CHAPTER XXI

THE CHINESE BUTTON

Game was not so plentiful in the woods about the camp, as the three chums had hoped. Frank, Ned and Bart tramped along, keeping a close watch for anything that would promise to restock the larder, but, for some time, the most they saw, were numbers of small birds--too small to shoot.

"Why can't we scare up a covey of partridges?" asked Ned, rather disgustedly, after they had been out an hour or more.

"Why don't you wish for a herd of deer, or a drove of bears, that is if bears go in droves," suggested Bart. "You want things too easy, you do."

"I don't care whether they're easy or not, as long as there are some of them," retorted Ned. "I'd like to hear how this gun sounds when it's shot off."

"Hark! What's that?" exclaimed Bart, looking up as a sudden whirring noise was audible in the air over their heads.

The boys looked up, and, to their surprise, saw a big flock of wild ducks, flying quite low. It was rather early in the season for them, as they learned later, but they did not stop to think of that. Without further words, they raised their guns and blazed away.

"Hurrah! We got some!" yelled Ned, as he saw several of the wild fowl tumbling earthward.

"The other barrel!" exclaimed Frank. "We may not get another chance, and we'd better kill enough to last us a week."

They fired again, and killed several more of the ducks. They found the birds to be in fairly good condition, though they would be fatter later on.

"They will make fine eating!" remarked Bart, as he held up a string of the wild fowl. "Maybe Fenn won't like to set his teeth in a nice browned piece of roast duck."

"Providing he is well enough to eat it," added Ned.

"Oh, he'll be well enough," was Frank's answer. "But I'd like to get something else besides duck."

"Well, we've got plenty of time yet," suggested Bart. "Let's go a little farther."

Slinging their game over their shoulders, and reloading their guns, the boys once more started off. They had not gone far before a commotion in a clump of underbrush, just ahead of where Ned was walking, startled the lad into sudden activity.

"Here's something!" he called in a hoarse whisper.

"Yes, and it's liable to come out and shake hands with you, and ask how you like the weather, if you yell that way again," remarked Frank. "Don't you know any better than to call out like that when you're hunting?"

"I couldn't help it," whispered Ned. "I saw something big and black. I think it's a bear."

"A bear! Where?" cried Bart in a whisper, cocking his gun.

"Go easy," advised Frank. "We stand a swell chance of killing a bear with these light shotguns. Where is it, Ned?"

The boys were all speaking in low tones, and had come to a halt in a little circle of trees. All about them was thick underbrush, from the midst of which had issued the disturbance that caused Ned to exclaim.

"There it is!" he said, grasping Frank by the arm, and pointing toward something dark. At that moment it moved, and a good-sized animal darted forward, right across the trail, in front of the boys, and, an instant later was scrambling up a tall tree as if for dear life.

"Fire!" cried Ned, suiting the action to the word. He aimed point-blank at the creature, but, when the smoke cleared away, there was no dead body to testify to his prowess as a hunter.

"Missed!" exclaimed Ned disgustedly. "And it was a fine chance to bowl over a bear cub, too."

"Bear cub?" repeated Frank. "Take a look at what you think is a bear cub."

Frank pointed to the tree, up which the animal had climbed. There, away out on the end of a rather thin limb, it crouched, looking down on the boys--a huddled bunch of fur.

"A raccoon!" exclaimed Bart. "You're a fine naturalist, you are, Ned. Why didn't you take it for a giraffe or an elephant?"

"That's all right, you'd have made the same mistake if you had seen it first," retorted Ned. "I'm going to have a shot at it, anyway."

He raised his gun, but the raccoon, probably thinking now was the opportunity to show that he believed in the old maxim, to the effect that discretion is the better part of valor, made a sudden movement and vanished.

"See!" exclaimed Ned triumphantly. "He knew I was some relation to Davy Crockett. He didn't exactly want to come down, but he had some business to attend to in another tree."

