CHAPTER VII

AN UNWELCOME INTRUDER

“Oh! what did you see inside the cabin, Andy?” gasped Tubby, beginning to look alarmed, and shrinking back a little, because he did not happen to be carrying one of the two guns in the party.

“Wow! Talk to me about your Jabberwock!” ejaculated Andy, making his face assume an awed expression that added to Tubby’s state of dismay. “He’s in there!”

“But how could a big bull moose get inside a cabin, when the door’s shut, and fastened with a bar?” questioned the amazed and incredulous fat scout.

“It isn’t any moose,” scoffed Andy, and, turning to Rob, he went on: “I tell you, the biggest bobcat I ever set eyes on is in there, and has been having a high old time scratching around among the provisions left by Uncle George and his party. Oh, his yellow eyes looked like balls of phosphorus in the half gloom. I thought he was going to jump for me, so I slammed the door shut, and set the bar again.”

“A wildcat, do you say?” observed Rob, looking decidedly interested. “Well, one thing sure, Uncle George never meant that generous invitation for this destructive creature. As he couldn’t very well read the notice, or lift that heavy bar, it stands to reason the cat found some other way of entering the bunk-house.”

“How about the chimney, Rob?” asked Andy, as quick as a flash.

“Now I wouldn’t be much surprised if that turned out to be his route,” mused the scout leader. “They have a wonderful sense of smell, you know, and this fellow soon learned that there were things good to eat inside the cabin. Finding the place deserted, so far as his two-footed enemies were concerned, he must have prowled all around, and finally mounted to the roof. Then the opening in the chimney drew his attention, and getting bolder as time passed, he finally dropped down.”

Tubby, who had been listening with rapt attention, now broke out again.

“He must be a mighty bold cat to do that, I should say, fellows. Goodness knows how much damage he’s done to Uncle George’s precious stores. Oh! doesn’t it seem like a shame to have a miserable pussycat spoiling the stuff you’ve gone and nearly broken your back to pack away up here? But will we have to pitch a camp in one of those other smaller buildings, and let the bobcat hold the fort in the comfortable bunkhouse, with its jolly cooking fireplace?”

Thereupon Andy snorted in disdain.

“I’d like to see myself doing that cowardly thing, Tubby!” he exclaimed. “Possession may be nine points of the law, but in this case there’s something bigger than the law, and that’s self-preservation. That beast is going to pay for his meddling, if I know what’s what. Rob, how’d we better go at the job?”

“Just as you said a while back, Andy,” the scout master told him, “the hand of every man is always raised against such varmints in the woods as panthers and bobcats and weasels and such animals as destroy heaps of game, both in the fur and in the feather. If I could have shot that panther without harming the deer I’d have been only too pleased to do it; but the whole thing happened too rapidly for us. As to just what our plan of campaign now ought to be, that’s worth considering.”

They had deposited their bundles on the ground and stepped back, while both Andy and Rob held their guns ready for business. Tubby watching saw that the former continued to keep his eyes fastened on the chimney of the low bunk-house all the while he talked; and from that he drew conclusions.

“You’re thinking, I expect, Rob,” Tubby ventured to say, “that what goes up in the air must come down again; and that as the cat dropped into the wide-throated chimney he’s just got to climb up again, sooner or later. Am I right, Rob?”

“A good guess, Tubby, believe me,” chuckled Andy. “What we want to do now is to respectfully but firmly influence that unwelcome guest to get busy, and vamoose the ranch in a hurry. Say, I’m ready to give him the warmest kind of a reception as soon as he shows the tip of his whiskered nose above the top of the chimney.”

“Here, Tubby, lend me a hand,” said Rob, “and we’ll try to coax Mr. Cat to vacate his present quarters. Andy, I’ll lay my gun down alongside you here, and if yours isn’t enough to finish the rogue, snatch up mine in a hurry.”

Andy agreed to that, and so the other two walked forward again to the front of the long log building, where the door was situated. Tubby was curious to know how his companion expected to work that “influence” he spoke of, and cause the ferocious intruder to depart as he came. He awaited the outcome with considerable interest.

“First,” said Rob, as though he already had his mind settled, “we’ll pick up a few handfuls of these chips and twigs that are so plentiful.”

“Whee! but burning the old cabin down to get rid of a cat that stays inside would be what they’d call heroic treatment, wouldn’t it, Rob?”

“I’m not doing anything as severe as that, Tubby,” said the other. “We’re going to try the smoke cure. All animals are in deadly fear of fire, and smoke will cause even a horse to become fairly wild. We can make our little fire close to the door, and the breeze which happens to be just right, will carry some of the smoke under it, for notice that wide crack there. When the cat sniffs that odor you’ll see how fast he scrambles up that chimney again.”

It all looked very simple to Tubby now; so those Spanish courtiers who had been declaring that discovering America was no great task after Columbus had shown them how to stand an egg on an end, doubtless sneered and said it was easy enough.

The little heap of trash was ignited, and just as Rob had said, it began to emit a pungent smoke that was driven against and under the door by the breeze.

“Keep ready, Andy!” Rob called out. “I thought I heard a scratching sound just then!”

