Lost Farm Camp Part 46

"Why shouldn't we want it?" asked David.

"Wal, bull-moose in ruttin' time ain't jest the best eatin' they is, howcome I've et it-when I had to. I reckon you'll be wantin' to turn in.

We'll start 'bout five in the mornin'."

"Dave going?" said Swickey, as her father returned.

"Sure certain," he replied, but she made no comment.

Next morning, before the sun had smoothed the gray frost from the weathered timbers of the dam, Avery slid the big canoe into the water, and David and Swickey loaded in the various bags and bundles.

"She's goin' to be a fine day," said Avery, as Swickey stepped in and sat amids.h.i.+ps, with Smoke curled up and s.h.i.+vering in the bow. David and the old man swung briskly to the paddles, as the canoe rode the lazy swell of the lake. The jutting points in the distance seemed like long, beckoning fingers that withdrew as they neared them. The pines marched round in a widening circle as the canoe slid past in the murmur of waves over the rounded boulders. The smoke from Avery's pipe twirled behind in little wisps that vanished in the suns.h.i.+ne. With the rhythmic, _hush-click! hush-click!_ of the paddles and the sibilant thin rush of tiny ripples from the bow, mile after mile of sh.o.r.e line wove in and out, now drawing back until the trees were but inch-high at the far apex of some wide, blind cove, now towering above them as the lake narrowed to its western boundary.

In the mild warmth of the noon sun they ran the canoe up a narrow opening where a clump of white birches marked the Squawpan Carry. Here they disembarked.

"Hungry ain't a big enough word fur it," said Avery, stripping a piece of birch bark and lighting the small heap of driftwood David had gathered. "See thar!" he exclaimed, pointing to some great, heart-shaped tracks in the mud bordering the stream. "He's gone up to Squawpan. Like enough is waitin' up thar, stompin' around and feelin' mad 'cause he ain't got no lady friend to keep him comp'ny."

"Seems too bad to put one of those big fellows down just to get his head," said David, gazing at the tracks.

"We ain't got him down yit," replied Avery. "Wal, the tea's a-bilin'-Guess we'll eat."

After dinner, Swickey insisted on toting her share of the equipment, taking one of the lighter packs, as she followed David and her father, who tramped along with the partially laden canoe on their shoulders. At the farther end of the trail they again embarked and crossed the pond.

Again they disembarked, David and Swickey walking while Avery poled the canoe up the shallows of the headwaters, and through the rapids below the falls. Here they made another short carry, and evening found them in camp on the sh.o.r.e of a rush-edged pond, round which were many tracks of moose and deer.

"We'll limber up and poke round a bit in the mornin';" said Avery. "If we don't see nothin' we'll try callin' 'em to-morrow night. Have to shet Smoke up in the shack; howcome Swickey kin explain it to him so 'st he won't have bad feelin's."

Despite Avery's knowledge of the surrounding country and his not inconsiderable woodcraft, they failed to get a shot at a moose, although they saw several on the distant borders of the pond. Two evenings he had "called," but without success. Swickey's disappointment was more than offset by the companions.h.i.+p of David. Gradually something of their old familiar friends.h.i.+p, with its pleasant banter, was established again. On the last morning of the hunt she regretted more the necessity for their return than the fact that they were to return empty-handed.

As they carried round the falls on their way down Squawpan stream, she asked her father if they could not run the "rips" below.

"Ya-as, you kin run 'em all right, but not with three of us in the boat.

If you and Dave'd like to drop down through, I'll take the trail. Mebby I might run into a moose at thet. If you hear me shoot, jest pull in at the first eddy and wait."

She questioned David with wide, bright eyes.

"I'll go, if you'll take the risk, Swickey."

"They ain't nothin' to do except keep clus to the left bank," said Avery, turning toward the woods. "Let the rocks stay whar they be and they won't bother ye none. They's only a short piece of white water, and then another, and then it's jest as quiet as a Sunday a'ternoon in a muskeg."

As Swickey stepped into the canoe, Smoke followed nimbly over the gunwale, and curled at her feet. She threw her mackinaw over him, for the afternoon was none too warm, and he would have to be still for an hour or more in the cramped quarters of the bow.

They swung from the eddy below the falls and shot into the backwash of the river as it swept converging toward the first grim rocks that shouldered the current to a rippling wedge of white. They dashed through, Swickey's paddle flas.h.i.+ng as she fended off, now to the left, now to the right, and before they realized it they were in the listless drift of the somnolent dead waters below.

"That was great!" shouted David. "Is there any more of it?"

"Yes, in a minute or two," replied Swickey.

