CHAPTER XX

ONCE MORE ON THE TRAIL

At least the signs all pointed to its being a fine day. Elmer was glad of that, for they expected to have their hands full finding Perk; and a continuation of the storm of the preceding night must have broken up their plans more or less, besides proving uncomfortable.

He was in no hurry to arouse the others.

“Let them sleep,” he said to himself, with a whimsical look on his own rather peaked face; “they need it, poor chaps; and neither of them is as used to doing without as I’ve schooled myself to be.”

So he moved about just as softly as possible while replenishing the fire; and it was really the flames snapping that finally aroused Wee Willie. He sat upright, and still rubbing one eye stared rather sheepishly at Elmer.

“Huh! a fine sentry I’d make, I guess, to sleep on my post,” he mumbled scornfully. “For five cents I’d ask some one to give me sixteen good kicks.”

“Oh! that’s far too much hard cash,” chuckled Elmer; “lots of fellows would be glad to do it for nothing, Wee Willie. But let’s forget our troubles now the morning’s come, and our unwelcome guest hasn’t returned.”

“Yes, one trouble seems to have skipped out; but there are others still,” complained the tall chum. “First there’s Perk missing, and nobody knows which way to look for him, now the trail’s all washed out. Then the second thing that makes me sad is the lack of breakfast.”

He put both hands on his stomach, and grunted dismally.

“I guess it hasn’t happened but a few times in all my whole life,” he went on to confess, “that Wee Willie has been forced to go hungry in the morning; and I want to tell you right now it’s little short of a calamity in my estimation. Why, I’ll be shaky all day long; you can’t expect to keep the furnace agoing without stoking once so often.”

“But how about that cake of chocolate each of us took along, so as to stave off starvation?” asked Elmer, maliciously.

His chum made a wry face.

“Well, you see chocolate may be all very fine in its place; but it never can make me forget how much I love coffee, bacon and eggs, with flapjacks to wind up the meal on. Now don’t think I’m scorning chocolate, because it isn’t so; I’ll eat every scrap of my cake, and be glad to have it; but oh! what an empty void there’ll be after I’m done.”

Amos must have heard them talking, for he now sat up and wanted to know who had mentioned coffee.

“Thought I whiffed it brewing, for a fact,” he sniffed, making a wry face, “but it was all imagination. Think of starting a whole long day on a silly piece of chocolate; but if the rest of you can stand it I’m not going to kick.”

“That’s sensible of you, Amos,” laughed Elmer; “though kicking wouldn’t be apt to help matters any, it strikes me. Let’s sit around and talk of our late visitor.”

“Yes, we’d like to hear more details about how he went away,” urged the lengthy chum, as he clawed in a pocket for the square of hard chocolate, which upon being produced he started to gnaw at eagerly as if the mere thought of having no breakfast in prospect made him simply ferocious for something upon which to “fill up.”

Elmer told all he knew as they sat there, waiting for the sun to appear and warm the chilly early morning air, before thinking of making a start.

“Well, I’m glad for one,” ventured Amos, “he decided to take French leave, and it was all owing to your fine trick, Elmer, in making him believe those two asylum guards were around here, and apt to drop in on us any old time. Only for that he might be sticking to us as tight as any old plaster; or the Old Man of the Sea who fastened himself to the back of Sindbad the Sailor, you may remember, and refused to dismount.”

They were not long in making way with their scant allowance of chocolate. Elmer knew that it would be of considerable benefit in allaying the pangs of hunger; but Wee Willie could not forgive himself for not fetching a supply of “real stuff” along.

“Shucks! we might have known we’d be out all night, and want breakfast after a hard day’s work, and a night in the open, without even our blankets to make things seem half-way cozy. Catch me doing such a silly trick again—if I do I’ll eat my hat, believe me.”

“The Camp Fire Boys never make the same mistake twice running,” boasted Amos, and then in a lower voice adding: “though they do have a way of finding out fresh ways for doing the wrong things.”

“They’re only human, and you know what is said about it being the common lot of man to err,” Elmer told him. “But if we make it a practice to learn something every time we find we’ve figured wrong, well soon be all puffed up with knowledge.”

So they chatted, often in a joking vein, as boys sometimes will on whose shoulders troubles fall even as lightly as water on a duck’s back.

“About time we thought of starting out, isn’t it?” asked Amos, showing a return of his eagerness, the others could easily guess why, knowing what they did about his intense interest in the tramp whom their coming had disturbed when in possession of the cabin at the Bend.

