The Boy Ranchers of Puget Sound Part 23

"We're trying to find out," Mr. Barclay replied. "It doesn't seem to be serious, anyway."

"Then I'll put a few clothes on before I come along," said the voice, and a door banged.

"He seemed to be looking down at Harry's face," said Frank, who saw that Mr. Barclay was waiting an answer.

Mr. Barclay now turned and favored Harry with a critical gaze.

"I can't understand what the fellow wanted to do that for." Then he smiled back at Frank. "These are decadent days. He wouldn't have got away with his scalp on if he'd come creeping into the room of the James boys."

Harry flushed. "I suppose you mean to hint that Frank imagined it all, sir? Well, he told you the man struck a match, and though sulphur matches don't give much light they make a considerable smell. Do you notice any particular odor in this room?" Then he stooped suddenly and picked up a half-burned match. "What do you make of this? I haven't struck one."

Mr. Barclay examined the match with an abstracted expression, and while he did so the dog pattered into the room wagging his tail in a deprecatory manner, as if to excuse himself for not overtaking the intruder. He jumped distractedly around the boys for a moment and then crouched down upon the floor with a short length of broken cord trailing from his collar. Mr. Oliver pointed to it with an amused smile.

"It seems to me the dog must have imagined something of the same kind as Frank did," he observed.

By this time the hotelkeeper arrived and gazed on with astonishment while Mr. Barclay briefly explained the cause of the commotion.

"I've never heard anything like this since I've been in the place," he declared. "The Chinamen are out on the trail now. Better see if you have lost anything."

The couple of dollars that Frank had brought with him proved to be still in his pocket, and Harry fished out the dollar which belonged to him.

His cheap watch was safe beneath his pillow, and Frank declared that he had left his silver one at the ranch. This appeared to make the matter more inexplicable to the hotelkeeper.

"If the fellow had gone off with something, I could have understood it,"

he said in a puzzled way.

"It's most likely that Frank saw him almost immediately after he came in," said Mr. Oliver. "As he pitched his boot at him, the man was probably startled and got out without wasting any time in looking round.

Then the dog broke loose and went after him."

The hotelkeeper agreed with this and shortly afterward Mr. Oliver, telling the boys not to trouble themselves any further about the matter, followed him out with Mr. Barclay. They turned into the latter's room, where Mr. Oliver sat down.

"I imagine that Frank's notion is correct," he said. "As Harry told you, he and Frank once paid a visit to the Chinese camp near our ranch where he saw the man with the high shoulder and followed him to a shack from which he disappeared. If the Chinaman who crept into the room chanced to have been about the camp when the boys were there, it's quite possible that he did wish to see Harry's face."

"That," Mr. Barclay admitted, "is my own opinion, though it seemed wiser not to impress it on the boys. I don't suppose you want them to get to making any investigations on their own account?"

"No," rejoined Mr. Oliver. "On the other hand, they've taken a certain part in the matter already. In fact, it might have been better if I'd left them behind. The trouble is that if the Chinaman recognized Harry it would probably give him some idea as to why we made this visit."

Mr. Barclay nodded his head. "Yes," he said. "It's a pity, but, after all, I'm rather glad I made this trip. It's going to prove worth while."

Nothing further was said on the subject and silence settled down again on the hotel. There was bright sunshine when the party started with the stage next morning, and after spending the night at a little colliery town they took the train south. Getting off at a small station they found the sloop safe in the cove where they had left her. Mr. Barclay, however, went on with the peltries to Victoria, which was not far away, and there managed to dispose of them, after which he hired a horse and rode back to the inlet. They set sail as soon as he arrived, and after two days of light winds duly reached the cove near the ranch.

A few months slipped by peacefully. The smugglers showed no sign of further activity, and Mr. Oliver got his oat crop in undisturbed. One way or another he kept the boys busy from morning until night, but at last when the maple leaves were beginning to turn he told them to take their rifles and go hunting, and they set off one morning after breakfast.

It was a still, clear morning, and now that the fall was drawing on there was a change in the bush. Here and there a maple leaf caught a ray of sunshine and burned like a crimson lamp, the fern was growing yellow, and the undergrowth was splashed and spattered with flecks of varying color. Even the light in the openings seemed different. It was at once softer and clearer than the glare of summer, and the shadows seemed thinner and bluer than they had been. But there was no difference in the great black firs. They lifted their fretted spires high against the sky, as they had done for centuries, and they would remain the same until the white man's ax should sweep the wilderness away.

The boys were floundering waist-deep in withered fern and tangled undergrowth when they heard a rustling and scurrying somewhere near their feet, and Harry, breaking off a rotten branch from a fallen fir, hurled it into a neighboring thicket.

