CHAPTER VI

THE EVENTS OF A DAY

Both boys leaped to the ground without waiting to agree on any particular program. They had recognized the peculiar buzz of an angry rattlesnake, so like the shrill sound made by a locust on a hot August day, and once heard never afterwards forgotten.

The thought of their chum taking any chances with such a dangerous viper thrilled them, and also gave them a chill. Elmer snatched up the first stick he could see, in which he was speedily imitated by the other. Then they started on the run, heading directly for the spot whence that furious whirring sound sprang.

As they went thus they heard another sort of disturbance, as though some object might be swishing through the bushes, or else beating the ground. Then again came the voice of Perk, uttering low warwhoops, as though furiously engaged, while the rattle gradually became uncertain, and finally ceased to sound.

“Take that with my compliments, and here’s another of the same sort! Huh! lunge at a fellow who didn’t mean to bother you at all, will you? Guess I’ve done for _your_ hash all right, thanks to this bully pole. Hello! fellows, just come up in time to see me clip him the last stunner. He’s settled, don’t you think?”

Elmer breathed easier when he saw that bulky Perk had snatched up a convenient pole, and with this had proceeded to break the back-bone of the angry snake. It was even then squirming on the ground, and judging from its length must be an old campaigner, being fully three feet, which could be considered fair proportions for a Northern specimen.

“He didn’t get to you, I hope, Perk?” was the first question Elmer asked, at which the other grinned, and shook his head vigorously in the negative.

“Glad to say he didn’t, Elmer; but shucks! if he could only have flung himself his full length, instead of only half, I believe he’d have struck me. But I did for him, let me tell you, that’s right. Six rattles, and a prime button to wind up with, to show for my encounter! Whew!”

“But didn’t you hear his warning rattle?” demanded Wee Willie; “I never knew a case where one of his stripe didn’t shake his can like thunder before you almost stepped on him. They’re the only honorable snake there is.”

Perk colored up, and then candidly admitted his shortcoming.

“Why, er, you see, I just must have thought it was only a locust buzzing away like all get-out,” he confessed, in some confusion. “Then all at once he launched himself out at me, to fall short; but like a flash he was coiled again, and starting in to make that queer buzzing sound once more. Oh! yes, I did get a shock, and felt as cold as ice for a few seconds; then my dander seemed to rise, and I just looked around for a pole, which luckily enough happened to be handy. It knocked him silly, you can see.”

“We’ll take no chances with such a slick neighbor,” said Wee Willie, who happened to be carrying the camp hatchet in his left hand; with which he now proceeded to decapitate the squirming snake. “There, be careful not to step on his head, Perk; I’ve heard of a case where a man died by doing that, the sharp fangs running into his foot through his soft moccasin.”

Perk was contented to obtain possession of the rattle as a memento of his late exciting encounter. He showed some concern over the matter.

“I certainly hope there isn’t a nest of these chaps hanging around Log Cabin Bend,” he remarked, solicitously. “What with watching for snakes, and escaped lunatics, I can see where we’re bound to be on the alert every minute of our stay up here.”

“So far as that goes, it always pays to keep your eyes open when afoot in the Tall Timber,” Elmer warned him. “You never know what you may run up against any minute; and preparedness is the right bower of every woodsman worthy of the name. Already we’ve run across three instances of this—first there was that crouching cat Amos frightened off with his flashlight; then came the mysterious party who slipped away from the cabin at our approach; and now this venomous snake that was lying coiled in your path, and on which you might have trod unawares only for his generous warning.”

“This ought to be a good lesson to me, Elmer,” humbly admitted the contrite Perk. “I realize that I’m a whole lot short on woods lore, and all those things some of my fine pards know so much about; but I mean to soak in a wheen of the same while we’re up here in camp. Yes, every time I shake this rattle it’ll remind me how wofully lacking I am in scoutcraft, and everything connected with life in the woods.”

“Everything perhaps except the splendid art of cookery, Perk,” remarked the cunning Wee Willie, adroitly feeding the ambition of the other to shine as an artist along such lines; “there you’ve got the bunch of us left at the post.”

“Yes,” remarked the other, with a puff of unconscious pride, while his eyes fairly sparkled with pleasure at receiving such a compliment, “I suppose a fellow can’t be up head in everything; where one excels, another fails to hit the mark. And perhaps it’s just as well that I have a knack for the noble culinary art.”

Perk went back to camp with the others, as though for the time being his desire to look around had received a decided setback.

“I’ll come out and put the ugly thing underground later on,” he said; “for such trash ought to be buried deep, so as to keep the air around the camp sweet and pure. I burned some insect powder inside the cabin, you may have noticed, just to get rid of that stale odor we took to come from rank tobacco. It’s a disinfectant in the bargain.”

