CHAPTER XXI—A CAMP IN THE SNOW
“I never hated to do anything so much in my life as break away from there and give up our moose!” Bluff told his comrade.
They had gone far enough back to lose sight of the three men in the swiftly driven snow that was now falling heavily.
“Me, too,” returned Jerry; “but that’s the way it happens sometimes. I only hope they find out they haven’t got a single match among ’em. Perhaps, then, if it keeps on getting colder, and the storm blows heavier and heavier, they’ll wish they hadn’t made us clear out.”
“Why, what are you talking about, Jerry?”
“Didn’t you hear what they started to say while we were backing away?” demanded the other. “Whalen asked the other man for a match, so they could start up a fire and get warm. Then I heard the second fellow say he didn’t know where he’d dropped the box, but it didn’t seem to be in his pockets. They turned to Nackerson, and I reckon asked him for a light, because I heard him growl that he’d used his last match when he smoked a cigar.”
“Oh, well, they’ll find some stray ones stowed away in a pocket, like as not!” Bluff remarked, and in that fashion allowed the incident to pass from his mind.
“But tell me what you’re aiming to do next, Bluff?” asked Jerry. “I’d also like to know which way you mean to play the game so’s to get back the horns of our big moose?”
Bluff chuckled on hearing that.
“Oh, I only said that to impress Bill, that’s all!” he observed carelessly. “I had to be true to my name, you know. I only wish I could see some way to beat that crowd out in the end. I’d sure go to a heap of trouble to get there.”
“Are we heading right to get back home?” asked Jerry, a few minutes later.
“My stars! I hope you don’t think I’m silly enough to want to try and cover all the miles between here and the cabin, and with this storm starting in, too.”
“Well, I’ll do whatever you say, Bluff, because I always did own up you knew more about the woods in a day than I could in a week; but all the same I’d be right glad to hear you mean to make a camp, and spend the night resting up.”
“I’m afraid it isn’t going to be much of a camp, though; you don’t want to expect too much.”
“Some sort of brush shelter ought to help out, I should think,” the other returned, as he bent his head lower in order to fight against the driving wind.
Night was coming on unusually early, on account of the clouds above and the falling snow. Any one who knew what these signs foretold could understand that there was a wild time ahead for those caught away from shelter and exposed to the fury of a growing blizzard.
“We might be able to do some better than that,” Bluff went on to say, as he kept turning his head from side to side, as though constantly on the lookout for something he had in mind.
Five, ten minutes passed, until they must have gone nearly half a mile away from the scene of their meeting with Nackerson and his cronies.
“Whew! Let me tell you this is going to be a screecher!” Jerry declared, while he rubbed his ears to make them burn, for the cold wind nipped them.
“You’re wondering why I don’t call a halt, Jerry, so I’ll explain,” Bluff told him. “I remembered seeing a place when we were moving along the trail of the moose where some trees had been uprooted in a storm years ago.”
“Yes, I noticed it, Bluff!” cried the other eagerly. “Is it on account of the firewood you want to get to those fallen trees?”
“Partly that,” admitted the other; “but p’raps you didn’t notice that one of the trees had been a regular whopper, for when it went down in the cyclone it yanked up a heap of earth nearly as big as a cabin.”
“Oh, now I see what you mean, Bluff: the hole in the ground where the roots came out of might make us a first-rate camp!”
“For a good many reasons,” pursued Bluff, who managed to speak after a fashion in spite of the wind whistling into his teeth and at times almost taking his breath away. “First of all, the roots stand up in the right way to protect us from the worst of this northwest storm.”
“Couldn’t be better, for a fact,” said Jerry, feeling his courage returning as the plan unfolded.
“Then, as you say, we’d have plenty of firewood handy for that little camp hatchet to get busy on. And unless I miss my guess we ought to be able to cover the gap more or less with stuff, so as to form a rough roof.”
“Then all I hope is,” Jerry told him rather plaintively, “that we don’t get off our base, and miss connections with that windrow of fallen trees.”
“I’ve kept my bearings right along,” Bluff returned, “and if you look sharp over there on the left I reckon you’ll see the open place where the trees are down.”
“Bluff, you did take us straight there, for a fact. I don’t think Frank or anybody else could have done better!” was Jerry’s exultant outbreak, after he discovered that they had arrived at their goal.
A minute afterward the two chums were looking down into the hole that had once contained the roots of the big tree, now lying where the violence of the hurricane had thrown it.
“Just the thing for us!” Jerry exclaimed, as he jumped into the cavity and mentally pictured it roofed over so that the snow might be almost wholly kept out.
“Then the first thing we want to do is to get a fire started,” Bluff advised him. “Before we know where we’re at, we’ll be in the dark; so let’s drag a bunch of this wood where we’ll need it before we do anything else.”
They laid their guns aside, leaning them against a tree that had weathered the gale so fatal to the giant of the woods. For some little time both boys labored steadily, until a heaping pile of fairly good wood had been brought close to the hole.
“Where’d we better start the fire?” asked Jerry, for he knew that a number of things must be considered when settling this question.
There was the direction of the wind to be remembered, for it would be very disagreeable to have the pungent wood smoke blown constantly in their faces, making their eyes smart. As the upturned roots stood between them and the storm, this compelled them to start the blaze on the opposite side of the excavation.
Once Jerry had the site pointed out to him, he busied himself in getting a blaze going. Things began to take on a more cheerful air as soon as the fire started crackling and throwing out both light and heat.
