Chums of the Camp Fire Part 5

Besides, hadn't he made his chums turn green with envy when he showed them that lovely bunch of five ten-dollar bills, which the grateful circus proprietor had placed in his hand as a reward for sending in the earliest news concerning the location of his missing property?

Yes, Toby was as happy as the clam is said to be at high tide. He fairly bubbled over with an excess of spirits, and even when Bandy-legs commenced to tease him he refused to display any temper.

In that wagon they carried most of the stuff that had been so useful on other similar expeditions to the woods in search of enjoyment.

There was the old tent which Max had tanned after a formula of his own, so that it had not only lost its dirty white look, but was now guaranteed wholly waterproof. Then they had various guns, from the reliable rifle Max owned to the newer little twelve bore Marlin double-barreled shotgun which Steve proudly claimed could outshoot any similar weapon ever made.

Besides they carried a full cooking a.s.sortment of kettles, fryingpans and coffeepots. As to the provisions, well, given four hearty boys with good appet.i.tes, an abundance of money in the treasury of the club, and with a whole week ahead of them in the woods, and you can easily imagine what an enormous stock of food they would be likely to lay in.

Unless something happened to deplete their stock of groceries there did not appear to be much chance of such a thing as real hunger being known in that camp. If they wanted fresh eggs, milk and b.u.t.ter, Max knew of a farmer within two miles who would be only too glad to supply them with all they could use, terms strictly cash with the order always.

It was now about three in the afternoon. They had a scant three miles more to cover before arriving at their journey's end; and hence were not in any great hurry to push along. So a little rest at the cool spring would not come in amiss, and give poor old Ebenezer a chance to get in condition for the last round.

As the boys lounged there and took things easy, they chatted about numerous matters; and it was only natural that in due time the talk should turn once more to the recent great scare Carson folks had pa.s.sed through.

"Seems to me," Max remarked, with a laugh, "that in some families for years to come whenever they want to refer to anything that happened in the past, it's going to be something like this: 'the year the circus broke loose,' or else perhaps along this order: 'just a month after those horrid wild animals terrorized the town!'"

"Yes, and they're seeing 'em yet every little while," Steve went on to declare.

"S-s-sure thing," a.s.sented Toby, chuckling as he patted his pocket where possibly one of those brand new ten-dollar bills snugly reposed, for Toby believed in going prepared for anything that might happen, and money is always a good thing to have around; "didn't the C-c-chief tell me only y-y-yesterday that old Miss Moffat she c-c-called him up and demanded that he c-c-come and arrest a hyena that was runnin' all around her p-p-pasture lot; and when he hurried out there, taking one of his men along, so's to s-s-shoot the t-t-terror, s-s-say, what d'ye think it was but the next d-d-door neighbor's d-d-dog?"

Bandy-legs heaved a long sigh at this juncture, which of course called attention to him.

"Hey! what ails you there?" demanded Steve.

"He does look like he mightn't be as happy as you'd think, when we're bound on such a glorious trip up to the woods," Max remarked.

"Well, I ain't," grumbled the one who was under fire just then.

"Not feelin' sick, are you?" Toby wanted to know, for he could not understand how anybody could fail to be bubbling over with joy when off on such a vacation as they had ahead of them; and with fifty dollars in hand things do look pretty rosy to a boy, it must be confessed.

"Aw! no, I could eat a house!" Bandy-legs shot back at him; "it's all about Nicodemus again."

"h.e.l.lo! What's the c-c-cute little rascal b-b-been doing now?"

"Why, you see, ever since that menagerie had to go and break loose, our Nora, she seems more set against my bear cub than ever. I saw she was goin' to make trouble first chance she got, and so I've been mighty careful to keep the cub from slippin' loose from his collar, like he used to. But that's what he went and done last night, and however the critter ever got into the house beats me."

"What's that you say; the bear cub didn't try to run away to the woods, but climbed in through some open window, and got in your house; is that it, Toby?" cried Steve, holding up his hands in pretended horror, but grinning at the same time.

"Huh! if you'd heard the yells that our Nora gave about nine o'clock last night, when she went up to her room, you'd athought it worth while mentioning," Bandy-legs continued, sorrowfully, yet with a twinkle of amus.e.m.e.nt in his eye.

"Wow! that sounds kind of interesting; suppose you tell us more about it, Bandy-legs," Steve implored, eager to hear particulars.

"Why, seems like," began the other, only too willingly, "her candle blew out just when she got up to the door of her room, which was wide open; so what does Nora do but feel her way in. She had some clean clothes in one arm that she wanted to lay on her bed while she lighted her candle again. But when she touched a hairy object that moved and whined-like, she nearly jumped out of her skin, because she felt just dead sure it must be one of the tigers that she always believed the circus men had never got back."

The three other boys roared at the picture conjured up by this vivid description, and it was a full minute before the narrator could go on with his story.

