CHAPTER II.

A WARNING FROM A GAME POACHER.

"Did I g-g-get him?"

Bumpus, as he spoke these eager words, managed to gain a sitting position, though his first act was to rub his shoulder as though it pained him.

There was a roar from all the boys at this remark, and indeed, even the two Maine guides grinned more or less.

"Listen to the innocent, would you?" shouted Giraffe; "when his buckshot tore up the water half way between the boat and the shore, till it looked just like one of those spouting geysers we read about, out in Yellowstone Park. Did he get him, boys?"

Step Hen put his hands to his mouth, megaphone fashion, and bawled out:

"Hey, answer that, Mr. Bear, please; let the poor boy know whether he tickled your tough old hide with one of his buckshot. Because, who knows, fellows, but what it might a glanced off the top of the water, and landed," and he winked at Allan, who was in the canoe with Jim Hasty close by.

"I don't hear any answer floating back," remarked Thad; "and so we'll have to believe that either the bear is lying there, stone dead, or else has skipped out to safe quarters. Bears never can stand being fired at by cannon, they tell me."

"Cannon!" burst out Giraffe at this moment, for he had managed to possess himself of the new gun by pointing to it, and having Eli Crooks pass it along. "Cannon! well, I should smile! What d'ye think he did, fellers? Just exactly what I warned him to beware of, when he saw game, and got excited; pulled both triggers at the same time! Gee! no wonder it knocked him over! I'd hate to have been behind that charge myself; and I've stood a good many heavy ones."

"Ain't we going ashore to see if I did just happen to bowl that old bear over?" whined Bumpus, looking appealingly at Thad. "I'd never forgive myself, you see, if I found out that he _had_ died, and no one even got a steak off him. A scout never wants to waste the good things of life like that, does he, Thad?"

But the scoutmaster shook his head.

"I guess there's no chance of that happening, Bumpus," he remarked. "By now your bear is a quarter of a mile away from here, and running yet."

"Don't blame him," said Step Hen. "That new gun makes enough noise to burst your ear drums, Bumpus. And let's hope you won't ever pull both triggers again. Just practice putting one finger at a time in action. After you've shot the first barrel, let it just slip back to catch the second trigger. It's as easy as tumbling off a log."

"Or going over backward, when you do bang away with both barrels at once," added Davy Jones, wisely.

As they were descending the river the work was comparatively easy for the two guides. They would have their business cut out for them later on, when their plan of campaign, looking toward reaching the Eagle chain of lakes, was more fully developed.

In the beginning there had been three of the paddlers in the party; but a telegram had caught them as they left the train, calling the Oldtown Indian, Sebattis, home, on account of the serious sickness of his wife.

Thad was capable of assuming charge of one canoe, with the assistance of Step Hen and Davy, both lusty fellows. And so they had not bothered trying to fill the gap at the last hour. The chances were that they might have had to take some fellow along who would turn out to be sullen, or else a shirk; thus spoiling much of their pleasure on the trip.

These members of the Silver Fox Patrol had reason to feel proud, because each one of them was at that time wearing a trifling little badge that proved their right to call themselves assistant fire wardens, employed by the great State of Maine to forever keep an eye out for dangerous conflagrations, and labor to extinguish the same before they could do much damage.

It had come about in this manner:

On the train they had formed the acquaintance of a gentleman, who turned out to be the chief fire warden, on his way right then to patrol a certain district that nearly every year boasted of one or more severe fires.

He was greatly interested in Thad's account of the numerous things a Boy Scout aspired to do each day; and as it was his privilege to take on as many unpaid assistants as he chose, just as a sheriff may do in an emergency, the gentleman had with his own hands pinned a little badge on the lapel of each boy's coat.

They were very proud of the honor, and expressed their intention of serving as fire-wardens to the best of their ability--all but Giraffe. He used to shake his head every time he glanced down at his badge, and look solemn. The fact of the matter was, Giraffe had all his life been so wrapped up in _starting_ fires, that the very idea of spending his precious time in helping to _put one out_ did not appeal to him very strongly.

"Jim is telling me that we can expect to see the mouth of the Little Machias River any old time from now on," remarked Allan; "and while I haven't come up this way exactly, to the Eagle waters, I guess he's about right."

"Sure he is," ventured Giraffe, "for we passed the place where the Big Machias joins forces with the Aroostook some time back; and unless my eagle eye fails me, away up ahead I can see the junction right now, where we turn to the left, and leave this dandy old stream. Then the fun begins with the paddles."

"What was that the fire-warden was saying to you, Thad, about some sort of bad man up in this region, that gave the game wardens more trouble than all the rest of the poachers combined?" Step Hen asked.

Jim Hasty was seen to squirm a little; and Thad noticed this as he answered the question.

"Oh! yes, he was warning me to steer clear of one Caleb Martin, a strapping big fellow who used to be, first a logger, and then one of those men who get boats' knees out of the swamps and marshes up here; but who for some years has made up his mind to loaf, and take toll of other peoples' traps, or shoot game out of season."

"Caleb Martin, eh?" Step Hen went on; "seems to me it was another name from that?"

"Well," Thad continued, "he did mention two others who were said to be cronies of the big poacher. Let's see, I believe their names were Si Kedge and Ed Harkness; wasn't that it, Jim?" and he turned suddenly on the smaller guide.

"That's right," answered the other, promptly; "though to be fair and squar' with you, I didn't hear him speakin' o' 'em atall. But I lived up hyar, yuh knows, an' Cale, he's been akeepin' the hull kentry kinder riled a long time now. I'm hopin' we won't run a crost him any, an' that's a fact."

"Sounds like there wasn't much love lost between you and this same Cale Martin?" ventured Thad.

