“Just what it is!” Bluff exclaimed, as he started on a run for the spot, to bend anxiously over the object that was half concealed in a drift, and then joyfully burst out: “Jerry, they haven’t been hurt a single bit. Why, we ought to thank those wolves for gnawing all the flesh off! It’ll be easy enough now to hack the horns out with our hatchet. And as we’ve got so little to tote back home with us, mebbe we’d better try and get our prize there.”
“I wouldn’t like to risk leaving such wonderful horns here,” Jerry replied seriously. “Any sportsman happening on them would be tempted to make out that he had killed the big moose himself. What do you really think could have become of those men, Bluff?” he presently asked, uneasily; which question proved how the thought was worrying him.
“Oh, like as not they made up their minds to start back home right away,” the other boy asserted, as though he wished to think so himself.
“But I thought I heard something like a faint shout just then, Bluff; let’s listen a bit; for with that hatchet banging away it’s hard to catch anything.”
Hardly had Bluff ceased hacking at the moose skull when they caught a wailing cry, plainly a human voice, calling:
“Help, oh, help!”
CHAPTER XXIV—THE TRIUMPHANT RETURN
“Somebody’s in trouble!” exclaimed Jerry.
“Makes me think of the time we found Teddy with his foot caught in the bear trap,” said Bluff. “But come on, let’s make for over there, and find out what’s going on.”
With that they started to run. The shouts had ceased. Both boys used their eyes as they hurried along, and pretty soon Bluff cried: