Chums in Dixie Part 7

"Why, once upon a time an old Indian actually wandered around several days without being able to locate his home. That's pretty hard to believe, but the story runs that way. Then some white men came across him, hungry and tired. They asked him if he was lost, and the old fellow got mad right away. Smacking himself on his chest proudly, he said: 'Injun lost? No, Injun not lost; wigwam lost--Injun here!' And that's the way it would be with you. Now get along, and be sure you bring in the game. I changed the buckshot sh.e.l.ls for birdshot; but put these heavy loads in your pocket in case you need them."

So Larry trotted gaily forth. He fancied he looked every inch a Nimrod in his new corduroy suit, and with the gun under his arm, carried in the same way he had seen his chum do it many a time. But then Larry did not know that the hunter who wears an old jacket, with a patch on the right shoulder where a hole has been worn by constant friction from carrying a gun, is most apt to inspire respect in the minds of those who can size the true sportsman up.

Phil was rather sleepy, for he had not secured all the rest he wanted on the preceding night. So he stretched out on the ground, and dozed.

Every little while he would arouse himself, and consult his little nickel timepiece. Tony was busy sc.r.a.ping the hide of the wildcat, and fixing it on a stretcher which he had ingeniously fashioned out of a heavy strip of bark, straightened out flat, and held so by a couple of sticks secured to the back.

"Time that greenhorn was back, Tony," Phil finally remarked, as he sat up. "By the way, did you hear a shot a little while ago, perhaps half an hour?"

Tony said he had, and he could also tell the exact direction from whence it had sprung.

"How far away was it, do you think?" continued Phil, seriously.

"'Bout half mile, I reckons," came the reply, without hesitation.

"The air is from that quarter too, I notice; and of course you take that into consideration when you figure on the distance?"

"Oh! yes, I know," nodded Tony.

"But half a mile--he ought to have been back before now. We'll wait a little while longer, and then if he don't show up I guess we'll just have to go after him."

Tony did not reply; but judging from the little smile that crossed his face, it was evident that the swamp boy felt pretty confident they would have to take up the hunt. He had sized Larry up pretty readily as a failure in woodcraft, and a sure enough tenderfoot of the worst type.

"No signs of him yet," announced Phil after a bit, rising to his feet; while a look of growing concern began to come upon his face. "I was silly to let him take the risk. Ought to have known Larry would bungle it, if there was half a chance. And now, Tony, what had we better do, follow his tracks, or head straight in the direction that shot came from."

"Follow trail," the other answered promptly.

"You are sure we will be able to keep on it, all right?" continued Phil.

"I think so," replied the swamp boy, with a smile of a.s.surance; as though he looked upon such a test as of little moment; for what had he been learning all of his life if not to accomplish just such tasks?

"All right then; let's get busy."

First of all Phil dashed off a few lines on a sc.r.a.p of paper, telling Larry, if he hit camp while they were absent, to settle down by the boat, and wait for them. This he stuck in the cleft of a dead palmetto leaf stem, which in turn he thrust in the ground in front of the tied-up motor boat.

Then he followed Tony into the scrub. The swamp boy walked along with his head bent slightly over. His keen eyes were doubtless picking up the plain marks made by clumsy Larry as he wandered forth in search of the coveted quail, which he hoped to adorn sundry pieces of toast that evening.

Phil too was keeping tabs on the trail, though he realized that if there arose any knotty problem that Tony could not solve, his own knowledge would hardly avail.

It was a very erratic line of tracks. Larry evidently had no particular plan of campaign marked out when he sallied forth. If he gradually bore to the left it was because of that well known failing that all greenhorns tracking through the forest, or over the open prairie, fall heir too; in which the right side of their bodies being the stronger, they gradually veer to the left, until, given time enough, they may even make a complete circle.

Tony pointed out just where the hunter, fancying he had sighted game, began to sneak up on it. Why, he could read every movement Larry had made from the marks left behind, just as readily as though he were actually watching him.

