The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle Part 7

"Here's a piece of chocolate I've been carrying around with me ever since I've been at Ellen's Isle," she said. "It's pretty stale by this time, I guess, but it'll keep you from starving while Sahwah and I go and explore the ravine."

Slim took the chocolate without any scruples regarding its staleness and Katherine and Sahwah started up the hill. Then the rest thought they would like to go into the ravine, too, and all came streaming after.

The ravine was as dark and mysterious as they could wish, for its high sides kept out the sun and in the gloom the trunks of trees seem twisted into fantastic shapes. The ferns and brakes were very luxuriant, and they waded about in them up to their knees.

"There's another cedar tree!" cried Gladys, pointing ahead of her.

Springing from the steep side of the ravine and towering high above it stood a seventh cedar tree, more lofty and more ancient looking than the others.

"What a peculiar place for a tree to take root," said Gladys. "It looks as though it would slide down the hill any minute."

"I reckon it's firm enough," said Uncle Teddy. "It's been hanging on there for considerably over a hundred years, by its size."

"What's this on the rock?" asked Sahwah, who had been examining the boulders which lay at the bottom of the ravine just under the tree. She pointed to a mark on one of the stones, an arrow chiseled out of the hard rock. They all crowded around and exclaimed in wonder. What could it mean?

"Maybe somebody's buried here," said the Captain.

"Rather a heavy tombstone," said Uncle Teddy. "And not much of an epitaph. I'll want more than an arrow on mine."

"It must mean something," said Hinpoha, her romantic imagination fired immediately.

But the consuming interest they had all shown in the arrow on the rock was driven out of them the next moment by a wild uproar at the other end of the ravine--the sound of a great crashing accompanied by a frightful bellow. Then there was another crash; the sound of rock striking against rock, a ripping, tearing, falling sound, a thud and another frightful bellow.

"Goodness, what was that?" asked Uncle Teddy, running forward in the direction of the noise, followed by the others.

They soon saw. On the ground at the upper end of the ravine lay the great bull moose they had seen that afternoon when he had come, in the pride of his strength, to answer the call of the birchbark trumpet. Now he lay in a heap, his sides heaving convulsively, beside a good-sized rock he had either carried over the edge of the precipice in his fall from above, or which had carried him. At the top of the ravine there was a deep hole in the soil where the ground had given away and hurled him over the edge. But the fall was not the worst of it. Down in the ravine there stood a broken sapling about two feet high, its sharp point standing up like a bayonet. Straight onto this the moose had plunged in his fall, ripping his chest open in a great jagged gash from which the blood flowed in a stream.

Hinpoha turned away and covered her eyes with her hands at the dreadful sight.

"Kill him, kill him," said Aunt Clara, catching hold of her husband's arm in distress, "I can't bear to see him suffer so."

"I have nothing to kill him with," said Uncle Teddy, in equal distress.

But the moose was beyond the need of a friendly bullet to end his sufferings, for after a few more convulsive heaves he stiffened out and lay still.

"Is he dead?" asked Hinpoha.

"Yes," answered Uncle Teddy.

"I'm so glad," said Hinpoha, still keeping her eyes averted. "The poor, poor thing. Are you going to bury him?"

"Bury him!" shouted the Captain in amazement. "Bury that moose? Not for a hundred dollars! Bury those antlers, and that hide? What are you thinking of?"

"I forgot," said Hinpoha meekly. "I was only thinking of the poor moose himself, not his antlers or his hide."

"Have we a right to take him?" asked Gladys. "This isn't the hunting season, you know."

Mr. Evans smiled fondly at her. "Always wondering whether you have a right to do things, aren't you, puss? Yes, of course we have a perfect right to take his antlers and his hide. We didn't kill him out of season; he killed himself falling into the ravine, so we haven't broken any law. He just sort of dropped into our laps, and 'finders is keepers,' you know."

"Well, your Calydonian Hunt was more successful than you expected," said Uncle Teddy, "for now you will really have the antlers as a trophy instead of just seeing the moose. If only all big game hunting were so easy!"