"Nora she climbed down both flights of stairs like she had wings," he went on to tell in his humorous fas.h.i.+on; "seems like she must have slid from the top to the bottom of the upper flight. My dad ain't afraid of anything, so me and him both armed ourselves, and we snuck up to find out what had scared the hired girl. And there was poor Nicodemus, asettin' all curled up on the bed, and blinkin' his little rat eyes at the light we shoved into the room ahead of our guns."

Again there was a general laugh, as if the subject appealed to their love for the ridiculous; and they did not consider the alarm of poor Nora one little bit.

"Of course I laughed, and my dad did the same; but he told me then and there he had to choose between that bear cub and a good cook; and well, you know how it's always bound to turn out when a cook's in the scales.

Poor Nicodemus got it in the neck. He has to go."

Toby made a queer sound and again his hand might have been seen to press against his pocket, as though he fancied he had the wherewithal right there to purchase the long coveted pet of Bandy-legs.

"But what did you do with him?" asked Max.

"Oh! nothing yet," came the reply. "Dad he said he'd look after him while I was gone on this trip, but he insisted that I part with my pet as soon as I came home again. So Toby, some time we'll talk it over, and you make me a good offer. He ought to be worth something decent, even to circus people. Bet you that Mr. Jenks'd have paid me ten dollars for him, spot cash."

Toby did not make any reply, but he gulped as though he could already see the coveted bear cub in a nice new cage, const.i.tuting one of the attractions in his new collection, to be kept out on the farm his folks owned some miles away from Carson, and where the offensive odors that always go with a menagerie might not disturb any sensitive nose.

"Ever since then," continued Bandy-legs, thoughtfully, believing the seed had doubtless fallen upon fallow ground, and would bear fruit in season, "our cook has been actin' queer-like. She keeps alookin' under tables all the while like she expected to see tigers and lions acrouchin' there, ready to take a bite out of her. And she's even got to callin' my little Nicodemus bad names. She says he's sure a chip of the Ould Nick. That's what she told me this morning, when I was getting a big pie she made for me yesterday, and which is safe in a box in the wagon here."

"It seems to apply all right," commented Max, "and come to think of it, Bandy-legs, I guess he is all of that. I never heard of a pet as full of pranks as that cub is; and chances are Toby here will have his hands full looking after him, once he changes owners."

"T-t-try me, that's all!" Toby remarked, with the air of one who had made it a practical business in life to know all about wild animals, and how best to take care of them; having heard the owner mention the sum of ten dollars he felt as though the bargain had already been consummated, and all that remained was for the goods to be delivered.

They loitered there by the spring for some time, and the horse seemed to revive enough to pull through the last stage of the journey. After that Ebenezer would have a long rest of nearly a week; and much of the return trip would prove easier, being down-hill work.

"All aboard again!" called Max, when he thought they might as well be starting ahead, and do some of the resting at the place they had picked out for a camp site. So they continued along the road.

Presently they turned off the main pike, to follow a side road that seemed to lead up into a wild stretch of country. Here an occasional farm might be run across but as a rule there were woods, and then some more woods, until one could tramp for miles and miles through stretches of country where it seemed almost like the primeval wilderness.

Of course most of these trees, though of fair size, were second-growth timber. The avaricious lumberman had long ago been through all this section, and only in patches was it possible to find any of the original great trees that were possibly growing a century or two back, when the whites were wresting this land from the possession of the Indians.

"This begins to look like business," Steve remarked, when they had been following this twisting road for more than a mile; "and I can see why Max chose to bring us up here to do our camping. We'll hardly run across a living soul, unless we go over to that farm to get eggs and milk. And say, let me tell you there's considerable of small game frisking around this neck of the woods."

"I've seen heaps of gray squirrels running up the trunks of trees, and hiding on the far side, as they always do," Max observed.

"And three times a cottontail bounced away, once right under my feet,"

Bandy-legs added, as his quota of evidence in support of Steve's declaration with regard to their finding all the game they would need, if so be they felt that it would be right to do any shooting so late in the season.

"That was a red fox we saw slinking off a little while back," Steve continued; "and where you find that smart animal depend on it the hunting's good; for he'd clear out if it wasn't."

"Oh! d-d-did you see that?" gasped Toby, suddenly as he thrust out a hand, and pointed straight ahead.

Every one of them must have set eyes on the same object that had caught his attention, for they turned and looked inquiringly at each other.

Steve even leaned back and hastily secured his gun, into which with trembling hands he commenced to push a couple of sh.e.l.ls that were loaded with buckshot, a dozen to each.

"What could it have been?" Bandy-legs asked. "I just managed to ketch a glimpse of it as it disappeared in the brush, and if you gave me a dollar I couldn't say whether it was a brindle dog or a hyena or what!"

"That's just the way we all feel," Max told him.

It could be plainly seen, however, that the boys were more or less excited over the prospect of some of the wild beasts from the menagerie still being at large. Indeed, who could blame them, when there was a prospect of running across a hungry tiger, a ravenous wolf, or perhaps a man-eating lion at any time in their saunterings through the aisles of the forest?