Rocky Mountain Boys Part 13

When, upon the request of the head of the posse, Felix stepped up, and identified the pair of rascals as the men who had set upon, beaten, and robbed him of his rifle, as well as everything else of value he had with him, they began to show signs of positive uneasiness, realizing that they were in a pretty bad fix.

It was indeed a great pleasure for the lad to once again fondle his own gun; and his first act was to carefully wipe it all over, as though he thought it may have suffered more or less contamination through contact with such a dirty specimen of humanity as the one-eyed Abe Cozzins.

The officers announced their intention of starting immediately south with the prisoners, as it would take them several days to reach the town they expected to use as a place for locking the men up in. Felix made arrangements to give his deposition when he came out with his chum, about Christmas; although Mr. Harbison admitted that he hardly needed anything more in order to send them to the penitentiary for a term of years.

Somehow Felix, now that he had recovered his possessions, did not feel so vindictive as he had expected he would; and had the fellows shown a proper spirit of humility the boy would have only too gladly allowed the matter to drop, so far as he was concerned.

But they chose to take just the opposite course, cursing him roundly, and making savage threats of all kinds as to what they would do if they got free; which was just the way to arouse all his resentment, and cause him to give his promise to appear against them later on.

Felix was very glad when they finally went away, leaving him with the two sons of old Charley Crow. Learning that they were not more than five miles away from the little shack where Old Sol had often held forth during the trapping season, the boy was seized with an overwhelming desire to get back home, and rest up; and when the others heard this, one of them, the strapping big fellow called Jo by his father, said he would see him safely there.

It was really quite a tug for Felix, and only his grim determination carried him through, for his lower limbs began to feel as though each of them weighed a ton; so that he found considerable difficulty in dragging them along; but as familiar scenes began to crop up, the nearer he came to the cabin, as a consequence he finally found himself in sight of home.

Never did a ship-wrecked mariner greet port with more enthusiasm than Felix did the little old dugout under the big tree.

Of course Tom was away, undoubtedly wildly scouring the woods in search of his missing chum; but then he would come back after a certain time to see whether the lost one had returned; so all that Felix had to do was to make himself comfortable and wait.

Jo said he would like to stay with him, and meet Tom. Any one who had known Old Sol was worth cultivating, in the eyes of the Indian boy, who had looked upon the veteran trapper as a veritable wonder.

They had a fine fire that warmed the interior of the cabin, and Felix was drowsing before this, while Jo examined the wonderful repeating rifle; when the door was flung violently open, and there stood Tom, his eyes staring as though he could hardly believe what they showed him.

Returning almost in despair because he could get no trace of his missing chum, he had discovered from the smoke that some one was occupying the dugout; after that it took him just five seconds to reach the door, and open the same.

In another instant Tom had thrown his arms around his cousin, and was hugging him just as though he might be a long-lost brother, instead of just his every-day chum; meanwhile muttering all sorts of things, and laughing hysterically, in the effort to master his pent-up emotion.

Felix was almost as deeply affected, and it was then and there that he learned just how dear Tom had become to him during the comparatively short time they had been comrades.

From beginning to end Tom made him tell the whole story, not omitting a single detail; and for an hour Felix held his audience spell-bound by a recital of the many queer things that had come his way, since that hour when he said goodbye with such a light heart, and started off after venison.

It was all like a story from a book to Tom. And of course it pleased him to hear how the conventional end had been reached, with the two rascals captured, the stolen goods restored to their real owner, and the criminals bundled off to jail in irons. Why, Tom could not hear enough of the details, but kept asking questions, and even turning to the Indian boy to find out what his chum could not tell.

"We'll get that buck's head the first thing tomorrow--that is, if you feel decent enough for the tramp," he declared, after he had had Felix minutely describe the place of the strange encounter, and where he had pa.s.sed his first night.

Of course the other declared that he would be all right, and eager for business at the old stand; but the actual truth was, that for several days he felt the effects of his series of adventures; and the mark upon his cheek was still faintly visible two months later.

All the same, with Jo accompanying them they did go to the tree and secure the prized head, as well as what venison was left--some animal had been feasting on the latter; but there was still enough left to carry a lot away with them, and every mouthful of that meat which Felix masticated gave him more or less satisfaction, since he felt that he had well earned all that was coming to him in this respect.

Of course the traps had been neglected during all this confusion; and so Tom said he would take a run along the entire line that afternoon, in order that if any prizes had been captured, the skins might not be spoiled by too long an emersion in the water.

Jo started back home after they had had lunch. Both boys noticed with some amus.e.m.e.nt that the boy's last fond look was in the direction of the wonderful coffeepot, from whence had come that rich, smooth, fragrant nectar that had so tickled his palate; doubtless they would see more of Jo while they lingered among the foothills of the Rockies; but they would always have their latchstring out for any one who was connected with old Charley Crow.

As we already know, Tom had not felt any undue anxiety concerning his chum until the hour grew late on that first night. Then he had thought to step out, and fire his gun several times; but as Felix had not heard the reports, it seemed that he must have been further away than anyone suspected; or that the wind was wrong.

In the morning Tom had started out in the direction he supposed Felix might be; hoping to come across signs of his friend. But the woods were wide, and apparently he could not at any time have come near the place where the other had had his adventures.

Returning at nightfall, Tom had hoped he would find the other at the dugout, and a keen disappointment awaited him. That night was a restless one for him. The second day had been a repet.i.tion of the first; and late in the afternoon, dispirited and weary, Tom had drawn near the vicinity of the shack, when he was electrified to see smoke oozing from the chimney.