The Argonautic Expedition seemed very argonautic, indeed, when Mrs.

Evans welcomed it back into camp and heard the news about the moose. Of course, they could not bring it back with them in the war canoe, for it weighed twelve hundred pounds if it weighed an ounce. Uncle Teddy and Mr. Evans, with the Captain and a few more of the Sandwiches, went directly back in the big launch to bring in the carca.s.s while the Winnebagos prepared a second supper to celebrate the triumphant outcome of the Calydonian Hunt.

CHAPTER IV

BY VOTE OF COUNCIL

"Oh, what a peaceful day!" said Hinpoha, rising from the depths like Undine and seating herself on a rock to dry her bright hair in the breeze before she went up the hill. The Winnebagos and Sandwiches had been in swimming and were lying lazily about in the warm sand. Slim sat in the shade of Hinpoha's rock and fanned himself. Even a dip in the cool water made him warm and breathless. Gladys and Migwan were out in a rowboat, washing middies in the lake.

"It _is_ peaceful," drawled Katherine, tracing designs in the sand with her forefinger. "One of those days when everything seems in tune and nothing happens to disturb the quiet. By the way, where's Sahwah?"

"Gone to St. Pierre with Mr. Evans for the mail," answered Hinpoha.

Katherine drew a few more designs in the sand and then rose and sauntered leisurely up the path. The rest lay still.

"Ouch, my neck's getting sunburned," said Slim about five minutes later, and picking up Hinpoha's hat he set it on his head and panted across the beach toward the hill.

The Captain sent a pebble flying after him, and carried the hat from his head. Slim went on his way without stopping to pick it up.

"Slim is absolutely the laziest mortal on the face of this earth," said the Captain, strolling down to the water's edge and wading out to wash the sand off before he, too, started on the upward climb.

"Watch me," he called, as he mounted a solitary rock that just reared its nose above the surface of the water, "I'm going to make one more plunge for distance. Will you row out about forty feet," he shouted to Gladys and Migwan, "and see if I can come out beside the boat?"

Migwan and Gladys obligingly rowed out as he directed and rested their oars, waiting for him to come. The Captain made a clean leap from the rock and disappeared beneath the surface of the water.

"I believe he's going clear under the boat and coming out the other side," said Hinpoha.

The interval was growing long and the Captain had not risen to the surface yet.

"He's been under almost a minute," said Uncle Teddy, springing up and watching the water keenly. "Where can he be?"

He sprang into a boat and hurried along the line the Captain had taken, peering down into the depths. The girls and boys on the beach all hastened down into the water and swam or waded after him. When he was half way out to the rowboat where Migwan and Gladys sat waiting, the Captain's feet suddenly shot out of the water right beside him. Dropping the oars he caught hold of the feet and pulled the Captain into the boat.

"What's the matter? What happened?" they all asked as the Captain shook the water out of his eyes and looked around with a relieved expression.

"Suck hole, I guess," he said. "I had only gone about twenty-five feet when something caught hold of me and dragged me down, turning me around all the while. It lifted my feet and pulled me down head first, but I managed to hold my breath and not swallow water. Then all of a sudden some other current got ahold of me and shot me up and pretty soon somebody grabbed my feet and there was Uncle Teddy and the boat right beside me. It's a suck hole all right, I think."

"Are you sure that was the place, where I pulled you out?" asked Uncle Teddy.

"Quite sure," replied the Captain. "I came up right beside the boat."

"We'll have to mark the spot in some way," said Uncle Teddy, "so we will know how to avoid it when we are swimming. Let's see, it's right about in line with those twin pines on the bank and about thirty feet from the sh.o.r.e. We'll rig up some sort of a floating buoy there and then give the place a wide berth. It's a good thing it's out of line with our sandy beach, so it won't interfere with any water sports we may want to have there."

"Don't look so scared, I'm not drowned," said the Captain to Hinpoha, who was as pale as a ghost.