Each turn in the river seemed to open on a vista more varied and beautiful than the last. Gray rocks alongsh.o.r.e; banks of brush and frost-nipped fern that straggled up the easy slope to the forest and lost themselves in the deeper green of the shady woodside; moss-crested boulders in midstream, some of them of Olympian dimensions, past which they slipped on the noiseless current that floated wisps of moss and river-gra.s.s out from the lower edges of these granite islands. The regular nod of an upright branch suggested some living thing marking time to the march of the s.h.i.+mmering brown waters. Midway in the stream an island appeared, fringed with low cedars and crowned with an almost symmetrical ring of spruce-tops, etched on the far background of blue sky like fairy spires in some enchanted land. Swiftly they drew nearer it. The long gra.s.s in the river bottom twisted and turned in the shallowing current.

From below them came the murmur of heavy waters, lunging between the rocks, and above its diapason rang a note of eerie laughter as the river spread again to pebbly shallows and hurried to charge at the rocks still farther downstream.

They rounded the lower end of the island and plunged at the next stretch of quick water. In they went and struck a submerged boulder quartering.

"To the left!" called Swickey, as David, catching her gesture, threw his shoulders into the stroke and swung the canoe toward the sh.o.r.e.

Swickey's paddle shot forward as the bow sagged in a cross-current that split and spread from the knife-edge of a sunken rock. They whipped past it, ground over the s.h.i.+ngle in a shallow, and darted through a stretch of chattering waves that slipped along the gunwale and fell behind. The canoe lurched over the rounded pitch of a submerged ledge and settled to a steady keel in the lower Squawpan deadwater.

"That's better than the trail," said David.

Swickey glanced back at the snoring rips and brushed a spatter of water from her face.

"We'll drift and wait for Pop," she replied, shaking the water from her paddle and laying it in the bow. "Dave, look! Get your rifle-it's a young bull!"

Smoke raised his head and twitched his homely nose. "Down, Smoke!"

whispered Swickey.

Two or three hundred yards ahead of them was something that looked to David like a tangle of branches on a drifting log. Had it been following the current, Swickey would probably have paid no attention to it, but it was forging steadily across the stream.

"He's yours," said David. "Here, take the .45. That carbine's not so certain on moose."

"No, Dave, I want you to get him. Please!" she whispered, as he shook his head.

"Couldn't think of it, Swickey. Besides, you're in the bow."

"He'll land in a minute. Paddle, Dave! And please shoot him. I want you to have him. I'll shoot if you miss."

"You'll get him then," replied David. "I have never tried for a moose before. I'll take a crack at him to please you, but he's your moose just the same."

Swickey sat with carbine across her knees, as steady as an old hand at the game. David was more excited than she.

"He's turning back!" she cried. "Paddle for the other side and take him when he comes out of the water."

The moose was making good time toward the bank and David jumped the canoe ahead, every atom of his strength in each stroke.

As they touched the bank, Swickey stepped out. Smoke lay cowering in the bow, hooded like a monk in her coat. As David leaped to sh.o.r.e he grinned at the dog. Smoke trembled, but lay crouched in his place. He knew it was not expected of him to do anything else just then. The young bull found bottom and waded to the bank leisurely, facing them as he landed.

He seemed to have come a long way, for he was puffing hard. He swung his head from side to side and the hair bristled along his neck and shoulders. David did not understand his unnecessarily belligerent att.i.tude, for he could have gained cover in two leaps.

"Now, Dave! Let him have it-just in that spot above his forelegs."

She was watching the bull, and just as she expected to hear the rifle boom Smoke growled. She turned to threaten him; there was a rattling crash of underbrush above them, and a second bull, coming apparently from nowhere, charged right on top of them.

She saw the first moose plunge into the bushes downstream as she shrieked, "My G.o.d, Dave! Drop!"

Her cry pierced the numbness of his bewilderment and he stooped, instinctively throwing up his arm. Smoke shot from the canoe, a streak of white, and leaped for the bull. He caught the moose by the throat as the big brown shape reared to drive those terrible hoofs down on the crouching David.

Swickey's carbine jumped to her shoulder and she fired point-blank at the rearing blur of brown and white. Down it came with a clatter of antlers on the rocky sh.o.r.e.

David straightened up, his eyes expressing helplessness and horror. A few yards away the bull lay with his head twisted to one side. David stood stupidly watching a little red stream trickle down through the pebbles. Swickey stepped forward, glanced at the moose, and then her fingers relaxed, and the carbine clattered to the rocks as she sank down, her head drooping forward to her knees. David was shaking as he picked up a piece of driftwood and pried the fore-shoulders of the moose off Smoke. He got the dog's hind legs and pulled him out. The bullet, with terrific energy at that short range, had ripped through the dog and into the moose, killing them both.