The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound Part 14

"Oh! we ought to be good for another hour or so anyway, Phil," Tom told him, at which the other only grunted and struck manfully out again.

As evening closed in about them, the shadows began to creep out of the heavy growth of timber by which the skaters were surrounded.

"Look! look! a deer!" shrieked Sandy Griggs, suddenly. Thrilled by the cry the others looked ahead just in time to see a flitting form disappear in the thick fringe of shrubbery that lined one side of the creek.

CHAPTER XV

TOLLY TIP AND THE FOREST CABIN

"Oh! that's too bad!" exclaimed Spider s.e.xton, "I've been telling everybody we'd taste venison of our own killing while off on this trip, and there the first deer we've glimpsed gives us the merry ha-ha!"

"Rotten luck!" grumbled Jud Elderkin. "And me with a rifle gripped in my fist all the time. But I only had a glimpse of a brown object disappearing in the brush, and I never want to just _wound_ a deer so it will suffer. That's why I didn't fire when I threw my gun up."

"With me," explained Jack Stormways, "it happened that Bluff here was just in my way when I had the chance to aim."

"Well," laughed Bobolink, "you might have shot straight through his head, because it's a vacuum. I once heard a teacher tell him so when he failed in his lessons every day for a week."

"Oh! there's bound to be plenty of deer where you can see one so easily," Paul told them, "so cheer up. Unless I miss my guess we'll have all sorts of game to eat while up here in the snow woods. Abe said it was a big season for fur and feather this year."

They kept plodding along and put more miles behind them. The moon now had to be relied on to afford them light, because the last of the sunset glow had departed from the western heavens.

Phil was beginning to feel very tired, and feared he would have to give up unless inside of another mile or two they arrived at their intended destination. Being a proud boy he detested showing any signs of weakness, and clinched his teeth more tightly together as he pressed on, keeping a little behind the rest, so that no one should hear his occasional groan.

All at once a glad cry broke out ahead, coming from Sandy Griggs, who at the moment chanced to be in the van.

"I reckon that's a jolly big fire yonder, fellows, unless I miss my guess!" he told them.

"It is a fire, sure thing," agreed Bobolink.

"Tolly Tip has been looking for us, it seems, and has built a roaring blaze out of doors to serve as a guide to our faltering steps!"

announced Jud, pompously, although he could hardly have been referring to himself, for his pace seemed to be just as swift and bold as when he first set out.

"It's less than half a mile away I should say, even with this crooked stream to navigate," announced Bobolink, more to comfort Phil than anything else.

"Keep going right along, and don't bother about me, I'm all right,"

called the latter, cheerfully, from the rear.

In a short time the scouts drew near what proved to be a roaring fire built on the bank of the creek. They could see a man moving about, and he must have already heard their voices in the near distance for he was shading his eyes with his hand, and looking earnestly their way.

"h.e.l.lo, Tolly Tip!" cried out the boisterous Bobolink. "Here we come, right-side up with care! How's Mrs. Tip, and all the little Tips?"

This was only a boyish joke, for they had already been told by Mr.

Garrity that the keeper of the hunting lodge was a jolly old bachelor.

But Bobolink must have his say regardless of everything. They heard the trapper laugh as though he immediately fell in with the spirit of fun that these boys carried with them.

"He's all right!" exclaimed Bobolink, on catching that boisterous laugh. "Who's all right? Tolly Tip, the keeper of Deer Head Lodge, situated in Garrity Camp! For he's a jolly good fellow, which none can deny!"

Amidst all this laughter and chatter the ten scouts arrived at the spot where the welcoming blaze awaited them, to receive a warm welcome from the queer, old fellow who took care of Mr. Garrity whenever the latter chose to hide away from his business vexations up here in the woods.

The boys could see immediately that Tolly Tip was about as queer as his name would indicate. At the same time they believed they would like him. His blue eyes twinkled with good humor, and he had a droll Irish brogue that was bound to add to the flavor of the stories they felt sure he had on the end of his tongue.

"Sure, it's delighted I am to say the lot av yees this night," he said as they came crowding around, each wanting to shake his hand fiercely.

"Mr. Garrity towld me in the letther he was after sindin' up with the tame that ye war a foine bunch av lads, that would be afther kapin' me awake all right. And sure I do belave 'twill be so."

"I hope we won't bother you too much while we're here," said Paul, understanding what an energetic crowd he was piloting on this excursion.

"Ye couldn't do the same if ye tried," Tolly Tip declared, heartily.

"I have to be alone most all the long winther, an' it do be a great trate to hav' some lively lads visit me for a s'ason. Fetch the packs along wid ye into the cabin. I want to make ye sorry for carrying all this stuff wid ye up here."

His words mystified them until, having entered the capacious cabin built of hewn logs, with the c.h.i.n.ks well filled with hard mortar, they were shown a wagonload of groceries which Mr. Garrity had actually taken secret pleasure in purchasing without letting the boys know anything about it.

A team had found its way across the miles of intervening woods, and delivered this magnificent present at the forest lodge. It was intended to be a surprise to the boys, and Mr. Garrity certainly overwhelmed them with his generosity.

Bobolink alone was seen to stand and gaze regretfully at the small edition of a grocery store, meanwhile shaking his head sorrowfully.

"What ails you, Bobolink?" demanded one of his chums.

"It can't be done, no matter how many meals a day we try to make way with," the other solemnly announced. "I've been calculating, and there's enough stuff there to feed us a month. Then, besides, think of what we toted along. Shucks! why didn't Nature make boys with India rubber stomachs."

"Some fellows I happen to know have already been favored in that line," hinted Tom Betts, maliciously; "but as for the rest of us, we have to get along with just the old-fas.h.i.+oned kind."

"Cheer up, Bobolink," laughed Paul; "what we can't devour we'll be only too glad to leave to our good friend Tolly Tip here. The chances are he'll know what to do with everything so none of it will be wasted."

"When a man who all his life has been as tightfisted as Mr. Garrity does wake up," said Phil Towns, "he goes to the other extreme, and shames a lot of people who've been calling themselves charitable."

"Oh! that's because he has so much to make up, I guess," explained Jud.

While some of the boys started in to get a good supper ready the others went around taking a look at the cabin in the snowy woods that was to be their home for the next twelve days.

It had been strongly built to resist the cold, though as a rule the owner did not come up here after the leaves were off the forest trees.

A stove in one room could be used to keep it as warm as toast when foot-long lengths of wood were fed to its capacious maw. The fire in the big open hearth served to heat the other room, and over this the cooking was also done.

Several bunks gave promise of snug sleeping quarters. As these would accommodate only four it was evident that lots must be cast to see who the lucky quartette would prove to be.

"To-morrow," said Paul, when speaking of this lack of accommodations, "one of the very first things we do will be to fix other bunks, because every scout should have a decent place for his bed. There's plenty of room in here to make a regular scout dormitory of it."

"Fine!" commented Tom Betts; "and those of us who draw the short straws can manage somehow with our blankets on the floor for one night, I guess."

"We've all slept soundly on harder beds than that, let me tell you,"

a.s.serted Bobolink, "and for one I decline to draw a straw. Me for the soft side of a plank to-night, you hear."

The other boys knew that Bobolink, in his generosity, really had in mind Phil and one or two more of the boys, not quite so accustomed to roughing it as others of the campers.

That supper, eaten under such novel surroundings, would long be remembered; for while these boys were old hands at camping, up to now they had never spent any time in the open while Jack Frost had his stamp on all nature, and the earth was covered with snow.