The Boy Scouts in A Trapper's Camp

by Thornton W. Burgess

He had caught a sudden flash on the highest point of the peak. As he watched he saw it again. His first thought had been that it was the sun reflected from a bit of ice, but an instant's thought convinced him that this couldn't be. It would of necessity be fixed and steady. The flashes he had seen were made by something moving. With this knowledge came the sudden conviction that the flashes were caused by the sun striking on polished metal. Hastily feeling in his rucksack he drew out a pair of opera-glasses which he always carried with him for use in studying birds and animals. They were not very strong, but sufficiently so to bring the peak perceptibly nearer. At first he could make out nothing unusual. Then through the glasses he caught that flash again and focussed them as nearly as possible on the spot from which it had come. For some minutes he saw nothing suspicious. He was almost ready to give up and conclude that it was in his imagination when he was positive that he saw something move back of a stunted little spruce growing from a cleft in the rocks at the point where he had located the flashes.

Instantly every instinct of the true scout was aroused. There was something alive back of that little spruce. It might be an animal and then again it might be a man. At once there flashed into his mind Alec's account of the robbed traps. Could it be that one of the thieves was reconnoitering the Hollow? His heart gave a queer jump at the thought. Anyway it was clearly up to him to find out what he could.

Rapidly he reviewed the situation. It was clear that from his present location he would gain no further information if his suspicions were true. If an enemy was watching from behind that spruce he was undoubtedly aware of Walter's presence, for he was standing in the open. Beyond question he had been watched from the time he left the cabin. To make a false move now would be to give warning. He regretted that he had gazed so long at the suspected point. That in itself would be sufficient to arouse suspicion in the mind of any one hiding there. The first thing then was to allay any such suspicion.

Deliberately he turned his glasses across the Hollow and studied the opposite mountain for a greater length of time than he had watched the point where he had seen the flash. Then he squatted down and leisurely turned his glasses from point to point in the Hollow in the manner of one having no interest in anything but the view. Not once did he glance back along the ridge, although he was burning with curiosity and desire to do so. He ignored it as if it held no further interest for him whatever. For perhaps ten minutes he continued to act the part of a mere sightseer. Then putting his glasses back in his rucksack he stretched lazily and in a leisurely manner began to pick his way down into a little draw which cut back into the ridge in the opposite direction from the pass. Once down in this he would be out of sight of a possible watcher at the spruce lookout.

As soon as he was sure that he was beyond observation Upton hurried. The draw led back into a thick stand of young growth, and he hoped by working up through this to be able to cross the ridge unobserved and work back to a point which he had carefully noted and from which, owing to the change of angle, he felt sure he would be able to see back of the little spruce tree which had previously cut off his view. Getting up to the top of the ridge was stiff work for an inexperienced snow-shoer in a hurry and was productive of many tumbles, but it was accomplished at last. After this it was comparatively easy to work along just below the top on the back side to the point he had selected.

There he cautiously crept into a thicket of young spruce and, his heart beating like a trip-hammer with excitement, carefully parted the branches until he could get a clear view. His hands trembled as he drew out the glasses. Would he discover anything, or had he been wrought up to such a pitch over nothing? The little spruce leaped out clear and distinct as he got the focus. "Ha!" The exclamation was wholly involuntary and he experienced an absurd impulse to look around to make sure that he had not been overheard, although he knew that he was absolutely alone.

The cause was the figure of a man squatting behind the spruce and peering intently into the valley. He wore a fur cup pulled low to shade his eyes, and this, together with the distance, made it impossible for Upton to see his features clearly, but somehow he received an unshakable conviction that it was an Indian or a half-breed. A rifle leaned against the tree and doubtless it was the glint of the sun on its polished surface that had produced the mysterious flashes that had first caught his attention.

"He's watching to see if I go back to the cabin," thought Walter. "If he doesn't see me by the time the others return he'll smell a rat. There's nothing more to be gained by staying here. I've proved that we are being watched, and that's all I can do. It's up to me to get back and tell the others."

Cautiously the boy retreated through the thicket until he was below the cap of the ridge. Then he hurried, running when he could and finding it less difficult than he had imagined. He crossed above the head of the draw and went on until he had reached a point which he judged must be about opposite to where he had left his rifle in the hollow tree. His first impulse had been to keep on until he could come out directly in the rear of the cabin, but on second thought he had decided that it would be wiser to return by the same way that he had left and get his rifle. If he had been seen leaving the cabin with his rifle it would look odd, to say the least, if he should be seen returning without it.

In climbing the ridge he had zigzagged back and forth, picking the easiest grade, but now he was too impatient for so slow a method of descent and plunged straight down, slipping, sliding, checking himself by catching at trees and brush, getting a fall now and then as the web of his shoes caught in a stick, but on the whole doing very well. One thing he had not considered as he should have—the possibility of slipping over an unseen ledge. It was brought home to him when he brought a rather long slide to an abrupt end by catching a tree on the very edge of a sheer drop of perhaps eight feet.