This was only a beginning. The boys knew that in order to shelter themselves from the blizzard they must get some sort of roof above their heads. This would keep off the falling snow that might otherwise almost fill the hole before morning came.
The hatchet proved to be worth its weight in silver, as Jerry declared.
“What would we have done without it?” he remarked several times, as he continued to hack away, handing the brush over to Bluff, who was engaged in trying to weave it after a certain fashion, securing it to the poles they had laid across the top of the hole.
“Don’t ask me,” Bluff told him; “thank Frank for telling us to bring it along, when like as not neither of us would have thought it worth while.”
“No,” continued Jerry, “because a fellow as a rule doesn’t expect to use a hatchet when he’s tracking a moose or a deer. All the same, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s best to have such a tool along whenever you even take a walk up here in these Maine woods. You never know when you may need it.”
“The roof’s half done,” announced Bluff. “Take a look, and tell me how you like it.”
“Seems like a good job, so far as I know,” the other commented. “I should say you’ve made a brush shelter that way more’n a few times before now.”
“Maybe I have,” was the reply, as Bluff once more set to work to finish the roof, leaving untouched the end through which they could pass in and out and receive the benefit of their fire.
“And when we’ve got all through building our house,” remarked Jerry, “it’ll be time to think of having a bite.”
“Huh! That’s another thing we’ve got to thank Frank for,” was the rejoinder. “It looks as though he might have seen what trouble we had in store for us, and fixed things to meet the need.”
“That’s Frank’s way,” commented Jerry, feeling very grateful to know that even though compelled to spend the night in such a crude camp he and Bluff need not lie and shiver for want of warmth or go hungry because of lack of food.
“It strikes me the storm keeps getting worse right along,” Bluff announced, as he was forced to push up to the fire in order to warm his stiff fingers.
“It’s a corker, all right,” admitted the other, whose exertions with the hatchet helped to keep his blood circulating, so that he did not feel the freezing temperature quite so much as Bluff seemed to.
In due time the roof was finished, as far as the builder intended it should be laid. No matter what depth of snow fell, very little of it was likely to find its way inside the shelter back of the upturned tree.
“Now, don’t we deserve a little refreshment?” asked Jerry.
“We might as well, for a change,” Bluff told him. “After that, we must fetch more wood. The wind makes the fire burn savagely, you notice, and it’s sure a caution how it eats up the stuff. Besides, remember it’s going to be something like twelve hours before morning comes.”
“Wow! Will we manage to get any sleep, do you think?”
“Give it up; but let’s hope so.”
“And when we intended to start out light, I can remember Frank saying we might wish we had lugged our blankets along with us. ’Course we, couldn’t do that, and chase after the moose; but I’d like to feel that same blanket up around my shoulders.”
“Oh, we’re doing pretty well, as it is,” Bluff returned, determined to make the best of a bad bargain, which was a pretty wise thing for him to do under the circumstances.
Sitting there, with the fire crackling close by, and its heat feeling very comfortable, the two chums opened the packages of food which Frank had rammed into the pockets of their coats before they started.
Their supper consisted of only crackers and cheese, with some strips of left-over venison to munch on. Still, since their appetites were good and there was an abundance of the fare, it tasted as fine as anything they could remember.
“Had enough?” asked Bluff, when he saw that his comrade had cleaned up every scrap of his portion.
“Plenty,” replied Jerry, with a sigh of satisfaction; “couldn’t eat another bite if I tried. And don’t let’s bother thinking where our breakfast’s going’ to come from. We’ll run across some game, or else be able to find the cabin again before we’ve quite starved to death.”
“That’s right. I was just thinking if those men should turn out to be without a single match among them, wouldn’t they have a rough time of it all night out in this storm?”
“Yes; and I’m sorry now I didn’t offer to hand them over some of our supply of matches,” Jerry said softly, which remark spoke well for his forgiving nature. “They treated us mean, of course, but then it doesn’t pay to hold a grudge when you’re in the woods.”
“Oh, I reckon they found the match, all right,” Bluff remarked carelessly, “and as they’re old sportsmen they must know all the tricks woodsmen make use of to keep warm and cozy in a blow like this.”
“I hope so, Bluff.”
Later on they decided to get busy with the wood supply, for the snow continued to come down as furiously as ever. It was a fine kind of powdery snow, which, blown on the gale, caused their cheeks to smart when it struck.
Every little while they would get close to the fire to warm themselves. Jerry shuddered as he contemplated the long vigil of that never-to-be-forgotten night following their moose hunt. He did not anticipate that sleep would visit either of them, so uncomfortable would be their position. The wind managed to find cracks and crannies through which to whistle, and with the storm raging through the forest all sorts of strange noises came to their ears.
At times it even seemed to Jerry as though people in distress were calling for help. Twice he went outside the shelter to listen, though Bluff told him it was all imagination.
“It wouldn’t surprise me, though,” the other remarked, when Jerry came back the second time, “if we heard that wolf pack whooping things up through the timber before morning comes. A wild night like this is what starts them on the rampage, I reckon.”
“Do you think they would attack us here?” asked Jerry, drawing his gun a little closer to his hand.
“Well, hardly, with this jolly blaze going,” Bluff continued reflectively. “You know, they are afraid of fire. But they may make a meal from that big moose we shot, if the men don’t stay there to keep them away.”
“So long as they left us the horns I wouldn’t care, Bluff. But if the men didn’t find a single match among them, and the wolves came along, like as not they’d have to pass the night perched in a tree, and freezing. Oh, I’m glad we’ve got our fire!”