Double Challenge Part 6

"But doesn't everybody do that?"

"Everybody 'cept horse traders, and you can always do your horse tradin'

when and if you have to. But I don't think you're goin' to rent for the season."

"Why not?"

Al shrugged. "Figger it out by yourself. How many city people can take a whole season just to go huntin'? Most they get is a couple of weeks or so."

"That's right, too. Do you think I should say, 'deer and small game abundant'?"

"I wouldn't. n.o.body'd come into the Mahela 'thout havin' some idea they could find game here and there's another point."

"What's that?"

"You're tryin' to build up a business, and the more repeat business you can get, the less it'll cost to get it. Promise too much and you might drive business away. Some people, readin' about over-plenty game, might expect a flock of grouse behind every tree and a ten-point buck in every swale and be mad if they didn't find it. Let 'em do their own lookin'."

"I was thinking of hiring out as a guide."

"Wouldn't put that in either. Some people want guides and some don't.

Anybody who rents your camp and wants a guide will ask you where to find one. Then you can d.i.c.ker."

"Do you think I'm asking too much money?"

"Nope. Chances are that you won't get less than six in any party. Split the cost amongst 'em and it won't break any one. Your prices are fair."

Ted lost himself in his literary effort. "It doesn't seem very forceful."

"Land o'goshen!" Al's eyes glinted with amus.e.m.e.nt. "You're tryin' to get information across, not writin' a speech! How many papers you crumpled so far?"

"Well," Ted looked at the pile of discarded papers beside him and grinned, "quite a few. You really think this is all right?"

"A masterpiece," Al answered solemnly. "Mail it afore you change your mind again."

Ted folded his paper, wrote a short letter to the effect that he wanted his ad to run in the cla.s.sified section, wrote a check, put all three in an envelope and addressed it to a leading daily newspaper in a city from which the Mahela drew numerous hunters. Tammie trotted beside him as he ran down to the mailbox, put his letter in and raised the red flag to let Bill Parker, their rural carrier, know there was mail to pick up.

He ran back to the house.

_"Br-r!_ It's cold!"

"The jackets in the closet," Al observed drily, "are not there because they look pretty."

Ted said meekly, "Yes, Dad."

He re-seated himself at the table and took up his pen. The first hunting season, for woodc.o.c.k, opened next week. Two weeks later, squirrels, cottontails and ruffed grouse became legal game and the season ran for a month. During the last week of small game season, black bears could be shot. Then everything else was closed and hunting wound up with the three-week deer season.

Ted calculated carefully. There were six weeks of the small game season.

If he rented his camp throughout at forty-five dollars a week, it would give him a net return of two hundred and seventy dollars. Three weeks of deer season would add another hundred and eighty, or a total of four hundred and fifty. Ted consulted his expense records.

Jud Hawley had sold them the land with the old building on it for a hundred and fifty dollars and Al and Ted had torn down the old building and rebuilt it. Just the same, expenses had mounted with incredible speed. Al had all the tools, but it was necessary to buy nails. The window casings Al had fashioned, but the gla.s.s that went into them cost money. They'd had to buy a secondhand cooking range and a heating stove and enough table and cooking ware to serve many people. Bedding had been an expensive item, and composition shingles for both the roof and outer walls had cost a great deal.

Economizing as much as possible and hiring no labor, the camp had still cost six hundred and fifteen dollars. However, the old building had been a huge place and there was enough lumber left over to build another, smaller camp as soon as they acquired another building site.

Ted nibbled the end of his pen.

"We'll be in the clear on this one before next hunting season; then everything it brings in will be pure gravy."

"How do you figger it?"

"There's six weeks of small game hunting and three of deer season. If the camp is rented continuously, it will bring in four hundred and fifty dollars. Then, when fishing opens--"

"If," Al broke in, "is a right fancy word. Might be a good idea to rent your camp 'fore you spend the rent money."

"It might at that," Ted said meekly, "and I forgot to charge against it the fifteen dollars the ad's costing."

"Charge it," Al advised, "and get this one thing straight. There's no such thing as 'pure gravy.' What a body gets, he works for. What he don't work for, he don't get. You started the ball rollin', but it will stop if you don't keep it rollin'."

"What do you suggest I do?"

"Just what you are doin', but don't get c.o.c.ky about it. You've made a start, but it's a small start that stacks up against a big job. See how things work out. If they come 'round like I think they will, this camp will make money. But it won't be your money. It belongs to the job you've set yourself. Build another camp--and another and another, until you've got as many as you can handle. Go on from there."

"Go on?"

"You started out," Al reminded him, "to own a place like Crestwood."

"That will take years!"

"Did you expect to get it in a week?"

"Well--No."

"Good, on account you won't. You'll need years. Then, after you finally get what you want, or somethin' close to it, all the people who set 'round on their hunkers while you worked will still be settin' 'round tellin' each other how lucky you are."

Ted grinned, then yawned and stretched. "Gosh! All this heavy philosophy's making me tired!"

"What do you think your bed's for?"

"You get the best ideas!"

"Oh, I'm the smart one!" Al smiled and filled his pipe. "Catch yourself some shut-eye. There's work to be done come mornin'."

The next morning, with Al driving and Tammie on the floor in front of Ted, they started back toward the camp they had built. The lazy sun, reluctant to get out of bed, made a splash of gold only on the very tip of Hawkbill. The rest of the wilderness was a deep-shadowed green, with overtones of gray. A doe danced across the road in front of them and stopped to look back over her shoulder at the pa.s.sing pickup. They saw two more does, then a buck--and Al stepped suddenly on the gas.

Spurting ahead, the old truck still missed by a wide margin a lean coyote that was running a scant twenty feet behind the buck. Tammie rose and bristled. Ted held him down. The collie was fast, but nothing except a greyhound was fast enough to catch a coyote. Visible for only fleeting seconds, this one disappeared in the forest. Failing to run the coyote down, Al stopped his truck.

"Doggone! Of all times to be without a rifle!"

"It looked to me as though he was chasing that buck," Ted observed.

Al shook his head. "Just followin' it; one coyote couldn't kill a grown buck. But he can and will do a lot of damage 'mongst the small game.