PREFACE.
My DEAR LADS:
This story is complete in itself, but forms volume two of a set known under the general title of the "Boy Hunters Series," taking the heroes through various adventures while out hunting and fishing, in the woods and mountains, and on rivers and lakes.
The boys are bright, lively lads of to-day, with a strong liking for a life in the open air and a keen taste for hunting both big and little game, and for fishing in various ways. In the former volume, entitled, "Four Boy Hunters," they organized their little dun Club and obtained permission to go a number of miles from home and establish a camp on the edge of a lake. From this spot they were driven by enemies, and then settled at another camp, where they had various adventures and not a little fun, and in the end cleared up a mystery which had bothered them not a little.
In the present story we have the same boys and almost the same locality, but the time is now winter, and in the pages which follow are related the sport the boys had in the snow and on the ice, and something about a new mystery, which ended in rather a surprising fashion.
As I have said before, hunting, especially in our eastern states, is not what it was years ago. Almost all of the big game has disappeared, and the fellow who can get a deer or a moose without going a good many weary miles for the game is lucky. Yet in some sections small game is still fairly plentiful, and a bag full of rabbits or wild ducks is much better than nothing.
With best wishes to all who love the woods and waters, a gun, a dog, and a rousing campfire, I remain,
Your sincere friend,
CAPTAIN RALPH BONEHILL.
GUNS AND SNOWSHOES.
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCING FOUR BOYS
"Hurrah, boys, it's snowing at last! Aren't you glad?"
"Glad? You bet I'm glad, Snap! Why I've been watching for this storm for about six months!"
"There you go, Whopper!" answered Charley Dodge, with a grin. "Six months indeed! Why, we haven't been home six months."
"Well, it seems that long anyway," said Frank Dawson, who was usually called Whopper by his chums, because of his exaggerations when speaking. "I've just been aching to see it snow."
"So that we can take that trip we proposed," put in Sheppard Reed, quickly. "I guess we are all waiting for that."
"I am anyway," came from Will Caslette, the smallest lad of the four, who had gathered at their usual meeting place in the town where they resided. "Our camping out last summer was immense. If only we have half as much fun this winter!"
"We will have, Giant," broke in the boy called Whopper. "Didn't I tell you I was going to bring down sixteen deer, twenty bears, two hundred wild turkeys, a boatload of wolves, and—"
"Phew, Whopper! Every time you name 'em over the list gets longer!" cried Charley Dodge. "If you bring down so much game there won't be anything left for other hunters."
"Well, I'll leave you a bear or two," said Whopper cheerfully.
"Thanks awfully."
"Leave me one lone wild turkey, Whopper dear," came mournfully from
Shep Reed.
"Say, if you're going to talk like that I won't leave anything," burst out Frank.
"Whopper may bring down all the game, but I'll wager he can't throw a snowball as straight as I can," said Charley, taking up some snow. "See that spot on the fence yonder? Here goes for it!"
The snowball was launched forth with swiftness and with a thud struck the spot directly in the center.
"Hurrah! A bull's-eye for Snap!"
"Humph! I can do that too!" cried Whopper, and forthwith proceeded to make a good hard snowball. Then he took aim, let drive, and the ball landed directly on the top of the one Charley had thrown.
"Good for you, Whopper!" said Charley enthusiastically.
"Ah, I could do that a thousand times in succession," answered the youth given to exaggeration, coolly. "Why, don't you know that one day there were six Tom cats on a fence and I took a snowball and hit 'em all?"
"What, with one snowball?" queried the little lad called Giant.
"Sure thing, Giant."
"But how?"
"Why, I made the snowball bounce from the head of one Tom cat to the head of the next," answered Whopper, unabashed.
"Well, if that isn't the worst yet!" roared Shep. "Say, we ought to roll Whopper in the snow for that!"
"Right you are!" cried Snap. "Come on!"
"Hi! hold on!" yelled Whopper in alarm, but before he could resist he was landed on his back in the snow, and the others proceeded to roll him over "good," as Shep expressed it. The rolling process at an end, a general snowball fight ensued between all of the boys, and also several others who chanced to be passing.
The scene was the town of Fairview, a place containing a main street and also another thoroughfare running to the tidy little railroad depot, where eight trains stopped daily. The town was made up of fifteen stores and shops, three churches, a hotel, and a livery stable, while just outside were a saw mill and several other industries. The place was located on the Rocky River, which, ten miles below, flowed into a beautiful sheet of water called Lake Cameron.
To those who have read a previous volume of mine entitled, "Four Boy Hunters," the lads skylarking in the snow need no special introduction. For the benefit of others let me state that Charley Dodge was the son of one of the most influential men of that district, a gentleman who was a school trustee and also part owner of a big summer hotel and one of the saw mills. Sheppard Reed was the son of the best-known local physician, and he and Charley,—always called Snap, why nobody could tell—were such chums they were often spoken of as the Twins.
Frank Dawson had come to Fairview a little over two years before, and had speedily made himself a prime favorite. As we have seen, he loved to exaggerate when telling things, yet with it all Whopper, so called, was as truthful as anybody. As Snap said, "you could always tell Whopper's whoppers a mile off," which I think was something of a whopper in itself, don't you?
The youngest lad of the four was Will Gaslette, always called Billy or Giant. He was the son of a French widow lady, who thought the world of her offspring. Although Will was small in size, he was sturdy and self-reliant, and promised to become all that his mother hoped for him.
During the previous summer the four boys had organized the Fairview Gun Club and obtained permission to go camping for a few weeks in the vicinity of Lake Cameron. They had started in high spirits, and after a number of minor adventures located on the shore of the lake. From this spot, however, they were driven by a saw mill owner named Andrew Felps, who ran a company that was a rival to the concern in which Mr. Dodge had an interest. The boys were made to give up their comfortable camp, and then they went to Firefly Lake, a mile away. Here they hunted and fished to their heart's content, being joined in some of their sports by Jed Sanborn, an old hunter and trapper who lived in the mountains between the lakes. They had some trouble with Ham Spink, a dudish youth from Fairview, who, with some cronies, located a rival camp across the lake, but this was quickly quelled. Then, during a forest fire, they captured a long-wanted criminal, and came home at last loaded down with game, and with the firm determination to go out camping again during the winter.
"We couldn't spend our time more pleasantly," was what Snap said. "Just think of a cozy camp in the snow, with a roaring camp-fire, and plenty of game on all sides of you! Um! um! It's enough to make a fellow's mouth water!"
"Oh, we'll have to go!" had been Shep's answer. "Of course we'll have to go to school, but we are going to have a long vacation around the holidays—"
"And we can ask for our Christmas presents in advance," Giant had interrupted. "If we go out, I know what I want?"
"What, Giant?"
"A pair of snowshoes."
"Oh, we'll all want those," had come from Whopper. "And sleds, too—for our traps."
"That's right."
"And another shot-gun."
"Yes, and plenty of blankets. It's no fun to camp out in winter if you can't keep warm."
And so the talk had run on, until the winter outing of the Gun Club became almost a certainty to them. But there were certain restrictions, one of which, placed on all of the boys by their parents, was that they should end the term at school with good averages in all their lessons.
"You must get at least eighty-five per cent. out of a possible hundred in all your lessons," said Doctor Reed to Shep, "otherwise you cannot go," and the other parents said practically the same thing to Snap, Whopper and Giant. And then the boys pitched in with a will, resolved to come out ahead, "or know the reason why," as Snap said.