“That’s right, Perk,” assented Wee Willie, promptly; “anyway, it almost disinfected me when I poked my head indoors a while back, to see if there might be any cavity we’d overlooked. Made the tears come, too, so that Elmer he asked me, when I got back on the roof, if I’d had any bad news from home. But then I left the door wide open, so it’ll gradually pass away, let’s hope.”

The two menders of leaky roofs were soon at their old job, while Perk readily found something else to occupy his time and attention. He had pounded nails galore in the wall near the cavity which was used as a fireplace, and on these he hung such cooking utensils as they had fetched along with them, consisting of a large sized coffeepot; a generous frying pan; some kettles in which grits or rice or oatmeal might be cooked; likewise a little teapot, for Perk was a regular old maid when it came to the question of drinking a decoction of the fragrant herb at lunch or supper, preferring it to Java at any time.

Along about half-past-ten by Elmer’s little nickel watch who should come in but Amos, with a look of eager expectation on his face.

“Guess you struck oil somewhere, didn’t you, brother?” asked Wee Willie, as if able rightly to interpret this expression of anticipated triumph.

“Would you believe it,” crowed Amos, “I had the great good luck to scare a bird out of the thicket where the berries are growing that partridges like to feed on early in the Fall; and on investigating there was a nest, with some eggs in it, and warm at that? Of course it’s a silly bird that hopes to fetch up a flock of nestlings hatched out so near frost time, but it was pie to me!”

“What did you do?” demanded Perk, looking deeply interested.

“Well, I fixed my camera so it focussed on the nest, with the proper effect of light,” explained Amos. “Then I crept away to some little distance, keeping in tabs with it all, so I’d know when to pull the string that would free the trigger of the camera, and expose the plate in a jiffy.”

“And did it work; was the old bird so little alarmed that she’d come back to her nest before the eggs got chilled?” continued Perk.

“Just what she did,” assented the eager photographer, “and as soon as I saw everything was O. K. I did the business. Knew just when the trigger sprang, too, for I noticed her give a little jump at the click. Then she flew off again as I stepped up to recover my camera that lay on the ground. I certainly do hope I’ve struck a decent picture; but if not I’ll just keep on trying till I do.”

“That’s the right spirit, Amos,” chuckled Elmer. “Just keep it up and you’re bound to get there sooner or later.”

Then the newcomer had to be told about Perk’s thrilling adventure, as well as shown the rattle of the dead snake by the proud victor in the battle royal. The reader may rest assured that by the time all three boys had given their separate version of the encounter, Amos was fully posted regarding every detail possible.

“You came out of it in prime shape, Perk,” he said, heartily; “but luck was on your side. If you’d happened to be a foot closer, there might have been a far different story to tell; and a heap anxious lot of fellows up here at Old Cabin Bend. I’ve known of chaps who were struck by a rattler, and died in spite of being dosed with whisky, and such things, under the idea that one poison can counteract another. For myself I like to give snakes a wide berth. I’ll step out of the trail every time to let one hold possession.”

“It’s really the safest plan,” assented Elmer.

“But that isn’t just all my news, boys,” continued the ardent photographer. “Down under the river bank I found a heap of little tracks, mink footprints for a certainty, showing that one old chap roams around there, anyway. And to-night, Elmer, I’d like to have you help me set my camera trap, hoping to coax Mr. Mink to sit for his own picture.”

“You can count on me in anything you ask, Amos,” he was told most heartily as the roofers again got busy with their pounding.

After they had partaken of a light lunch, meaning to have the big meal of the day come at evening, when their tasks would all be finished, they lay around resting and dozing, for it had become quite warm.

Perk, however, showed signs of continued nervousness. Perhaps he had received a greater shock during his encounter with the rattler than he cared to admit; then again the suspicion that an escaped lunatic was hovering around, and trying to spy upon them, was in itself quite enough to make him uneasy.

He got up, and threw himself down again as many as half a dozen times, considerably to the amusement of Wee Willie, who was slyly watching him. Finally Perk found a seat on a convenient log, and sat there, staring away toward a little uplift of land that might be called a forest knoll, where the trees stood up far above the balance of the timber.

Wee Willie, watching, saw the fat chum suddenly start, and bending forward stare very hard at something. His features were working, too, as though Perk might be laboring under a fresh spasm of excitement.

“Well, I just expected it’d happen!” Wee Willie heard him mutter.

“What happened, Perk?” demanded the other, lifting his head.

“Why, there he is right now, perched in that beechnut tree up on the knoll yonder. You can see the dark mass move if you look sharp! Of course he’s spying on the camp; and I bet you he’s got it all fixed to visit us this very night!”