"That's an easy way of getting out of it," remarked Bart, "but I'll wager you would have missed worse than I did if you had shot."

"Oh, come on and stop scrapping!" exclaimed Frank.

"We're not scrapping," retorted Ned. "Only I say I'm as good a shot as he is."

"You can prove it, by shooting at a mark, when we get back to camp," suggested Frank. "Just now we're out hunting, not trying to decide a rifle match."

But word seemed to have gone through the woods that three mighty boy hunters were abroad, and all the game appeared to have gone into hiding. Tramp as the chums did, for several miles, they got no further sight of anything worth shooting at.

"I guess we'll have to be content with the ducks, and go back," remarked Frank, after a somewhat long jaunt in silence. "Fenn may be lonesome waiting for us."

"I know my stomach is lonesome for something to eat," returned Bart. "The sooner some of these ducks are roasting, or stewing or cooking in whatever is the quickest way, the better I'll like it."

"All right, let's head for camp," agreed Ned, and, having picked out their trail, by the help of a compass they carried, they were soon journeying toward where their tent was set up.

"I hope Fenn is all right," remarked Frank, as they trudged onward.

"All right? Why shouldn't he be?" inquired Bart.

"Well, I was a little worried about leaving him alone."

"Why Fenn is able to take care of himself," declared Ned. "Besides, what's there to be afraid of?"

"I don't know," admitted Frank. "But suppose another spell of fever should suddenly develop, and he was all alone? It wouldn't be very nice."

"Well, he was as anxious to have us go as we were to start off," remarked Bart.

"I know it, but still, I can't help feeling a little anxious."

"Oh, he'll be all right," declared Bart, confidently. "He'll have a good fire ready for us, coffee made, and all we'll have to do will be to clean these ducks and put them to roast."

"I hope so," replied Frank.

The boys, in the excitement of the chase, had gone farther into the woods than they had anticipated on starting out. Consequently it was later than they expected when they got to where they saw landmarks that told them they were near camp.

"It's only about half a mile farther now," remarked Bart.

"Give a yell," suggested Ned. "Fenn will hear it and know we are coming."

The three chums united their voices in a loud hallo; and, when the echoes had died away, they listened for an answering cry. None came, and the woods were silent, save for the noises made by birds flitting here and there in the branches of the trees.

"He didn't hear us," said Ned. "Try again."

"Maybe--maybe he isn't there," suggested Frank, in a low voice.

"Of course he is!" declared Ned. "Maybe he's asleep."

"I guess he didn't hear us," suggested Bart. "The wind is blowing the wrong way. Let's yell again."

Once more they shouted, but with no effect. There came no answering hail.

"Come on!" called Frank, increasing his speed. The boys spoke but seldom during the remainder of the tramp to camp. When they came in sight of the tent they strained their eyes for a sight of their chum. He was nowhere to be seen.

"Probably he's inside, lying down," spoke Ned.

It needed but a glance within the canvas shelter, to show that Fenn was not there. In the gathering dusk Frank gave a hasty glance about the locality. The embers of what had been the campfire, were cold. There was no sign that Fenn had been there recently, or that he had made any preparations to receive his chums.

"He must have gone off in the woods and forgotten to come back," suggested Bart. "Maybe he went hunting on his own account."

"If he had, he'd have taken his gun," replied Frank, pointing to where the weapon stood in a corner of the tent.

"Then he's out for a walk," declared Bart.

"He's staying rather late," commented Frank. "I hope--"

Frank did not finish his sentence. Suddenly, he darted forward and picked up something off the ground.

"What is it?" asked Bart.

For answer Frank held it out on the palm of his hand. It was a small object and the two boys had to bend close to see what it was. They saw one of the peculiar brass buttons that serve to hold the loops with which a Chinese blouse is fastened.

"A Chinese button!" exclaimed Bart, in a whisper.

"The Chinamen have been here!" added Ned.

"It looks as if the smugglers had Fenn," said Frank solemnly. "They must have sneaked in here and carried him off!"