The Dude Wrangler Part 48

Stott's shoulder-blades.

When he had picked off the blood-suckers that were battening on Mrs.

Budlong, the two returned to camp and lost no time in serving notice on Wallie that they were leaving by the first pa.s.sing conveyance if they had to buy it.

Whether or not Mr. Hicks had known of the leeches was a matter for much discussion, and opinion was about equally divided as to his innocence.

He disclaimed all knowledge of them, however, and went about with the air of one cruelly maligned.

His martyr-like pose was not convincing to Wallie, who could not rid himself of the suspicion that the incident had been planned, though Pinkey contended that he did not believe Hicks was "deep" enough to think of anything like that.

"Anyhow, he's cost us three dudes," said Wallie, which remark was sufficient to set Pinkey figuring with a stick.

"Three head of dudes at $5.00 a day for, say, eleven days is, say----"

"They're gone and that's all there is to it. The thing for us to do is to see that no more leave," Wallie interrupted practically.

"I'm not worryin' about them," Pinkey replied, confidently, "if we can jest hold that cook. We've got to humour him till we git through this trip, then after he's paid off I aim to work him over and leave him for somebody to drag out."

But as if to make amends for the loss he had caused his employers, Hicks' manner grew increasingly saccharine and he redoubled his efforts to provide entertainment for the guests. By the time they arrived at the Canon Hotel Wallie was questioning his suspicions of Hicks and felt inclined to believe that he had been hasty in his judgment.

He was undoubtedly an a.s.set, for the entire party hung on his words and relied upon him to see that they missed nothing of interest. Mr. Stott was indebted to him for an experience which relegated the Florida hoot-owl to the background, though the thrill of the adventure was so intermingled with anguish that it was impossible to tell where one left off and the other began.

Sliding down the snow-covered side of a mountain in a frying-pan was fraught with all the sensations Hicks had described and some he had omitted.

When they had reached the particular spot which he had recommended for the sport, in lieu of a frying-pan, Hicks gave Mr. Stott a well-worn gold-pan that he had found somewhere.

Starting at the top with the party as spectators, Mr. Stott shot down the side like the proverbial bullet, but midway his whoops of ecstasy changed to cries of acute distress, owing to the fact that the friction wore a hole through the pan to the size of a dollar, and Mr. Stott, unable to stop his unique toboggan or endure the torture longer, turned over and finished the trip on his stomach.

Mr. Stott's eyes often rested upon Hicks afterward with a questioning look in them, but the cook's solicitude had been so genuine that cynical as his legal training had made him, he was obliged to think that it was purely an accident which might not happen one time in a million.

No point in the Park had been antic.i.p.ated more than the camp at the Canon where Mr. Hicks averred that the bears came in swarms to regale themselves upon the hotel garbage. Their tour thus far had been a disappointment in that the wild animals, with which they had been informed the Park teemed, were nowhere in evidence.

A deer had crossed the road ahead of them and they had gazed at a band of elk through Mr. Penrose's field-gla.s.ses, but otherwise they had seen nothing that they could not have seen in Pennsylvania.

Mr. Hicks' tales of the bears had aroused their interest to such a point that as soon as the camp site was selected they loaded their cameras and kodaks and set off immediately to get pictures while the light was favourable.

It chanced to be one of the days, however, when the bears had no taste for garbage and although they waited until nearly supper-time not a bear put in its appearance. Mr. Penrose, in particular, was disappointed and vexed about it, and while it was unreasonable to hold Hicks in any way accountable for their absence, he could not refrain from saying disagreeably:

"I think you have exaggerated this bear business, Hicks. I have no doubt that a bear or two may come down occasionally, I have the word of others for it, but as for droves of bears--swarms--I think you have overstated."

Mr. Hicks cringed under the criticism, and admitted with a conciliatory whine in his voice that was rather sickening:

"Perhaps I did enlarge a little, Mr. Penrose. Possibly I was over-anxious to be interesting. I apologize sincerely if I have misled and disappointed you. I hope, however, that you will yet have the opportunity of seeing at least one before we leave here."

"No such luck," Mr. Penrose growled at him. "I haven't any idea that I'll see even the tracks. It's a good idea to cut in two everything you're told in this country and then divide it."

Mr. Penrose was so hard on Hicks that Mr. Appel interposed quickly:

"Do they ever come around at night, Cookie?"

"So I have been informed," Mr. Hicks replied, conservatively.

