Phil Bradley's Snow-shoe Trail Part 3

No one moved after that save Phil himself, though Lub breathed very hard, as if the information had given him the "heart-jump," he often spoke about.

Phil knew he had made no mistake when he p.r.o.nounced the prowling animal a bold timber wolf; though he would have had some difficulty in believing it if some one else had told about one of those animals daring to venture so close to a camp where a number of hunters were sitting about a fire.

He judged that the beast must be unusually hungry, or else not in fear of mankind, from some reason or other.

"Whoo! see his green-yellow eyes, will you?" whispered Lub.

"Put the bullet square between 'em, Phil!" advised Ethan, secretly wishing it had been _his_ rifle that was within easy reach at the time.

Hardly had he spoken than there came the report. A jet of flame spurted from the end of the leveled gun; there was one sharp yelp and that was all.

"You got him, Phil!" shouted X-Ray Tyson, always the first to see things that happened.

"Hold on, don't rush over there till you get your guns!" advised Phil.

"If the wolves are that brash up here, there may be more of the lot."

McNab had thrown some small stuff on the fire so that the flames shot up, and in this way illuminated the vicinity. They could see a dusky figure sprawled out where the animal had been crouching and glaring at them with his terrible wolfish eyes.

So when Ethan and X-Ray had secured their rifles, with Phil they advanced to the spot where the victim of the shot had fallen. Phil was a trifle concerned himself, and anxious to make certain. If after all it turned out that he had shot a cur dog belonging to that terrible poacher and one-time logger Baylay, it was going to make them a tremendous amount of trouble.

He was speedily convinced, however, that there could be no doubt; and was also rejoiced to hear McNab declare:

"A fearsome sicht I ken, lads, and the largest wolf I ever saw in all my days in the bush. It was a braw shot ye made, Phil; it goed close between the eyes, and finished the beastie for a'. I tauld ye there was game worth the hunting up this way; if only ye may not have the misfortune to run across yon de'il o' a Baylay and get his ill-will."

They stretched the defunct wolf out, and Lub stared at his size, as well as his ferocious appearance, shuddering as he fancied what a time any one would have if attacked by a pack of such monsters.

"I expect I'll let you fellows do most of the prowling while we're up here," he remarked, with the air of one who knew when he was well off.

"I never did care very much for that sort, you know; and there will be plenty of things to employ my time around the camp, I guess."

"Yes," Phil told him with a smile, for he knew that Lub's heart was not the most valiant in the world, "and the first chance we get to-morrow I mean to show you how to fish through the ice out there."

"Oh! I've often read of that, Phil, and wished I could have a whack at it," the fat chum exclaimed, rapturously; "please tell me how it's done, won't you? They have what they call tip-ups, I believe, that let them know every time a pickerel takes a bait."

"It's all as easy as falling off a log," Phil went on to say. "You cut half a dozen holes in the ice some little distance apart. Then you drop your baited hook down, and fix a little contraption across the hole, connecting the line with the same. The idea is that when you get a fish his struggles tilts a stick, and lets you know about it. Sometimes one man 'tends dozens of holes, running this way and that as he sees he has a catch, to take the fish off, and rebait the hook."

"Are all the tip-ups alike, Phil?" asked the deeply interested Lub.

"Not by any means, although they have the same common idea of notifying the fisherman that he has made a catch," the other continued. "Some I have seen consist of a stick, with a cord and a red piece of cloth; when the fish is caught he drags on the extra cord, and this causes the flag to appear at the top of the stick set upright in the ice. That is a good way, though it means considerable labor fixing your poles."

"Tell us the easiest way, then," said Lub, who did not care for too much work, because, as he often said, of course in fun, he was "dreadfully afraid of wasting away to just skin and bone."

"The simplest tip-up," said Phil, "consists of a crotch with two short p.r.o.ngs and one longer one. The line is tied to this in such a way that a jerk causes the longer p.r.o.ng to dip down into the hole, though the crotch cannot be wholly drawn through, care being taken to have it too large for that. Of course this tells the watchful fisherman to hurry his stumps and take his catch off."

"Show me how to cut one of those same crotches the first thing in the morning, will you, Phil?" asked Lub; "while the rest of you are building our shack I might as well busy myself out there on the ice gathering in a mess of pickerel and pike, for I reckon both of them live like cousins in our lake."

Phil accordingly agreed to this, and so Lub presently crept off to lie down in his selected place. They heard his deep breathing shortly afterwards, and knew he had pa.s.sed into the land of dreams.

"I hope Lub doesn't get to hauling in big fish while he's asleep,"

complained X-Ray Tyson; "I've known him to do the silliest things in his dreams, and it wouldn't surprise me a bit to find him trying to hug me in the night, under the belief that he had hooked a monster sturgeon or muscalonge that was trying to get away from him. If you hear me let out a yell, pull him off, boys, please."