"A fool hen!" he shouted. "Jump round this bush, and try to put it up."

Frank fell into the thicket in his haste, but he still heard the scurrying in front of him when he scrambled to his feet. He kicked a clump of fern, and there was no doubt that something rushed away from underneath it, after which he plunged through the brake with Harry some yards away on one side of him, but there was nothing visible. They hunted the unseen creature for what he supposed was about ten minutes with no better result. Then a plainly colored bird about the size of a pigeon rose from almost under his feet and flew to a fir branch some twenty yards away, where it perched and looked down at its pursuers unconcernedly.

"It doesn't seem scared now," said Frank in astonishment.

"It isn't," Harry answered with a laugh. "The thing feels quite safe once it's on a branch. I guess that's why it's called the fool hen, though its proper name is the willow grouse. Walk up and try a shot at it--only you must cut its head off."

Frank crept up nearer with a caution which was wholly unnecessary, for the bird did not seem to mind him in the least when he stopped close beneath it and pitched his rifle to his shoulder, but as he gazed at it over the half-moon of the rearsight it seemed to him that its neck was exceedingly small. He could not keep the forebead fixed on it, and bringing the rifle down he rested before he tried it again. Then he felt the b.u.t.t thump his shoulder and the barrel jerk, and a little wisp of smoke drifted across his eyes and hung about the bushes. When it cleared, the grouse, to his astonishment, was sitting on the branch as calmly as ever.

"It likes it," said Harry. "Try again--only at its neck."

Trying again, Frank succeeded in inducing the bird to move to a neighboring branch, after which he braced himself with desperate determination for the third attempt. This time the jar upon his shoulder was followed by a soft thud, and he understood why he had been warned to shoot only at its neck when he picked up his victim. The big .44 bullet had horribly shattered it.

"Could _you_ have shot its head off?" he asked after he had thrown it down in disgust.

"Why, yes," said Harry. "Anyway, I can generally manage it if the thing sits still. Most of the bush ranchers could do it every time."

He made this good presently when they found another bird, for it dropped at his first shot without its head. Half an hour later they saw a blue grouse perched rather high up in a cedar.

"This fellow won't sit to be fired at," Harry explained. "Better try it kneeling where you are, if you can get the foresight up enough."

Frank knelt with his right foot tucked under him and his left elbow on his knee. It steadied the rifle considerably, but he had to cramp himself a little to raise the muzzle. Holding his breath he squeezed the trigger when a part of the bird filled up the curve of the rearsight, but he was mildly astonished when Harry walked toward him with the grouse in his hand.

"I guess this one could be cooked," he said dubiously. "We'll take it along."

Frank surveyed his victim with a thrill of pride. It was larger than the willow grouse. In fact, it seemed to him a remarkably big and handsome bird in spite of the hole in it, and he thrust it into the flour bag on his back with unalloyed satisfaction.

"Is this the thing that makes the drumming in the spring?" he asked.

Harry said that it was, and they scrambled through the bush for a couple of hours without seeing anything further, until they approached a swampy hollow with a steep hillside over which the undergrowth hung unusually thick.

"There ought to be a black bear yonder; they like the wild cabbage,"

said Harry. "We'll try to crawl in. It's a pity there isn't a little wind ahead of us."

They spent half an hour over the operation, and Frank realized that trailing had its drawbacks when he found that it entailed burrowing among th.o.r.n.y thickets and crawling across quaggy places on his hands and knees. In spite of his caution sticks would snap and it seemed to his strung-up imagination that he was making a prodigious noise. At last, however, there was another sound some distance in front of him which suddenly became louder.

"A bear, sure," cried Harry excitedly. "Going off up hill. Shoot if you can see it."

Frank gazed intently ahead, but could see absolutely nothing, though he could hear a smashing and crashing which presently died away again on the slope. Then Harry brought down his rifle and turned away.

"You can generally hear a black bear," he said. "He goes straight and rips right through the things a deer would jump. He's a kind of harmless beast, anyway."

"Could we find a deer?" Frank asked, his hopes still high.

"We'll try when we've had dinner," replied his companion. "I haven't seen any lately, though that doesn't count for much, because it would be possible not to notice one if the woods were full of them. Still, they seem to have a way of clearing right out of the country every now and then for no particular reason. The bear and the timber wolves do the same thing."

They ate their dinner sitting among the roots of a big cedar, while a gorgeous green and red woodp.e.c.k.e.r climbed about a neighboring trunk.

Then Harry stood up and shouldered his rifle.

"After this we'll leave the birds alone," he announced. "You don't want to make a noise when you're trailing deer."