With Trapper Jim in the North Woods Part 22

"You mean because he's quit trying to hide his trail?" asked Steve.

"Well, partly that, but there's another thing," Trapper Jim went on to say.

"I think I'm on to it," observed Max.

"Well, I saw you look some surprised at the time, son," declared the trapper. "But Steve, here, saw nothing. Did you notice, Steve, which way we headed at the time we first picked up the trail at the sprung trap?"

"Why, yes, it was almost due south, wasn't it?" asked Steve.

"Right, son, and look at the sun now," the trapper remarked.

"Gee, that's queer!" muttered the surprised Steve.

"What is?" asked Max, smiling.

"The sun--why, it's swung around on the right. Say, don't tell me time's pa.s.sed like that, and it's afternoon now. Why, we haven't felt hungry enough to tackle that bully lunch Max fetched along when he came back with the dog."

Both of the others laughed at this.

"That's one on you, Steve," said Max. "See, my watch says just ten-thirty. The sun didn't swing around at all, but the trail did."

"It's heading north now, is it?" demanded Steve.

"Straight as can be," replied Trapper Jim.

"But the cabin lies that way!" objected the puzzled boy.

"Just what it does," admitted Jim. "When the thief sat down to rest back there he must have been thinking it over. And he made up his mind to do something on the spot, for when he started again he cut out a new course direct."

"Whew, the nerve of him!" exclaimed Steve.

"What makes you say that, Steve?"

"Why, don't you see, he's got the fever bad. Thinks p'r'aps Uncle Jim here might have another silver fox pelt laid away, and while he's about it he reckons he'd better double up."

But Trapper Jim shook his head. He knew no pelt thief would ever display such boldness as Steve suggested. There must be another reason for the sudden change of plans on the part of the fugitive.

"Have we gained on him?" asked Max, presently.

"Considerable," replied the trapper.

"How d'ye know that?" demanded Steve,

"There are plenty of signs to tell me," came the answer. "Anyone used to following a trail would have seen them. And I reckon, now, Max hasn't been blind all this while."

"No," replied the one spoken of. "I saw water still oozing into a deep track when we pa.s.sed that boggy ground, and right then and there I concluded we must be less than half an hour behind the thief."

"Good!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the trapper; "anything else. Max?"

"Why, yes," returned the boy, calmly. "There was a little twig that righted itself even as I looked at it. His foot had bent it down. Now, I shouldn't think it could have stayed that way more'n half an hour at best."

"I saw it, too," added the trapper; "and it pleases me more than I can say to find that you keep your eyes about you, son. It ought to be a lesson to Steve here. Queer, how one person can see so much and another nothing."

"Well," ventured Steve, "I have noticed one thing, anyhow."

"Glad to hear it, son. Tell us what it is, now."

"The dog," remarked Steve.

"Yes, what of Ajax?" questioned Jim.

"He acts different now."

"And from that you conclude what?" queried the trapper.

"Why, we're closing in on our game," Steve went on. "I've hunted enough to know how dogs show that."

"Fine! We'll give you credit for that point, Steve, because it's a fact,"

laughed the trapper, in a half-hushed way.

"Aw! I ain't quite such a silly as I look," remarked Steve.

"I should think not," said Max, and Steve hardly knew whether to take the observation as a compliment or the reverse.

"And, now, lads, we'd better stop talking," said Trapper Jim. "I reckon we're close enough on our man for him to hear us if we're noisy. And, perhaps, if he learned we'd nigh overtaken him, he might start off on the run."

So for some time they kept on in abject silence. Not a word was spoken, and save for the panting of the eager hound and the labored breathing of the trackers, all was still.

The country had become quite rough, and Max knew they must be pa.s.sing over the hills he had seen from the cabin, lying to the south. They had had to climb them when on the way from the distant town, and Max even hoped some day to circulate among them with his rifle. But he had hardly expected that when he did, it would be while on the track of a human being.

"He slipped here--you can see the marks his shoes made in the shale,"

said Trapper Jim, pointing to the ground in front, which sloped downward rapidly.

"Oh, my land!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Steve, "look where the marks lead, right to the brink of that precipice or the bank of a deep ravine. Honest, now, I believe the feller must 'a' gone over there."

"Just what he did," added Trapper Jim, solemnly; "and it'd make an ugly fall for a body, too."

They crept to the edge and looked down. The bottom of the ravine was many yards below, and there were cruel rocks, partly hidden by dense vegetation, now brown from the touch of Jack Frost's fingers.

"Listen, that sounded like a groan!" exclaimed the awe-struck Steve.

"I think I can see something among the weeds," remarked Max; and hardly had he spoken than a hand was raised to wave toward them and a voice full of pain called out:

"Help! Oh, help!"

Led by Trapper Jim the boys made their way down the steep rocky bank of the ravine. The first object they saw was the pelt of the silver fox, for the thief had removed it during his various stops so as to lighten his load. Then they came upon the doubled-up figure of a comparatively young man, at sight of whom Trapper Jim frowned and seemed strangely moved.