Of course both Phil and Ethan promised faithfully that they would accommodate him, though possibly they were half hoping something of the sort might occur, because it would be a ludicrous sight to see Lub with his arms wrapped around the more slender comrade, who would be gasping, and trying to break away.

"There, it was certainly a wolf let out that wailing howl!" declared Phil, as they were about to follow the example of the fat chum, and crawl into their already arranged blankets.

"Ef I had a bawbee for every one o' the creatures I've heard howl I'd nae doot be fixed for life," The McNab a.s.sured them.

"Then it is a wolf, a genuine one, that howled, is it?" asked X-Ray.

"Hoot mon! it could no' be annything else."

"Would they dare attack your ponies, Mr. McNab?" continued Ethan.

"I dinna ken, laddie; but the baith of them have been accustomed to takin' care o' themselves ever sin' they were knee-high to a duck. I would peety the wolf that was brash eno' to tackle the heels o' my ponies."

The thought appeared to amuse McNab, for he continued to chuckle for some little time after he had snuggled into his waiting blanket.

It was a long night, yet nothing happened to disturb the campers. Phil slept in what he was pleased to call "detachments"; that is, he would lie there for an hour or so, and then raise his head to listen, perchance to crawl noiselessly out from his snug nest so as to place more fuel on the smoldering fire; and then under the belief that it would keep going for another spell again seek the warmth of his covers.

At last came the peep of dawn in the east. Phil saw it first, but he did not immediately arouse the others, for they were in no especial hurry, and his fellow campers seemed to be sleeping so soundly it was a pity to disturb them.

Indeed breakfast was well on the way when Lub came crawling out, blinking his heavy eyes, and looking as though he had only burst the bonds that fettered his senses with a great effort.

"What's this I see and smell?" he exclaimed in a voice loud enough to awaken the Seven Sleepers. "Gone and stole a march on me, hey? Got breakfast started, and without calling on the head chef either? All right, go ahead; if I see you making any amateurish mistakes pardon me if I correct you. We want things done according to Soyer's Cook Book in this camp. That's what I'm studying at home, you know. He's simply great. F'r instance, when he starts to tell you how to make rabbit stew he says: 'First, get your rabbit! See how pointed his directions are?

Now a lot of cook-books ignore that fundamental condition altogether.

They seem to think rabbits grow on bushes, and all you have to do is to put out your hand and pull one in. First get your rabbit! That's sound common sense for you!"

The others began to make their appearance and by the time breakfast was fully prepared all of them were ready to do justice to the spread.

"Are these real eggs, Phil, or the sawdust kind?" demanded X-Ray.

"Well, that hardly needs an answer," he was told; "they may be able to condense eggs in a small compa.s.s like dust, but no man who ever lived could put them together again once they are broken, and the yolk runs into the white, Didn't you learn that 'all the king's horses and all the king's men, couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again'? which meant that it was an egg fell from the wall."

After breakfast McNab hitched up and said good-by to his boy friends.

"Depend on it, laddies," he said, after shaking each one by the hand, "if so be ye dinna arrive at my h'use in twalve days I'll be for startin' up this way once mair till fetch ye back. That is the compact I make ye this day. And the best o' luck be with ye, amen!"

They were sorry to see McNab go, for he was good company; but there was plenty to engross their full attention. Ethan and X-Ray had already begun to use the two camp axes, and the merry sound of their l.u.s.ty blows was as music to the ears of Phil, who soon had a picture of Camp Brewster in the making, to add to his collection.

Then there was Lub who had hurried through the clearing up of the breakfast things in order to get at that fishing through the ice. They took a hatchet with them so Phil could cut the first hole. After that he showed the fat chum just what kind of a crotch to select from the scrub growing near the sh.o.r.e, and how to fashion it so that it would answer the purpose.

"If we had live minnows I think it would be much better than this bought bait that is said to be extra good for pickerel fishing," Phil told him; "but we couldn't very well fetch such things away up here. Where fishermen make this ice fishing a regular business they keep a big supply of minnows in a spring hole that does not freeze over in winter; and each day they use a quant.i.ty until all have been put on the hooks. I don't know much about this patent bait, but it is said to answer a long-felt want."

Lub worked industriously indeed. When he had six good tip-ups made he proceeded to cut five more openings, about fifty feet away from each other. Then he began to bait his hooks, and set the lines.

Before he had the third hook baited he was thrilled to discover the first tip-up trying to get into the hole; and when he saw it moving he hurried over to ascertain whether he really had caught his first fish, or if it was going to turn out a false alarm.

A vicious tug at the line a.s.sured him he had something worth while at the other end, and hand over hand Lub pulled a wriggling captive in, finally tossing out on the ice a pickerel weighing at least seven pounds.