CHAPTER VIII DICK DROPS A MOOSE

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The loss of the cache, more than anything else, had cast its shadow of gloom over the spirits of Dick and Sandy. Toma, however, who had made the discovery, seemed not so deeply concerned.

“We catch um meat,” Toma attempted to cheer the boys. “Mebbe bye an’ bye we eat.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” declared Sandy, thinking of the lonely strip of bacon and the one handful of flour, which were all that remained of the provisions the grizzly had destroyed. “To tell you the truth, I haven’t seen very much game lately. Have you, Dick?”

Dick shook his head, forced to acknowledge the truth of Sandy’s statement.

“When a fellow’s hungry,” Sandy complained, rubbing his lame ankle, “he’s hungry, that’s all, and a mouthful of bacon is about as much good to him as a drop of fresh water in the ocean.”

“Me no eat one time for whole week.” Toma reminded them.

Both boys looked up in astonishment.

“A whole week!” gasped Dick, “great guns! I hope we don’t come to that.”

“Mebbe set snare for rabbit tonight,” encouraged Toma. “Toma good ketch um rabbit.”

“I could eat two or three rabbits,” Sandy grumbled, taking up the slack in his belt.

As they made their way onward, Dick seriously considered their plight. Thoughts of the ruthless, cold-hearted rifling of the cache by Bear Henderson’s men filled him with an anger that was difficult to suppress. But anger or resentment could not help them now. The thing to do was to abandon any attempt at further progress that day and put in a few good hours hunting while it was yet daylight.

“Boys,” he decided, “we’d better pitch camp here for a while, until we can bag some game. My suggestion is that each of us start off in a different direction. We must keep track of the time and be sure to get back to camp by dark. The chances are that at least one of us will be successful.”

“It’s hunt or starve,” agreed Sandy. “Which way do you want me to go?”

“Toma had better try his luck here in the creek valley,” said Dick, “because game is apt to be more plentiful here and he’s the best hunter. You and I can make our way into the hills, keeping about half a mile apart. Shoot anything at all that has meat on its bones,” and he winked slyly at Toma.

“I could eat a skunk and like it,” groaned Sandy. “By the way, before we start don’t you think we’d better divide that bacon?”

With a queer, inexplicable feeling, Dick produced the last morsels of food from their packs and divided them carefully. If he gave Sandy a little more than an equal portion, no one, with the possible exception of a tiny sparrow perched on a branch overhead, could have noticed it. They ate in silence, and in silence they arose immediately after their inadequate meal and started off for the hunt.

“I don’t think I’ll ever see anything,” Dick muttered to himself, “or if I do the chances are that the pesky thing will get away. Hang it all, why did Govereau, or whoever it was, have to find that cache?”

Dick’s mood brightened a few minutes later as he came up through the autumn sunshine to the foot of a slope, thickly covered with stunted pine. It looked like a very good hiding place for ptarmigan, or possibly even deer. He unslung his rifle and went forward as cautiously as he could, one finger hovering close to the trigger of his gun.

But, after an hour’s slow progress, Dick had begun to lose hope. He had seen nothing. Apparently the forest was as devoid of all animal life as a city street. Except for a hawk, circling lazily about high overhead, there was neither bird nor beast anywhere in that lonely stretch of wilderness.

Mopping his perspiring brow, the young hunter finally sat down for a moment’s rest, before continuing his course to the top of a high ridge.

Then an abrupt, totally unexpected crackling in the heavy Saskatoon thicket ahead caused him to start—almost in wonderment. His breath came quickly. He half rose, then fearing, that even his slightest sound might spoil everything, he sank down again, his left hand nursing the cold, blue barrel of his Ross rifle.

More crackling, a sudden parting of the bushes, and Dick’s heart almost stood still. A large bull moose, majestic in his stature, crashed into view.