“Yes, for now the sun is up, and by degrees the woods will dry out,” Elmer decided. “After such a drenching rain we’ll find every little creek full to the banks, though they’ll soon lower again, I reckon.”

“What about my tuning up, and giving Perk the merry ha! ha?” demanded Wee Willie, who apparently must feel in good voice.

“Whenever you please,” Elmer told him; “we’ll try not to be frightened at the racket, knowing it’s only you.”

Wee Willie looked queerly at him, and then went on to say half humorously:

“Huh! don’t know whether to take that as a compliment or not. Makes me think of that fable of old Æsop about the lion and the donkey going hunting in company, and coming to a cave where a flock of goats had taken refuge. You see, it was arranged that the donkey should go inside, and frighten the game out; while the lion would lie in wait, and kill the goats as they appeared. Well, Jack went in and began to hee-haw, and carry on something fierce; the goats came rushing out, and the lion got his dinner all right. After everything was over the proud donkey appeared, and asked his partner what he thought of his performance. ‘Did I do my part well?’ he wanted to know. ‘Elegantly,’ the lion told him; ‘you made the greatest noise I ever heard; and in fact I myself might have been frightened if I hadn’t known that you were only a donkey!’”

Of course both Amos and Elmer laughed, and Wee Willie, too, joined in, for he was one of that kind of fellows who are capable of appreciating a joke, even at his own expense.

Elmer showed his careful woodcraft training by making sure that every ember of the fire was utterly extinguished before quitting the scene of their night’s camp. He knew full well about the danger that always lurks in a fire left smouldering by those breaking camp; for later on perhaps a violent wind might arise that would carry the red embers into some patch of dead leaves, and thus result in a serious conflagration. Tens of thousands of acres of most valuable woodland have been annually destroyed just through such criminal carelessness. If hunters and campers would only exercise the proper amount of care, most of these forest fires might be avoided, and beautiful timber tracts remain intact, to delight the eyes of those who sought their solitudes for rest and recreation during vacation times.

At last they got started.

Every little while Wee Willie would throw back his head and awaken the echoes with a really stentorian whoop, such as might well have made an Indian brave look envious. They always listened afterwards with a degree of eagerness, in hopes of catching some return call; but time after time it went with only a mocking crow winging its flight overhead uttering a derisive “caw”; or else a blue jay scolding the invaders of its woods haunt.

Elmer tried to figure out about what course Perk was most apt to take. In so doing he had their recent experience to guide him; for he easily remembered how the lost boy kept unconsciously edging toward the _left_, as wanderers most generally do.

“I notice you keep on the watch all the while, Elmer,” said Amos; “while Wee Willie and myself use our eyes to scan the woods on every side, hoping to discover a sign of a moving form, or maybe a handkerchief waving at us from some far-away tree on a rise, you scan the ground. Do you expect to run across his trail again, where he started in after the rain was over?”

“I can’t say I expect that, Amos,” he was told, quietly; “but it’s always possible, you know. Perk must be somewhere within five miles of us right now, if only we could get in touch with him.”

“It would certainly be a grand good thing if we did raise his track once more,” Wee Willie attested; “we’d keep on like so many wolves chasing their quarry, until we ran him down. But, Elmer, I hope we won’t have any difficulty about making our way back to camp after we pick Perk up?”

There was a tiny vein of anxiety in the tall chum’s query; in fact, Wee Willie was speculating at the time whether he could contrive to live through the day with just that small cake of chocolate to sustain his sinking energies. Already he began to claw at any berries he chanced to see close to his hand in passing, as though the red Antwerps might help him ward off the dreadful feeling of distress that came with “Nature abhorring a vacuum.”

“I’ve got my bearing well in hand,” he was calmly assured. “Just as soon as we find our chum you’ll see me head around, and I warrant I can take you in a bee-line to our jolly old cabin.”

“That’s the right name to give it, Elmer,” agreed Wee Willie, contritely. “At first it looked so forlorn and disreputable that any style seemed to fit the outfit; and I guess I tacked on a lot of sarcastic names such as ‘old,’ ‘shack,’ ‘shanty,’ and the like. But, say, right now I beg pardon; that same cabin holds the wherewithal that links my body to this earth, all our stock of delicious food, and for that reason if nothing else, it’s going to be the ‘dear old cabin’ to me from this time on.”

Elmer came to a sudden stop, and held up his hand.

“Listen!” he said abruptly.