The Boy Scouts in A Trapper's Camp Part 23

"Hitting the trail for parts unknown," replied Pat. "We'll tell you about it later. Meanwhile here are some friends of mine you ought to know and keep an eye on, Bill. They'll bear watching."

He then introduced the three boys. Sparrer still clung to his prize, and as he came forward to shake hands Jim and the warden sensed for the first time what it was he was carrying.

"By gum!" exclaimed Jim. "I believe that's the very fellow I was telling you about, Bill. Saw him the last time I was over here. Did you trap him, Pat, or is he part of the spoils of war?"

"Wrong both ways, Jim," replied Pat. "He was the cause of this little expedition. Come on in and while we are rustling up some grub we'll tell you the yarn."

Jim and the warden listened with growing interest and appreciation while Pat unfolded the story. When it ended the warden gravely arose and walked over to Sparrer. "Shake hands over again, son," said he, to the boy's great confusion. "If I had had to sit still and watch a fortune trot around the way you did I sure would have been so plumb shaky that I'd have missed the shot when the time came. What are you going to do with him now that you've got him?"

Thus did the warden bring to a head a question that had been troubling the boy ever since the fox was recovered. "He ain't mine," he gulped.

"Oi lost him, and wouldn't never seen him again if it hadn't been fer dem." He nodded in the direction of Pat and Alec. "He's theirs, an' dey ain't no use talkin' about it." Sparrer set his lips firmly.

In an instant Pat and Alec were on their feet, protesting that such talk was foolishness, and that the prize belonged to Sparrer and no one else.

But the boy shook his head stubbornly.

"Seems to me," drawled the warden when he could make himself heard, "that this here is a case for a disinterested party to decide. Now if you was to ask me I should say that an even split, fifty-fifty, is the fair thing. This here young tenderfoot comes up here with horseshoes or rabbit's-feet or some other luck charms hung all over him and without no help from any one bags a fortune which he finds running around loose.

Right up to that point it's hisn and n.o.body else ain't got no claim on it. Then he loses it and ain't got no more chance of gettin' it back himself than a bull moose has of growing a long tail. Up steps Pat and Alec and friendly like does for him what he can't do for himself, an'

gets the prize back. Now it seems to me that half ought to go to this here young feller fer gettin' it in the first place, and half to the other two fer gettin' it back after it was lost. What do you say, Jim?"

"The only fair thing," declared Jim judicially. "There's enough in it to give 'em all a comf'table bit."

A warm discussion followed in which Hal and Upton sided with the warden and Jim and it ended only when Sparrer at last agreed to a three-way split. From this stand no amount of argument could move him. He would take a third share if Pat and Alec would each take a third. Otherwise he wouldn't take any. And so it was finally agreed.

The skinning and stretching of the hide was left to Alec, who was a past master in the art. While he was thus engaged the warden mysteriously beckoned Pat to one side.

"Pat, whose are these?" he asked gravely, drawing a bunch of traps from under a bunk.

Pat reached for them and examined them curiously. "Mine. That is, mine and Alec's; those are our marks," he replied, pointing to certain file marks on them. "Where did you get them?" he added wonderingly.

"Where I got this fellow," replied the warden, reaching under the bunk and drawing out the body of a beaver. "I know you better than to think you had a hand in this, Pat," he continued, "but"--he hesitated and then continued hurriedly, "I thought perhaps your partner has been doin' a little poachin' unbeknown to you. You know he didn't have the best name ever was when he first came into these parts."

A great light broke over Pat's face. "Alec don't know anything more about this than I do," he declared. "There isn't a straighter man in the woods than Alec is now, and you just want to make up your mind to that right now, Bill. That's the work of that thievin' Injun. You mind what I told you about Sparrer's findin' those traps at the beaver-pond? Well, it's as plain as the nose on your face. That Injun lifted some of our traps and set them there. He knew that if you came snoopin' round and found 'em the marks on 'em would point to us. Those skunks didn't have any traps, anyway. Thinkin' about that fox I'd clean forgotten about the beaver. Poor little chap." Pat stroked the body of the beaver.

Alec was now called in, and his look of blank astonishment when he saw the traps and the dead animal was all that was needed to convince the warden that Pat was right in his surmise.