Pinkey was about to say that bears travelled more by night than in daytime, when Mr. Appel declared that he intended to sleep in the sleeping bag he had brought with him but which Mrs. Appel had not permitted him to use because she felt nervous alone, in her teepee.

Mrs. Appel protested against Mr. Appel thus recklessly exposing himself to danger but Mr. Appel was mulish in the matter.

"If, by chance, one _should_ come into camp I would have a good look at him. I may never have another such opportunity."

"If you want to take your life in your hands, well and good."

So, after supper, Mr. Appel unrolled his sleeping bag and spread it on a level spot not far from the supply wagon. Then he kissed Mrs. Appel, who turned her cheek to him, and b.u.t.toned himself into the bag.

The talk of bears had made Aunt Lizzie Philbrick so nervous that as an extra precaution she pinned the flap of her tent down securely with a row of safety-pins and Mr. Stott not only slept in more of his clothes than usual but put a pair of bra.s.s knuckles under his pillow.

These bra.s.s knuckles had been presented to Mr. Stott by a grateful client for whom he had obtained damages from a street railway company for injuries received through being ejected from a saloon six months prior to the date upon which he had fallen off the car step.

Bra.s.s knuckles and a convenient length of lead-pipe were favourite weapons with the clientele which gave to the waiting room of Mr. Stott's law office an odour reminiscent of a Wayfarers' Lodging House.

The night was a dark one, so dark in fact that old Mr. Penrose felt some little hesitation when it came bed-time over going off to sleep by himself in the brush where, owing to his unfortunate habit of snoring so loud as to be beyond anything human, they now placed his teepee.

There was not a glimmer of moonlight or starlight to guide him as he went stumbling and cras.h.i.+ng through the brush to his rag residence. His thoughts were not so much of four-footed visitors as of footpads and the ease with which they could attack him and get away with his grandfather's watch which he was wearing.

Out in the open, Mr. Appel was enjoying the novelty tremendously, though he was a little too warm for comfort in his fleece-lined bag. But after the last candle had been extinguished he called to his wife cheerily:

"Are you all right, dearie?"

Mrs. Appel was not to be so easily propitiated and did not answer, so he called again:

"This is great--simply great! I wish you were with me."

Only Mr. Appel and his Maker knew that he screwed up his cheek and winked at the fabrication.

Sleep came quickly to the tired tourists, and soon there was no sound save the distant tinkle of the bell on one of the horses and the faint rumble of Mr. Penrose's slumbers.

It was eleven o'clock or thereabouts, and the clouds had rifted letting through the starlight, when dark forms began to lumber from the surrounding woods and pad around the camp, sniffing at various objects and breathing heavily.

There were bears of all sizes and ages, ranging from yearlings to grandfathers whose birthdays were lost in antiquity. Mr. Appel, who was a light sleeper and the first to discover them, would have sworn on a monument of Bibles that there were at least fifty of them--the size of mastodons.

Palpitating in his sleeping bag in the midst of them, he may be excused for exaggeration, although, exactly, there were only eight of them.

The cold sweat broke out on Mr. Appel and he thought that surely the thumping of his heart must attract their attention. In such mortal terror as he never had experienced or imagined he quaked while he speculated as to whether the bear that first discovered him would disembowel him with one stroke of his mighty paw, and leave him, or would scrunch his head between his paws and sit down and eat on him?

But once the bears had located the supply-wagon, they went about their business like trained burglars. Standing on their hind legs, they crowded about it, tearing open sacks, scattering food, tossing things. .h.i.ther and thither, jostling each other and grunting when they found something to their liking.

Their grunting and quarrelling finally awakened Hicks and McGonnigle, who started up in their blankets, yelling. Their whoops aroused everybody except old Mr. Penrose, who was sleeping with his deaf ear uppermost and would not have heard a Big Bertha.

Mr. Stott slipped on his bra.s.s knuckles and stood with his head out of the tent opening, adding his shouts to those of Hicks and McGonnigle, who, by now, were hurling such missiles as they could lay their hands on. Instead of having hysterics as might have been expected, Aunt Lizzie Philbrick astonished herself and others by standing out in the open with her petticoat over her nightgown, prepared to give battle with the heel of her slipper to the first bear that attacked her.

It was not until Mr. Hicks got hold of two washbasins and used them as cymbals that the bears paid any attention. But this sound, added to the pandemonium of screaming women, finally frightened them. Then, scattering in all directions, they started back to the shadows.