Several times during the night Neal found it necessary to obey this injunction, else had there been no peace in the camp. But, in spite of Dol’s ravings and riotings in his excited dreams, the party enjoyed a needed ten hours’ slumber, all save Herb, who, as usual, was astir the next morning while his comrades were yet snoring.
He got his fire going well, and baked a great flat loaf of bread in his frying-pan, setting the pan amid hot ashes and covering it over. Previous to this, he had made a pilgrimage to the distant spring, to fill his kettle for coffee and bread-making, and had carefully examined the ground about the clump of hemlocks.
The result of his investigation was given to the boys as they ate their breakfast under the shade of a cedar, with a sky above them whose morning glories were here and there overshot by leaden tints.
“I guess we’ve got a pretty fair chance of trailing that moose,” he said. “I found both hair and blood on the spot where he was wounded. I’m for following up his tracks, though I guess they’ll take us a bit up the mountain. If he’s hurt bad, ’twould be kind o’ merciful to end his sufferings. If he ain’t, we can let him get off.”
“Right, as you always are, Herb,” answered Cyrus. “But what on earth made the creature bolt so suddenly? If you had seen him five minutes before he was shot, you’d have said he had as much fight in him as a lion.”
“That’s the way with moose a’most always. Their courage ain’t that o’ flesh-eating animals. It’s only a spurt; though it’s a pretty big spurt sometimes, as you boys know now. It’ll fail ’em in a minute, when you least expect it. And, you see, that one last night didn’t know where his wound came from. I guess he thought he was struck by lightning or a thunder-ball, so he skipped. Talking of thunder-balls, boys,” wound up Herb, “I shouldn’t be surprised if the old Mountain Spirit, who lives up a-top there, gave us a rattling welcome with his thunders to-day. The air is awful heavy for this time of year. Perhaps we’d better give up the trailing after all.”
“Nonsense!” exclaimed Dol indignantly. “Do you think a shower will melt us? Or that we’ll squeal like girls at a few flashes of lightning? ’Twould be jolly good fun to see old Pamolah sending off his artillery.”
“Well, there’d be no special danger, I guess, if we were past the heavy timber growth before the storm began. There’s lots of rocky dens on the mountain side where we could shelter under a granite ledge, and be safer than we’d be here in tent. Or we might come a-near our old log camp. I guess, if that’s standing yet, you’d like to see it. Say! we’ll leave it to Cyrus. He’s boss, ain’t he?”
Cyrus, desperately anxious to know whether it would be life or death for the wounded moose, and regarding the signs of bad weather as by no means certain, decided in favor of the expedition. The campers hurriedly swallowed the remainder of their breakfast, and made ready for an immediate start.
“In trailing a moose the first rule is: go as light as you can; that is, don’t carry an ounce more stuff than is necessary. Even a man’s rifle is apt to get in his way when he has to scramble over windfalls, or slump between big bowlders of rock, which a’most tear the clothes off his back. And we may have to do some pretty tall climbing. So leave all your traps in the tent, boys; I’ll fasten it down tight. There won’t be any human robbers prowling around, you bet! Bears and coons are the only burglars of these woods, and they don’t do much mischief in daytime.”