That evening Jim explained his visit by stating that he had all along planned to get over to the Hollow before the boys left. When the warden dropped into his camp early that morning and stated his intention of going on to the Hollow Jim decided that he would accompany him.

"How are you boys going back?" he asked.

"The same way we came in, I suppose," replied Upton.

"What's the matter with putting in a day with me and seeing how a logging camp is run? Then I'll send you out to the railroad on a lumber wagon," suggested the big lumber boss.

The idea appealed to the boys, and it was finally agreed that they would accompany him to his camp the next day. It would give them a new experience for which they were eager, and at the same time eliminate the long hike back to Lower Chain. So, not without sincere regret, it must be admitted, they got their duffle together preparatory to an early start the next morning for the fifteen mile hike to Jim's headquarters.

They turned in early, for now that the excitement was over they felt the reaction from the long strain they had been under, and the loss of sleep the night before. Jim and the warden bunked on the floor and the cabin in Smugglers' Hollow was soon wrapped in silence save for the gentle breathing of the sleepers. So ended a red letter day for at least three of the occupants.

CHAPTER XX

THE BLACK FOX IS SOLD

The day in the lumber camp was all too short for all of the boys, but especially for Sparrer, to whom the cutting of the great trees and the hauling of the logs and piling of them on the rollways on the banks of the river ready for breaking out on the high water of the spring was of absorbing interest. Hal and Upton were familiar with logging operations, having visited logging camps many times during their summers in the woods. The only novelty to them lay in the changed setting of the scenes produced by the snow.

Sparrer was of just the type to win immediate favor with the rough, big-hearted lumber-jacks, and they made him feel at home at once. They vied with one another in showing him things of interest, and his comments, colored with the slang of the city streets, afforded them no end of amus.e.m.e.nt. So it was with regret on all sides that at break of the following day the boys put their duffle on the big sled used for hauling in supplies and followed it themselves. Pat went with them to see them off at the train.

With the last glimpse of the lumber camp as the sled entered the forest a silence broken only by the tinkle of the bell on one of the horses, the m.u.f.fled sound of their feet and the slithering slide of the broad runners over the snow, fell on the little group. None felt in the mood for talking save the driver, and he soon subsided, failing to elicit more than monosyllabic responses. Pat was busy with thoughts of what his share from the sale of the black fox skin would mean to him in the furtherance of his ambitions for an education. But on his three guests the unfathomable mystery of the wilderness had once more fallen and wrapped them in its spell. It was the deeper for the knowledge that they were so soon to break it with no certainty of when they might again surrender their spirits to it. They were going back to another world.

Oddly enough it was Sparrer who finally voiced the feeling of which both Upton and Hal were conscious, yet found no words to express.

"It makes a feller feel little," said he, "like he ain't nothin' at all, and yet dat inside av him is somethin' bigger'n this." He swung one hand around in an all inclusive sweep. "An' it makes him feel clean inside, just like it is outside, an' like he'd got to do big things an' little mean things hadn't got no place. An'--an'"--Sparrer was groping for words to make his meaning clear--"it gives a feller a funny feelin' dat he ain't much and yet dat some way he's bigger'n de mount'ns, an' if dey is a million years old like people say, he's goin' ter last a lot longer. Bein' out here makes me feel just like Oi do when Oi go into de church an' de sun comes trew dem colored winders and de organ plays an'

lifts a feller right up 'til he feels like he had wings an' could fly if he only knew how ter use 'em."

Sparrer stopped abruptly and gazed with unseeing eyes off through the forest aisles. Pat looked over at the youngster with the light of understanding in his eyes.

"Right, son," said he. "I know the feeling. This is the great cathedral that G.o.d has built for Himself and the littleness we feel is because of His own presence, and the sense of being greater than all this, the mountains, the lakes and the rivers, is, I reckon, because He makes us feel that if He made all these things to last through millions of years He isn't going to let His greatest work, man, perish in the little bit of time that makes a man's lifetime."

The bell on the horse tinkled, the runners slithered over the snow and no further word was spoken until the driver cried, "Yonder's the clearin'. I reckon you fellers hev got just about time enough to look the town over before the train comes."

