Chapter 40

CHARLIE GOES HUNTING

Blood River Jack halted suddenly in his journey from the bunk-house to the grub-shack and sniffed the air.

He dropped the butt of his rifle to the hard-packed snow of the clearing and glanced upward, where a thin sprinkling of stars winked feebly in the first blush of morning.

The dark sky was cloudless, and the trees stood motionless in the gloom, which slowly dissipated where the first faint light of approaching day grayed the east. The air was dry and cold, but with no sting of crispness. The chill of it was the uncomfortable, penetrating chill that renders clothing inadequate, yet brings no tingle to the exposed portions of the body.

Again the man sniffed the dead air and, swinging the rifle into the crook of his elbow, continued toward the grub-shack.

Appleton and Sheridan accepted without remonstrance the guide's prediction of a storm and retired to the "house," as the rooms in which the party was quartered had come to be known--not entirely unthankful for a day of rest.

The crew went into the timber, as usual; the guide retired to his bunk for a good snooze; and young Charlie Manton, tiring of listening to Daddy Dunnigan's yarns, prowled about the camp in search of amusement.

Entering the bunk-house, his attention was attracted by the loud snoring of Blood River Jack, and his eye fell upon the half-breed's rifle and cartridge-belt, which reposed upon the floor just beneath the edge of his bunk.

The boy crept close, his soft moccasins making no sound, until he was within reach of the gun, when he dropped to the floor and lifted it in his hands. For many minutes he sat upon the floor examining the rifle, turning it over and over.

At length he reached for the cartridge-belt, and buckling it about his waist, left the room as noiselessly as he had entered and, keeping the bunk-house in line with the window of the cook-shack, slipped unobserved into the timber.

Upon his hunting expeditions with the others, Charlie had not been allowed to carry a high-power rifle. It was a sore blow to his pride that his armament had consisted of a light, twenty-gauge shotgun, whose possibilities for slaughter were limited to rabbits, spruce-hens, and ptarmigan.

Farther and farther into the timber he went, avoiding the outreaching skidways and the sound of axes. Broad-webbed snow-shoe rabbits leaped from under foot and scurried away in the timber, and the whir of an occasional ptarmigan or spruce-hen passed unheeded.

He was after big game. He would show Uncle Appleton that he _could_ handle a rifle; and maybe, if he killed a buck or a wolf or a bobcat, the next time he went with them he would be allowed to carry a man's-size weapon.

An hour's tramp carried him to the bank of the river at a point several miles below the camp, where he seated himself upon a rotten log.

"Blood River Jack just wanted to sleep to-day, so he told 'em it was going to storm," he soliloquized as he surveyed the narrow stretch of sky which appeared above the snow-covered ice of the river.

But somehow the sky did not look as blue as it had; it was a sickly yellow color now, like the after-glow of a sunset, and in the center of it hung the sun--a dull, copper sun, with uneven, red edges which lost themselves in a hazy aureola of yellowish light.

The boy glanced uneasily about him. The woods seemed uncannily silent, and the air thick and heavy, so that the white aisle of the river blurred into dusk at its farther reaches.

It grew darker, a peculiar fuliginous darkness, which was not of the gloom of the forest. Yet no smell of smoke was in the air, and in the sky were no clouds.

"Looks kind of funny," thought the boy, and glanced toward the river. Suddenly all thought of the unfamiliar-looking world fled from his brain, for there on the snow, not twenty yards distant, half crouched a long, gray body with the claws of an uplifted forefoot extended, and cruel, catlike lips drawn into a hideous snarl.

The other forefoot rested upon the limp, furry body of a rabbit, and the great, yellow-green eyes glowed and waned in the dimming light, while the sharply tufted ears worked forward and back in quick, nervous twitches.

"A _loup-cervier_," whispered the boy, and slowly raised Blood River Jack's rifle until the sights lined exactly between the glowing eyes. He pulled the trigger and, at the sharp metallic click with which the hammer descended upon the firing-pin, the brute seized the rabbit between its wide, blunt jaws and bounded away in long leaps.

Hot tears of disappointment blurred the youngster's eyes and trickled down his cheeks--he had forgotten to load the rifle, and his hands trembled as he hurriedly jammed the long, flask-shaped cartridges into the magazine and followed down to the river on the trail of the big cat.

He remembered as he mushed along on his small rackets that Bill had told him of a rocky ledge some five or six miles below camp, and had promised to take him to this place where the _loup-cerviers_ had their dens among the rocks.

The trail held to the river, whose banks rose more abruptly as he proceeded, and at length, as he rounded a sharp bend, he could make out dimly through the thickening air the outline of a high rocky bluff; but even as he looked, the ledge was blotted out by a quick flurry of snow, and from high among the tree-tops came a long, wailing moan of wind.

The trees pitched wildly in the icy blast; the moan increased to a mighty roar, and the air was thick with flying snow. Not the soft, flaky snow of the previous storm, but particles fine as frozen fog, that bit and stung as they whirled against his face in the eddying gusts that came from no direction at all and every direction at once.

The boy bowed his head to the storm and pushed steadily forward--he _must_ kill the _loup-cervier_, whose trail was growing momentarily more indistinct.

His eyes could penetrate but a few yards into the white smother, and suddenly the dark wall of the rock ledge loomed in front of him, and the trail, almost obliterated now, turned sharply and disappeared between two huge, upstanding bowlders.