"They hain't," was the only thing Jim would say; and Thad knew there must be a story back of it, which he hoped later on to hear.

"But why should the wardens be afraid of just three men, when they have the law on their side; that's what I'd like to know?" Bumpus demanded.

Giraffe gave a scornful laugh.

"The law don't count for a great deal away up in the wilderness, Bumpus," he remarked, in a condescending way. "All sorts of things are done when men get away off in the Maine woods. They laugh at the law, till they feel its hand on their shoulder, and see the face of a warden close to theirs. Then p'raps they wilt. But this bully of the big woods has had a free hand up yonder so long, that he just thinks he's the boss of all creation. He needs takin' down, I reckon. And p'raps, if we happen to run across him, it might be the mission of the Silver Fox Patrol to teach him a lesson. Queerer things have happened, as we all know, looking back a little at our own experiences."

"We don't want to brag," remarked Thad. "Perhaps the shoe would be on the other foot, and he might kick the lot of us out of his territory. But all the same, let's hope our trail won't cross that of Cale Martin."

They were presently turning in to the left, and starting to ascend the Little Machias; a pretty stream, which some years back used to fairly teem with game-fish, but which, like many another river in Maine, has felt the effect of the continual work of thousands of fishermen, and worse than that, the sly netting at the hands of lawless poachers.

Step Hen was interested in many things that opened to their view as they went on, and his two companions did the paddling; for he had been working quite some time himself, and was entitled to a resting spell.

This was a new trait in Step Hen. Time had been when he would hardly notice a single thing when out in the woods, unless his attention was especially directed to it by a comrade. But it was so no longer; and the way his awakening came about, as mentioned in a previous story, is worthy of being recorded again, as showing what a trifling thing may start a boy to thinking, and observing the myriad of interesting events that are constantly occurring around him, no matter where he may happen to be at the time, in a crowded city, or alone in a vast solitude.

Step Hen had once come upon a humble little tumble-bug, striving to push a ball four times as big as himself up a forlorn road, at a point where there was a "thank-you-mum," intended to throw the water aside during a heavy rain, and save the road from being guttered.

He had grown so deeply interested in seeing the little creature try again and again to overcome the stupendous difficulties that faced it, that he lay there for half an hour, watching; clapping his hands when he thought success had come, and feeling deeply sorry when a slip caused the ball to roll back again, often upsetting the bug, and passing over its body.

The astonishing pluck of the humble little bug had aroused the admiration of the boy; and in the end he had picked up both ball and bug, and placed them safely above the baffling ascent in the road. And after that hour Step Hen awoke to the fact that an observing boy need never lack for something intensely interesting to chain his attention, no matter where he might be. All he had to do was to keep his eyes open, and look. Nature had ten thousand deeply interesting and curious things that appeal to the one who knows how to enjoy them.

And so from that day Step Hen was noticed to be eagerly on the watch for new sights. He asked many questions that proved his mind had awakened; and Thad knew that that half hour when the scout had lain alongside the mountain road down in North Carolina, had possibly been the turning point in his career; for he would never again be the same old careless, indifferent Step Hen of the past.

"There comes another canoe down the river!" suddenly cried Bumpus, who was still squatting in the bow of the leading canoe, industriously rubbing his right shoulder as though it pained him considerably; a fact Thad noticed, and which had caused him to promise that he would take a look at the lame part when they stopped for their midday meal, very soon now.

There was only one man in the canoe that was approaching, and presently Jim Hasty remarked that he knew him.

"It's sure Hen Parry, from up where I used to hold out," he went on to say; and then called out to the approaching Maine guide, as his make-up pronounced the other to be; "hullo, Hen, howd'ye? Glad tuh see yuh. Come closer, and shake hands. How's everybody up to the old place?"

The other dark-faced fellow seemed pleased to his old friend, and immediately gripped the extended hand.

"Guess ther putty well up thar, Jim; an' no need o' my askin' how ye be'n, 'cause yer lookin' prime," he remarked; and then suddenly an expression akin to dismay flashed across his weather-beaten face, as he continued: "By the same token I got er message fur ye, Jim, in case I run up agin ye on my way down to Squawpan, where I gotter meet a party that's bound up huntin'. Ye won't like to hear it, neither, I kinder guess, 'cause it's from a feller ye got no use for."

"Cale Martin?" burst involuntarily from the lips of Jim Hasty, while his face turned a shade whiter under its coat of tan.

"Ther same critter," Hen went on. "He's still runnin' things to suit hisself up thar around the Eagle chain, an' larfin' at all ther game wardens in Aroostook county ter stop him ahavin' his way."

"Why should he tell yuh anything tuh say tuh me; an' how'd he know I was acomin' up this aways?" asked Jim, firmly.

"He sez as how he heerd thet you was agoin' to bring a pack o' boys along up to the Eagles; p'raps it kim in a letter he hed from somebody, I don't know jest how thet mout be; but he seemed to know it, all right, Jim. Sez he to me, 'Hen, ef ye happens to run acrost thet thar measly little skunk what sails by the name o' Jim Hasty, jest you tell him fur me thet if he dares to put his foot up hyar in _my_ deestrick, I'm bound to pin his ears to a tree, and leave 'em thar to give him a lesson.' An' Jim, I guess from the look he had on thet black face ob his'n when he says thet, Cale meant it, every blessed word. And if 'twas me, I'd feel like turnin' back, to take my people another way."

Thad fixed his eyes on Jim's face to see how the shorter guide took it. He realized that Jim was at least no coward, even though he might fear the wrath of such a forest bully as the ex-logger, and present lawless poacher Cale Martin; for he had shut his teeth hard together, and there was a grim expression on his face, as if he did not mean to knuckle under to any such base threat as that.