An hour later farewells were said, and the three boys stood on the rear platform of the Pullman waving to Pat as the train pulled out. For some time after the straight form of the brawny young trapper and the dingy depot of the little village had faded from view the boys stood watching the panorama of frozen wilderness. Then, reluctantly it must be confessed, they turned to the warmth and luxury of the car.

"Say, hasn't it been great?" exclaimed Hal as he dropped into his seat.

"Great doesn't express it at all," declared Upton. "It beats even the hunt for Lost Trail."

As for Sparrer, he said nothing at all, but glued his face to the window that he might drink in as long as he could the beauty of this land of enchantment, where the test of a man was his ability to contend successfully with the forces of nature and to live within the law when beyond the watchful eyes of the law; this land where a man was gauged by his moral strength no less than by his physical strength. These two weeks in the heart of the wilderness had wrought a change in the lad's whole att.i.tude toward life. His inherent love of battle for battle's sake had been given a new turn. His old ambitions to be a soldier or a prize-fighter were forgotten in a new ambition--to be a woodsman; to pit his strength and courage and skill against the elemental forces of Nature instead of against his fellows. In short, Sparrer had resolved that some day he would shake the dust of the city from his feet forever.

He would become a guide and lumber boss like Big Jim. And so he watched the flying landscape and dreamed dreams, and they were wholesome.

It had been agreed that Pat and Alec should attend to the marketing of the fox skin, Sparrer's share to be forwarded to him when the sale was made. The day after they reached New York the operator at Upper Chain received a message over which he puzzled long. It was addressed to Pat Malone, and was as follows:

"Wire best price you can get for skin, but do not sell until you hear from me. Hal."

It was two weeks before Pat's reply was received. Hal was back at school, but Mr. Harrison opened the message and smiled as he read it. It was brief and to the point:

"Two thousand dollars. What's up? Pat."

Mr. Harrison rang for his private secretary. "Take this message and get it off at once," he said crisply. "Pat Malone, Upper Chain: Will give twenty-four hundred dollars for skin. s.h.i.+p at once by express. My check by next mail."

Then he dictated a letter to Hal telling him of the success of their conspiracy, for the two had hatched the plan together. Hal's description of the events in Smugglers' Hollow had so delighted Mr. Harrison that he had at once exclaimed: "We've got to have that skin, my boy. As a piece of fur it is worth as much to me as it is to any one else. For sentimental reasons it is worth more to me than it is to any one else. I don't believe in mixing sentiment with business, my boy, but there are exceptions to all rules. This is one. Besides, I owe that young Irishman up there in the woods more than money can repay for what he has done in helping to make you what you are to-day. You have him wire the best price he can get, and I'll go it one better. And by the way, you might suggest to that youngster who shot the beast that when he gets his share of the money I'll be glad to invest it for him where it will earn more than it will in a bank."

And this is how it happened that Pat, Alec and Sparrer with eight hundred dollars apiece experienced for the first time that sense of independence, and power which comes with the possession of wealth, for not even Mr. Harrison with his millions felt richer than they. To Alec it meant the realization of a cherished dream which included the owners.h.i.+p of a certain tiny farm. To Pat it meant the education he had set his heart upon. While to Sparrer it meant a better home, a lifting of some of the load from his mother's shoulders, and a further stimulating of an already awakened ambition to gain for himself a share in the higher and better things of life.

Of course when the story was told to the Blue Tortoise Patrol Sparrer was more popular than ever. He was little short of a hero in the eyes of his companions, the more so because Upton was at pains to point out that the boy's good fortune was really due to his adherence to the Scout principles which he had embraced, and to the moral victory which he had gained through loyalty to the Scout oath in the face of the hardest kind of temptation--the temptation when there is none to see either victory or defeat.

A few weeks later the damage suit growing out of the automobile accident in Bronx Park was tried and the Blue Tortoises were called as witnesses.

Once more Sparrer distinguished himself, unhesitatingly picking out from a group of men the one whose face he had seen for just a fleeting moment in the big car racing away from the scene of the accident. So positive was his identification that the defense, which was based on the claim that the car had been taken without the owner's knowledge, crumbled then and there, for the man who Sparrer identified was none other than the owner himself.