One thing the incident had surely accomplished, and this was to acquaint the boys with the fact, if they had not realized it before, that they were unusually fond of each other. In many ways they were unlike; but it seemed that what one lacked the other could supply; and in this respect they made an ideal team for campmates. The right kind of a cheerful, willing and genial comrade, who will wear well in camp, is hard indeed to find. It appears that, no matter what a fellow may seem like at home, when he lands in the wilderness, the veneer is bound to drop off, and the true elements that go to make up his real nature are quickly apparent.

After securing the buck's head Felix was content to remain in camp for a short time; ostensibly with the idea of "curing" it, so that it might ornament his room at home; but to tell the plain, unvarnished truth, the boy was still very sore, and until this in a measure wore off, the prospects of a long jaunt through the woods and into the mountains failed to appeal to him very much.

This feeling began to gradually grow less positive as a couple of days pa.s.sed, and finally there was no longer any excuse to hug the fire-side, because the buck's head had been prepared after a fashion that Tom said he had never seen beaten.

So Felix fell back into the rut, just as though there had been no break, sometimes accompanying his chum in the round of the traps, or doing that duty alone; and again going out to look for fresh game, with generally the best of success.

Doubtless, as the boy tramped through the snowy woods he sometimes found himself starting when he fancied he heard the coa.r.s.e voices of the two unfaithful guides; or it might be a smile, as of amus.e.m.e.nt, would creep over his face when it happened that some particular tree awakened memories of the one into which he had been so neatly tossed by the wounded buck.

These experiences all go to make up life; and one learns more quickly from having pa.s.sed through such actual performances than by mere reading; or even listening to what others may have accomplished, pleasant though this may seem. Felix believed he was a much better woodsman for having met and boldly faced the difficulties that had been spread like a net for his unwary feet on that occasion.

His eye seemed more positive; his nerves firmer; and when he handled his rifle, it was with an a.s.surance born of experience, so that his aim was apt to be more accurate than before; while a confidence had been aroused in his soul that he would not have exchanged for anything he knew of.

So the youngster, upon being tossed into the water by an apparently cruel elder brother, and told to swim, upon striking out in desperation finds that by moving arms and legs he is able to keep afloat, and even make a little clumsy progress; and into his soul springs a pride that is never surpa.s.sed in later life, even when he wins battles in the business arena.

Perhaps the birdling experiences something of the same sensation upon being actually pushed from the nest by the wise mother, and discovering that by using its wings it can fly a short distance; it is an exhilaration never surpa.s.sed.

The buck's antlered head certainly did look mighty fine when fastened up on the wall of the shack; and Tom vowed that if Old Sol could only be there in spirit, he must feel pretty proud to see the walls of his well beloved dugout decorated in such a manner.

Of course, with his Marlin, Felix had also recovered all his other little traps from the ugly pair, while they were in the hands of the game wardens from the Park; so that he again had his little watch, his compa.s.s and his knife, together with what money they had taken from him, and which had tempted the cupidity of the thieving guides.

Realizing what he lacked in using a compa.s.s, he now set about studying things, under the guidance of his chum, in connection with the woods, that would prove useful to him in all time to come.

It was for some time a source of wonder to Tom Tucker why Old Charley Crow and his family, although within so short a distance of the dugout, had never set a line of traps in that neighborhood. One day, when young Jo was visiting them, drawn by memories of that seductive coffeepot, they plied him with questions, and thus learned that old Sol had the last year he was up here, through the use of certain medicines, of which he knew the value, been able to save the life of Mrs. Crow; and in grat.i.tude none of the family would ever encroach on his preserves.

They knew that the old trapper had been absent for several years, and that game was very abundant over in that direction; but a sort of "dead line" had been established, across which none would wander with the intention of doing business. Lacking information to the contrary, they expected that Sol might show up at any time; and all of them were very jealous of having him suspect that they had "poached" on his territory.

When they heard this the boys felt drawn more than ever toward the honorable Crow family; and Felix privately declared that when he got back home, the first thing he meant to do was to dispatch a case of rifles just like his, though of a less expensive pattern, to make those good fellows supremely happy.

And so out of evil good many times springs; and as long as they stayed there at the foot of the great Rockies, Felix and his chum were likely to enjoy friendly intercourse with the dusky family in the cabin not many miles away.

CHAPTER XII

BURNING OUT A HONEY THIEF

But it seemed that Felix was not destined to absorb all the adventures that happened to be adrift up there in that neck of the woods adjoining the mountain chain.

And the next one had to fall to the lot of Tom. It was such an admixture of peril and humor, that whenever either of the chums happened to glance up at the wall of the cabin, where the wretched looking pelt of a black bear was stretched, almost invariably a grin would have to follow.

This is the way it came about:

Just a few days after Felix had been in that queer mix-up with the wounded buck, and the two guides, Tom was on his way back from a little line of traps, when the notion came to him to step aside from his beaten path, and explore a dense patch of timber into which neither of them had happened thus far to stroll.

There was no telling what he might not discover, for it certainly looked dark and forbidding enough to shelter almost anything. As his catch of furs that day chanced to be limited to a couple of muskrats, and a single mink, Tom was just in the humor for striking at something out of the common.

He hung the pelts from the limb of a tree, and in plain sight, so that he might not have any particular difficulty about recovering the same; and with his rifle in readiness, plunged into the tangled growth, which was thicker than anything Tom had noticed around them.