NEWS OF BIG GAME
“Faith and would ye mind tillin’ me how that same might be done?” asked Tolly Tip, showing considerable interest. “I niver knowed that ye could shoot a bear with a shmall contraption like that black box.”
Some of the boys snickered, but Paul frowned on them.
“When we speak that way,” he went on to explain, “we mean getting an object in the proper focus, and then clicking the trigger of the camera. We are really just taking a picture.”
“Oh! now I say what ye mane,” admitted the woodsman; “but I niver owned a camera in all me life, so I’m what ye’d call grane at it. Sure ’tis a harmless way av shootin’ anything I should say.”
“But it gives a fellow just as much pleasure to get a cracking good picture of a wild animal at home as it does a hunter to kill,” Phil Towns hastened to remark. Tolly Tip, however, shook 135 his head in the negative, as though to declare that for the life of him he could not see it that way.
“If you can show me a place that the black bear is using,” Paul continued, “I’ll fix my camera in such a way that when Bruin pulls at a bait attached to a cord he’ll ignite the flashlight cartridge, and take his own photograph.”
At that the woodsman laughed aloud, so novel did the scheme strike him.
“I’ll do that same and without delay, me lad,” he declared. “I’ve got a notion this very minute that I know where I might find my bear; and after nightfall I’ll bait the ground wid some ould combs av wild honey.”
“Wild honey did you say?” asked Jud, licking his lips in anticipation, for if there was one thing to eat in all the wide world Jud liked better than another it was the sweets from the hive.
“Och! ’tis mesilf that has stacks av the same laid away, and I promise ye all ye kin eat while ye stay here,” the woodsman told them, at which Jud executed a pigeon-wing to express his satisfaction.
“And did you gather it yourself around here, Tolly Tip?” he inquired.
“Nawthin’ else,” acknowledged the old trapper. “Ye say, whin Mister Garrity do be staying down in town it’s small work I have to do; and to locate a bee tree is a rale pleasure. Some time I’ll till 136 ye how we go about the thrick. Av course there’s no use tryin’ it afther winter sets in, for the bees stick in the hive.”
“And bears just dote on honey, do they, the same as Jud here does?” asked Frank.
“A bear kin smell honey a mile away,” the woodsman declared. “In fact, the very last time I glimpsed the ould varmint we’ve been spakin’ about ’twas at the bee tree I’d chopped down. I wint home to sacure some pails, and whin I got back to the spot there the ould beast was a lickin’ up the stuff in big gobs. Sure I could have shot him aisy enough, but I had made up me mind to take him in a trap or not at all, so I lit him go.”
“So he got his share of the honey, did he?” asked Jud.
“Oh! I lift him all I didn’t want, and set a trap to nab him, but by me word he was too smart for Tolly Tip.”
“Then I hope you salt the ground to-night,” remarked Paul, “and that I can set my camera to-morrow evening and see what comes of it.”
It was not long before they were sitting down to the first real game supper of the excursion. Everybody spoke of it as “Bobolink’s venison treat,” and that individual’s boyish heart swelled with pride from time to time until Spider Sexton called out: 137
“Next thing you know we’ll have a real tragedy hereabouts.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Phil Towns.
“Why,” explained Spider, “Bobolink keeps on swelling out his chest like a pouter pigeon every time somebody happens to mention his deer, and I’m afraid he’ll burst with vanity soon.”
“And when the day’s doings are written up,” Bluff put in, “be sure and put in that another of our gallant band came within an ace of being terribly bitten by a savage wild beast.”
“Please explain what it’s all about,” begged Tom. “You see Jack and I were away pretty much all day. You and Sandy went off with Tolly Tip, didn’t you, to see how he managed his traps? Was it then the terrible thing happened?”
“It was,” said Bluff, with a chuckle. “You see Tolly Tip kept on explaining everything as we went from trap to trap, and both of us learned heaps this morning. Finally, we came to the marsh and there a muskrat trap held a big, ferocious animal by the hind leg.”
“You see,” Sandy broke in, as though anxious to show off his knowledge of the art of trapping, “as a rule the rat is drowned, which saves the skin from being mangled. But this one stayed up on the bank instead of jumping off when caught in the trap. Now go on, Bluff.” 138
“Sandy accidentally got a mite too close to the beast,” continued the other. “First thing I knew I heard a snarl, and then Sandy jumped back, with the teeth of the muskrat clinging to the elbow of his coat sleeve. An inch further and our chum’d have been badly bitten. It was a mighty narrow escape, let me tell you.”
“Another thing that would interest you, Paul,” Bluff went on to say, “was the beaver house we saw in the pond the animals had made when they built a dam across the creek, a mile above here.”
“Beavers around this section too!” exclaimed Jud, as though it almost took his breath away.
“Only wan little colony,” explained Tolly Tip.
“I’d give something to get a picture of real, live beavers, at their work,” Paul remarked.
“Thin ye’ll have till come up this way nixt spring time, whin they do be friskin’ around like young lambs,” the woodsman told him. “Jist now they do be snug in their winter quarters, and ye’ll not see a speck av thim. If it’s the house ye want to take a picture av, the chance is yours any day ye see fit.”
After supper was over Jack and Tom took a look at the new bunks.
“A bully job, fellows!” declared the latter, “and one that does you credit. Why, every one of us is now fitted with a coffin. And I see we can 139 sleep without danger of rolling out, since you’ve fixed a slat across the front of each bunk.”
“Taken as a whole,” Frank announced, “I think the scouts have done pretty well for their first day at Camp Garrity. Don’t you, fellows? Plenty of fish and venison in the locker, all these bunks built, lots of valuable information picked up, and last but not least, coals of fire poured on the head of the enemy.”
They sat around again and talked as the evening advanced, for there was an endless list of interesting things to be considered. Later Paul accompanied the old woodsman on his walk to the place where he believed the bear would pass. Here they set out the honey comb that had been carried along, to serve as an attractive bait.
“Ye understand,” explained Tolly Tip, as they wended their way homeward again in the silvery moonlight that made the scene look like fairyland, “that once the ould rascal finds a trate like that he’ll come a sniffin’ around ivery night for a week av Sundays, hopin’ fortune wull be kind till him ag’in.”
As the boys were very tired after such a strenuous day, they did not sit up very late.
Every lad slept soundly on this, the second night in camp. In fact, most of them knew not a single thing five minutes after they lay down until the 140 odor of coffee brought them to their senses to find that it was broad daylight, and that breakfast was well under way.
Paul and Jud left the camp immediately after breakfast intending to go to the place where the honey comb had been left as bait. Tolly Tip, before they went, explained further.
“Most times, ye say, bears go into their winter quarters with the first hard cold spell, and hibernate till spring comes. This s’ason it has been so queer I don’t know but what the bear is still at large, because I saw his tracks just the day before ye arrived in camp.”
When the pair came back the others met them with eager questions.
“How about it, Paul?”
“Any chance of getting that flashlight?”
“Did you find the honey gone?”
“See any tracks around?”
Paul held up his hand.
“I’ll tell you everything in a jiffy, fellows, if you give me half a chance,” he said. “Yes, we found that the honeycomb had been carried off; and there in the snow were some pretty big tracks left by Bruin, the bear!”
“Good!” exclaimed Frank Savage, “then he’ll be back to-night. It’s already settled that you’ll coax him to snap off his own picture.”