By this time Dick was fairly trembling with excitement. Twice he endeavored to raise his rifle to his shoulder. His arm shook so much that he knew it would be worse than useless to attempt a shot while his nerves were in such a condition.

“I can’t do it,” thought Dick, then across his mind flashed the mental picture of a cache, broken into and robbed, and the sneering face of Pierre Govereau mocking him. Then his rifle went to his shoulder, and two loud reports rang out in quick succession. The moose stumbled, but did not fall. Dick heard quite plainly its sudden snort of alarm and the crash of underbrush as it struck off at terrific speed directly down the slope in the direction from which he had but recently come.

The moose was wounded, he knew, but he also was well aware from previous experience that a wounded moose will often travel for miles before it falls. Galvanized into action, Dick was off, following the blood-stained trail, hoping against hope that either Sandy or Toma might intercept the animal before it had become lost in the intricate tangle of brush and woodland that lay to the south.

Sliding down a particularly treacherous part of the trail, Dick’s foot caught in an exposed root and he fell heavily. As he bounded to his feet again, he thought he heard a distant shout—but he was not entirely sure.

For twenty minutes more, he pushed forward rapidly, sometimes almost losing the trail of the moose. Then finally he did lose it altogether. Search as he would, the telltale tracks had disappeared as magically and as unaccountably as if the animal had leaped into the air and flown away to a place of safety.

“It’s the most unusual thing I ever heard of,” Dick commented aloud, racing about in a vain effort to discover some sign that would point out again the trail that had so suddenly vanished.

In despair his eyes fell upon a level formation of rock not more than thirty feet away. Could it be that the moose had passed that way—scrambled over the level rock floor in its mad race with death? If so, it would explain the mysterious disappearance of the tracks; but there must be blood-stains somewhere.

“Whoop-ee!” he shouted as his quick eyes made out the signs he sought—small splotches of red scattered across the smooth surface of sandstone. And shortly thereafter, he hurried on again, like a young bloodhound finding fresh scent along the path ahead.

“I’ll be more careful next time,” he assured himself. “It would be a pity if this moose got away. I’d have been ashamed to show my face in camp.”

Two miles further on he almost forgot about the moose. Through a screen of willows, skirting a small creek, he caught the faint movement of some living thing—something that stood concealed and which watched him furtively as he made his way along through the dead and matted grass of the little valley.

Dick felt instinctively that some danger threatened. What this was he had no way of finding out, yet the feeling persisted that he was being watched, spied upon by an enemy more terrible than any wild denizen of the forest. As he advanced swiftly on his way, he was conscious of a strange tingling of nerves, as if he half expected at any moment to be pounced upon and overcome by an unknown assailant.

“I’ve never felt so queer about anything in my life,” he confided to the silent trees, as he hurried quickly along. “I’m sure that I saw something move there in the bushes, and I’m positive that it wasn’t an animal that walks on four legs.”

Just then, an object lying on the ground, immediately ahead, drove every other thought from his mind. With a glad cry he sprang forward, and, a short time later, stood looking down at the prostrate body of the bull moose, majestic even in death.

A lump arose in Dick’s throat as he stood there silently regarding it. “Poor old fellow,” he breathed, “it was a shame to do this. But perhaps you saved us from starving. Maybe——”

A shout close at hand roused Dick from his musings. Wheeling about his eyes lighted with pride and happiness, as he espied the approaching figures of Sandy and Toma.

“Good for you!” Sandy exclaimed, as he strode up to where his chum was standing. “I just knew you’d do it. Say, I believe it’s the biggest moose I ever saw.”

“You ketch um big fella,” complimented Toma. “It is good.”

Together the three young adventurers stood admiring the moose. So interested had they become that not one of them caught the sound of stealthy footsteps until a heavy, threatening form, followed by three others, pushed its way within the circle of admiring eyes.

With a cry of warning, Dick sprang back, clutching his rifle tightly. Then he looked at the man.

It was Pierre Govereau!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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