Phil Bradley's Snow-shoe Trail Part 21

Ethan was chuckling all the way.

"I just can't help but laugh at what that French cook told us," he remarked, as though he felt it really necessary to explain his actions.

"Just imagine your fiery, red-faced, stout millionaire dancing furiously, while the owner of the scalded dog fires an occasional shot, cowboy fashion, close to his toes to make him jig faster. And all the while they are both yelling, the one in crazy delight and the other as mad as they make 'em. Oh! I'll burst my sides laughing yet."

"Well, it must have been a comical sight," admitted Phil, smiling broadly himself, "at least to an outsider, though I suppose those three men think it's an outrage serious enough to cause war between Uncle Sam and Canada right away after they get back home and report it."

"If only you had been right where we found the cook, Phil, with your camera, and cracked off a few shots of that dance, they'd be the best ever."

"Yes, that would have been a fine thing, but of course it couldn't ever be," the other continued. "But how about the man who was the cause of all this row; we ought to be able to guess who he was, without much trouble."

"Francois said he called himself the Terrible Badger!"

"Allowing for Francois being badly frightened we can put our interpretation on that," said Phil. "Instead of Badger say Baylay, and you've got it straight."

"Whew! both that logger and Mr. McNab did say he was an awful case, didn't they? And seems like all men are alike to him. Little he cares whether it's an American millionaire railroad wrecker, or just a plain sportsman, Anson Baylay snaps his fingers and tells them to dance, and they do dance."

"He might choose to treat us the same way, so don't crow too loud, Ethan," warned the other.

"What! after we've done so much for his kid that has the impediment in his speech? I should think he'd have some kind of grat.i.tude about him.

But if this was Baylay somehow he didn't seem to mention anything about losing a child, that Francois heard?"

"It may be he hasn't been home for several days," explained Phil. "I understand he carried a line of traps somewhere up here; and possibly he is compelled to be away for days at a time. But he must have been on the way home when his dog got that scalding at the hands of the French cook, who thought it was a bold wolf invading the camp."

"Then if Baylay gets home this afternoon or evening he's likely to hear about his terrible loss. In that case we may expect to see him within the next twenty-four hours, wouldn't you think, Phil?"

"If he doesn't show up by to-morrow morning I plan to start out and try to find his cabin, so we can let them know we have the boy safe and sound. But here we are close on our camp, and everything seems to be serene there."

CHAPTER XV

THE FIRE VIGIL

When the sound of their snow-shoes crunching over the surface of the drifts came to the ears of Lub, still seated there on the log, he was seen to start, and half raise his gun, while he evidently gave some sort of signal, for X-Ray came rushing out of the shack, also armed.

At discovering that there was no sudden peril both the defenders of the camp laughed at their fears.

"Welcome back, fellows!" sang out Lub; "didn't expect you so soon, and supper is not even started yet. But after we've heard your report we'll get busy."

"Did you go all the way over?" asked X-Ray, eagerly.

"We sure did," replied Ethan.

"And perhaps now you learned what the row was about?" continued Lub.

"They were having a dance," said Ethan, with a suggestive grin.

"It must have been because they were half drunk, then," sneered X-Ray.

"Nope; perfectly sober, so far as we could learn from their _chef_. You see, Mr. Bodman and his two sportsmen guests were coaxed to dance _against their will_. Every time a gun went off, and the bullet kicked up the snow and dirt near their feet they had to jump all the harder!"

Of course it was Ethan's object to arouse the wonder of the other pair, and to judge from the puzzled expression on their faces he had already succeeded in doing so.

"Oh! come on, and tell us all about it," said Lub.

At that the two returned scouts found places on the log, and started to relate how they had come upon the panic-stricken _chef_, who by degrees had told the whole remarkable happening, beginning with his mistake in scalding a stray dog under the impression that it was a prowling wolf, down to the minute they came upon him hiding there, and afraid to go back to the camp lest he be confronted with that furious giant of a woodsman, wild to avenge the insult to his four-footed pet.

Never had Lub and X-Ray listened to a more curious and thrilling story.

They almost held their very breath as they hung upon every word, with a look of intense interest stamped on their faces.

"Now," said Phil, when everything they had learned had been told, "what do you two think about it? Was the Terrible Badger the man we've been hearing so much about since coming up here--Baylay?"

"Must be that he is," announced X-Ray, promptly.

"Well, the indications all point that way," Lub remarked, in his slow fashion, as though he might be still weighing things in his mind. "There are so few persons up around here that it couldn't well be any one else.

So we'll have to take it for granted the owner of the dog is Baylay."

"Hurra! since Lub has finally figured it out the rest of us needn't bother about it any more. Lub has settled the thing beyond all dispute,"

laughed Ethan.

"Well, I guess you'll find that I'm right," ventured Lub, who often took himself very seriously, and in this way sometimes intensified the joke.

"How about that grub, _chef_?" asked Ethan; "that little tramp seems to have put an edge on my appet.i.te."

"Huh! as if it wasn't always sharp enough," Lub told him; "but if there's nothing more to listen to I suppose I might as well get busy.

You see, I've got a pot of beans cooking there, which has been on more'n two hours, so I should think the things would be fairly done. And along with that we're going to have some fried ham, with eggs to follow, coffee, cakes, and then crackers and cheese for those who feel that way."

"Well, if it will hurry things up any I'm ready to pitch in and help you, _chef_," Ethan told him.

"Get some more wood, then!" ordered Lub, "and be careful about that bean-pot. I hung it across on that iron rod from two stakes with crotches on top, but it is a little shaky. If you spill the beans your name will be Dennis, I warn you."

"He'd better cut a hole in the ice and drown himself if he's that clumsy," warned X-Ray; "for after smelling those beans cooking all this time it would make me pretty cross if I was cheated out of having three messes for supper."

Somehow even tender-hearted Lub had not been heard to express anything like sorrow on account of what had happened over at the other camp. In fact all of them seemed to be of the one mind; and to think that it served the bossy millionaire about right to be ordered around a little, and made to dance a hornpipe at the dictation of the terror of the pine woods.

According to their notion it was a dose of his own medicine Mr. James Bodman had been compelled to take. No doubt many a time he had by his brutal methods of frenzied finance compelled others to dance to his fiddling; and now he knew how it felt himself.

Indeed, X-Ray was filled with only one keen regret. He would have given almost anything for the pleasure of being in position to see what the French _chef_ had so aptly described.

"Just to think of that red-faced fat old fellow dancing as the bullets plowed up the snow close to his toes!" he was heard to say; "I can see him jumping up and down like mad, cracking his heels together, puffing like a winded nag, and screaming his threats at the man who was treating him as if he were only a common every-day ten dollar a week clerk, instead of the great American millionaire. Wow! it must have been rich, though!"

They could talk of nothing else all evening. No matter what subject was broached some one was sure to bring it back to the one intensely interesting topic.

It seemed to be the consensus of opinion among them that Phil was right when he figured that Baylay could not have been home before he visited the other camp. If he had known of his child's vanishing in the great snow forest he would hardly have bothered himself seeking revenge for the injury to his dog. On the contrary it was more than likely he would have besought the inmates of the camp to come to his a.s.sistance in trying to find the child, even though all hope of the little one being still alive must be abandoned.

"I wonder if we will see him here, sooner or later?" Lub ventured to say, and then giving his little charge a benevolent look he continued: "If he could only up and tell us things it'd make it so much easier.