in long strips, leaving the antlers clean and shiny.

“I’m glad to learn that,” said Ed. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

“I should say so,” replied George, as he thought of the strange wild life of the woods.

“Now then, sit close!” Ben warned, rising in the stern of the canoe, pole in hand. “We’re coming to the first rapids, and they’re mad! Hear them?”

The boys heard a low, indistinct rumbling ahead of them. They noted that the canoe was moving faster, as the rumbling increased to a loud, sullen roar. Before them they saw a long, steep pitch of white-crested water. Great curling waves seemed to beckon them on. And, as if in reply to the challenge, Ben swung his little craft into the middle of the river and sent it boldly on into the clutches of the raging torrent.

Crouching low, their hands grasping the sides of the canoe, Ed and George gazed straight ahead with startled eyes and serious faces. The roar of the angry, white-topped water, the shock from waves which hurled themselves against the canoe and dashed their spray into the faces of its occupants, the danger from submerged boulders and water-logged tree-trunks whose branches, like arms, reached hungrily toward the frail sides of the little craft, the fear of capsizing and being swept to destruction by the swirling waters--all this overwhelmed the lads and kept them silent. A fragile barrier of cedar and canvas, and the alert eye, clear brain, and strong arm of Ben was all that stood between them and destruction. He was equal to the task, however, and with feet well braced, body inclined slightly forward, and the pole tightly clenched in his powerful hands, he stood in the stern of the plunging canoe and guided it safely through that raging inferno into the safe water beyond.

“Well, we made that all right,” he said, quietly, resuming his seat and substituting the paddle for the pole. “Sort of scared you a little, didn’t it?” he laughed.

“Say, that was an experience!” declared Ed. “Did you stand all the way?”

“Had to,” said Ben.

“Talk about bare-back riders!” cried George. “You’ve got them beaten a mile.”

They were now in smooth, swift-flowing water, where they could regain their composure before plunging into the next set of rapids, which Ben said were some distance ahead. Now that they had passed safely through their first experience in “swift water,” the boys caught the enthusiasm of it, and were eager to reach the second stretch.

“Look!” whispered Ben, suddenly, with a slight gesture, and as they turned they saw a large bull moose staring at them from the shore. For an instant they were too amazed to think, but then, noting the small, fuzzy-looking knobs, one over each eye, they had the evidence of the shedding and growth of horns verified by their own eyes. As the canoe approached, the massive creature shook its head impatiently, and, turning, entered the forest and disappeared into the shadows as noiselessly as a fox.

The day was a glorious one of sunshine and fragrance and song. The full flush of spring had come upon the wilderness and caused it to bloom. The delicate tint of the newly leafed trees; the flowering shad-bush, or more stately dogwood, white and conspicuous against a background of green; the sweet-scented breath of the dark, somber pines and hemlocks, mingled with that from myriads of early woodland blossoms, and wafted to them on the soft, balmy air; and, above all, the songs of the birds, which filled their ears with woodland music--all this thrilled them with the joy of living. “‘When the Red Gods call,’” whispered George, happily, as Kipling’s poem came into his mind.

Then they heard again the low, warning rumble of distant rapids, and once more their hearts beat fast. Anxiously they peered ahead for a sight of the long lane of “white caps.” The noise became louder; and, rounding a turn of the river, they saw the rapids tossing in front of them.

This time they had no fear when the canoe, with Ben standing in the stern, raced down through the center of that wild course. They had implicit confidence in the skill of the guide, and they enjoyed each moment as the little bark plunged and careened in its uncertain passage among the waves. As before, Ben brought them safely through, and paddled on down the river.

It was late in the afternoon when two sturdy figures emerged from the edge of the woods and hailed the canoe. Ben replied, and told the boys that they were lumbermen. He said they would soon reach the great camp itself, now but a short distance farther on.

“We’ve made a whole lot better time coming down than we’ll be able to make going back,” he said, when Ed expressed surprise that they had finished the trip so soon. “Fact is, we’ve ridden down on the back of the flood; but we’ll return with what is left of it pushing us in the face.”

On both sides of the river were many logs lying along the bank close to the water. They had been cut and dragged there during the winter, and when the water subsided to the desired level they would be rolled into it and floated down to the mill, many miles below. Other men now appeared along the shores and waved their hands cheerfully at the canoemen.

“They have their booms stretched,” said Ben, pointing to a long line of floating logs chained one to the other. “That means they’re intending to send the logs down--probably to-morrow.”

The boys found that the booms were used to guide the logs in their course, and to hold them back at certain stations until the stream below was cleared for their passage or a jam broken up. He told them that a jam was a great tangled pile-up of logs, caused by one or two logs grounding, or jamming, and obstructing the progress of the hundreds afloat behind them.

It appeared that patrols of lumbermen were stationed along the river, while the logs were “running,” to watch for just such emergencies. These men would go fearlessly to work to break a jam, a hard and dangerous task. If unsuccessful, they would run to the nearest of the telephone-boxes, which the company had placed at intervals along the shore, and summon aid. Sometimes a bad jam required the work of several days to break it, and dynamite was often used in such cases.