"But he didn't shoot here, after all?" said Phil.

"No, p'raps game fly away; or mebbe all a mistake," Tony replied. "See no empty sh.e.l.l near where he kneel in sand. He go on further, this aways," and he once more led off through the woods.

After a while Phil believed they must be close to the place where his chum had discharged his gun just once. Nor was he much surprised when Tony suddenly darted sideways, and picked up an empty sh.e.l.l.

"Here shoot all right; camp over thar!" said the swamp boy, pointing without hesitation through the timber; doubtless the direction of the wind aided him in thus fixing the location of the boat in his mind.

"But what could he have shot at?" exclaimed Phil. "I don't see any sign of game around here, do you?"

"Start on run fast," remarked Tony, pointing down to the ground, as though he had read that fact there in the change of the footprints.

"Then perhaps he did hit something!" exclaimed Phil. "Let's follow and see if there's any sign. It may have been only a hamak fox squirrel he saw, and thought to bag, so he wouldn't have to come in with empty hands."

"No, wild turkey!" declared Tony, holding up a feather his quick eye had detected on the ground.

"Well, however in the wide world d'ye suppose that clumsy chum of mine ever managed to get close enough to such wary game to knock a feather from it?" laughed Phil; "but he must have wounded the bird, for he's gone headlong through the woods here in full chase."

They followed on for some time. Phil began to wonder how Larry ever kept up the pace. Truly the hunter instinct must have been aroused at last in the fat boy to have caused him to thus wildly exert himself.

And in the excitement he doubtless forgot all about the directions given him by his chum.

"Why, he's going further and further away from camp all the time!"

announced Phil presently.

"Heap game Larry," grinned the swamp boy, who doubtless understood the new spirit that was urging the other on, with his wounded game constantly tantalizing him.

"Hark!" cried Phil, as he held up his hand warningly. "Did you hear that?"

"Help! oh! help!" came faintly from some point away ahead.

CHAPTER VIII

HELD FAST

When Larry started out upon this, his very first hunt alone, he was filled with a newborn ambition. But before he had wandered for ten minutes he began to feel the heat, and wished he had not been so silly as to imagine he were cut out for a mighty Nimrod.

Several times he stumbled over unseen roots of the ever-present saw palmetto. Fortunately he did not have the hammer of his gun raised at the time, or there might have been a premature explosion.

When twenty minutes had gone he was beginning to feel angry at himself because he had voluntarily undertaken this task, for which nature had never fitted him.

Still, he was possessed of some grit, and disliked very much the idea of showing the white feather. At any rate, he would keep away the full hour, and then try to locate the camp. Phil could not then have the laugh on him; for even the best of hunters have their hard luck days.

Several times he saw frisky squirrels looking curiously at him around some tree. He was even tempted to try and bag a few of these little fellows, for after all they were game; and perhaps more in his line than swift flying quail, or the bounding deer. But every time he thus decided, the squirrel seemed to guess his hostile intentions; for it vanished from sight, running up the other side of the live oak, and losing itself amid the abundant foliage.

Now half an hour had gone. It was really time he turned back, and headed for the motor boat. That caused Larry to wonder if he could actually figure out which the proper direction might be; so he sat him down on a log for a brief rest, while he carried on his mental calculations. When he started on again Larry actually believed he was pushing straight for camp; when truth to tell he was heading at an angle of thirty degrees away from the same.

Then, as he was stumbling along through the scrub, lo! and behold he saw a moving object ahead. What it was he did not even know as he threw the gun to his shoulder, completely shut his eyes when pulling the trigger, and blazed away.

When he looked again it was to see a big turkey gobbler fluttering along over the ground, with a broken leg and wing. Filled with great joy Larry gave a whoop, and started in pursuit. That was his undoing.

Little he thought of what a chase that stricken gobbler was giving him.

In and out of the swampy places, and through the more open woods, he kept in pursuit.