Tubby ran back so as to be able to see the crown of the low chimney. He was only in time, and no more, for even as he managed to glimpse the apex of the slab-and-hard-mud vent something suddenly came into view. As Tubby stared with round eyes he saw a monstrous wildcat crouching there, looking this way and that, as if tempted to give battle to its human enemies, by whom it had been dispossessed from the scene of its royal feast.

Then there came a loud crash. Andy had fired his gun. Tubby shivered as he saw the big feline give a wild leap upward and then come struggling down the slight slope of the roof, clawing furiously, and uttering screams of expiring fury.

Andy was ready to send in a second shot if it chanced to be needed, but this proved not to be the case, for the struggles of the stricken beast quickly ended. The three boys hurried forward, and stood over the victim of Andy’s clever marksmanship. The cat was one of the largest Rob had ever run across, and even in death looked so terrible that Tubby had an odd shiver run through his system as he stared in mingled awe and curiosity down at the creature.

“Too bad in one way that the poor old thing couldn’t finish his feast in peace,” Tubby was saying, “but then I suppose it’s the chances of war. There’s always a state of open war between these bobcats and all men who walk in the woods.”

“Well, I should say yes!” cried Andy, patting himself proudly on the chest. “I’ll always call this one of the best day’s jobs I ever did. Think of the pretty partridges, the innocent squirrels, the bounding jack-rabbits and such things, that I’ve saved the lives of with that one grand shot. If this beast lived three years longer it’d surprise you, Tubby, to count up the immense amount of game that it’d devour in that time. I never spare a cat under any circumstances.”

“Do you think it was all alone in the cabin?” asked the timid one.

“We’ll soon find out,” Andy told him, as he saw to it that his gun was in condition again for immediate use, and then started toward the closed door.

Cautiously this was opened a trifle, and one by one the boys peered through the crevice; all agreed that there was nothing stirring, and so eventually they made bold to pass inside.

It was discovered that the uninvited guest had made free with some of the stores of the party, but after all, the damage did not amount to a great deal, possibly owing to the coming of Rob and his two chums on the scene shortly after the cat started chewing at the half of a ham it had dragged down from a rafter.

The boys quickly removed all signs of feline presence. Andy declared that he intended skinning his prize, for the pelt if properly cured would make quite an attractive mat for his den at home. It would be pleasant of a winter evening, when resting in his easy chair, to gaze down upon the trophy, and once again picture that stirring scene up there in Maine, under the whispering pines, hemlocks and birches.

They adjusted themselves to the new conditions with that free and easy spirit so natural in most boys. It was next in order to pick out the bunks they meant to occupy while in the logging camp; for there were signs to tell them which had been already chosen by Uncle George and his two guides; and of course, no one thought to settle upon any of these particular sleeping-places.

They soon had a fire burning, and the interior looked quite cheerful. Sitting there Tubby could easily picture what a stirring scene it must have been in those times long gone by when a dozen, perhaps even a score, of muscular lumber jacks lounged about that same dormitory and living room, waiting for the cook’s call to supper.

Later on Tubby came up to Rob while the other was arranging some of the contents of his pack, “scrambled” more or less, as he called it, by being carried for several days on his back, and thrown about “every which-way.”

“Look here, Rob,” the fat scout said, “I happened to run across Uncle George’s fresh log of the trip. He always keeps one, and I’ve even had the pleasure of reading about some exciting adventures he’s met with in former years. So that’s my only excuse for glancing at what he’s jotted down here. The last entry is where he made up his mind to go over to the Tucker Pond to try again for that giant moose. And by the way, Rob, I was wondering whether our excited visitor of last night could be this big chap Uncle George is so wild to get?”

“Now that might be so,” admitted the scout leader, “though the thought hadn’t occurred to me before. He certainly was a buster of a beast, though he went off so fast none of us more than got a glimpse of his size. Anything of unusual importance in the beginning of your uncle’s log, Tubby?”

“Oh, he got a deer on the opening day of the season, and we’ll probably find some of the venison around, if we look again sharply. Something did happen it seems, something that gave my uncle considerable unhappiness, too. He lost one of his two guides.”

“What! did the man die here?” ejaculated the astounded Rob.

“Oh! my stars! no, Rob, not quite so bad as that,” Tubby hastened to add. “He had to discharge the man because of something he’d done. Uncle doesn’t say what it was, but he was both indignant and pained; because he thought a heap of Zeb Crooks, who had been with him many seasons. The man was stubborn, too, and wouldn’t ask Uncle George to forgive him, or it might have all been patched up. So he sent him flying, and started off to Tucker’s Pond with his other guide, a Penobscot Indian named Sebattis.”

“Well, that’s interesting, Tubby,” remarked Rob. “It doesn’t mean anything to us, though I can understand how sorry your uncle must have been to part with a man he used to consider faithful. So it goes, and lots of things happen that are disagreeable. I suppose he’ll have just as good a time with the one guide to wait on him as when there were a pair.”

Apparently Uncle George’s troubles did not bother Rob to any extent; but there were things weighing on his mind though, during that afternoon, and these had a connection with the flight of that man in the aeroplane, over across the Canadian boundary line.