The Boy Scouts at the Canadian Border Page 6

  CHAPTER VI THE LOGGING CAMP

  It was along toward the middle of the day when Rob announced welcomenews. He called a halt, and as the other pair stood at attention thescout master turned on Tubby with a look that thrilled the stout chumexceedingly.

  “What is it, Rob?” he gasped, the perspiration streaming down his fatcheeks in little rivulets, for the day had grown a bit warm after thatchilly night. “I know, you’ve run across signs at last?”

  “Speak up, Rob, and give us a hint, please,” urged the hardly lessimpatient Andy.

  “I wanted to see if you fellows were using your eyes, first,” explainedRob; “but Tubby seemed to be searching his inward soul for something hehad lost; and, well, I imagine Andy here was figuring on what he wantedfor his next meal, because neither one of you at this minute has thoughtit worth while to take a good look down at your feet. Right now you’restanding on the sign!”

  They began to cast their eyes earthward. Andy almost immediately burstout with:

  “Whee! an old long-disused tote-road, as the lumbermen call the trackwhere the logs are dragged to the rivers, to be later on put behind aboom, and wait for the regular spring rise! Am I correct, Rob?”

  “Straight as a die, Andy; this is a tote-road,” replied Rob.

  “But what good is that going to do us, I’d like to know?” venturedTubby, groping as usual for an explanation. “We don’t want to go to anyriver, that I know of. What we’re itching to find is the logging camp.”

  “This track is going to bring us to it, sooner or later,” asserted Rob,with conviction in his tones. “I can give a pretty good guess which waythe logs were taken along here, from the signs that are left on thetrees and the bushes. Anybody with half a mind could tell that much.Very well, we must follow the track back, and keep watch for anotherroad showing where the horses were daily taken to their sheds at thecamp. I imagine it’s going to be a simple enough solution to the puzzle,boys.”

  Andy was delighted. Tubby, having been convinced that the leader knewwhat he was talking about, managed to enthuse. Truth to tell, Tubby wasyearning for the delightful minute to arrive when he might toss downthat heavy pack of his for good and all, since they expected to go outof the pine woods much lighter than they came in.

  They determined to sit down and eat a bite of lunch. After that theywould again take up their task, the rainbow of promise glowing in thesky ahead of them.

  “Have we gone a great distance away from the border, do you think, Rob?”Andy was asking, while they devoured such food as could be preparedquickly over a small fire.

  “Well, that’s something I can’t exactly say yes or no to,” came theanswer. “I don’t know where the dividing line comes. According to myreckoning we ought to be about as close as we were last night. In fact,I should say we are now exactly opposite the long bridge over on theCanadian side of the border.”

  “But how could that be, Rob, when we’ve been doing considerable walkingsince breaking camp this morning?” demanded Tubby incredulously, butmore as a means for increasing his stock of information than because heentertained the least doubt concerning the statement made.

  “Our tramping hasn’t covered over half a mile in a direct line, becausewe went over a zigzag course,” replied the leader. “If you remember,whenever we heard a whistle for the bridge, it came from the west,showing that the structure lay farther that way.”

  “Sure, you’re on the job when you say that, Rob!” exclaimed Andy, whohad been an interested listener. “Only twenty minutes ago we all heard arumbling sound, and decided it was made by a long freight train passingover the trestle leading to the bridge. It came from a point exactlyopposite to us. You wouldn’t want any better proof than that, Tubby.”

  So they chatted, and ate, and passed half an hour. Then Rob said itwould be well if they once more went forth. That tote-road was analluring object to Rob; he wanted to prove his theory a true one.

  Once more they began to “meander,” as Tubby called it, through thewoods, which had begun to thin out considerably, since most of thebetter trees had been cut down years back, and in places the ground wasalmost impassable with the wreckage of dead branches. Fortunately nofire had ever run through this region to complete the devastation begunby the axes of the lumbermen.

  It could not have been more than half an hour later when Rob announcedthat he had discovered where the horses were in the habit of leaving thetote-road and following a well-defined trail through the brush and scanttrees.

  “Keep a lookout for the camp, fellows!” he told them, whereat Tubbybegan to elevate his head and sniff the air with vehemence.

  “I thought I caught a whiff of pine-smoke,” he said, “but I must havebeen mistaken. Still, as the air is in our faces, it wouldn’t be strangeif we did get our first indication of the presence of the lumber campthrough our well developed sense of smell, rather than by reason of oureyesight.”

  “Wrong again, Tubby,” chuckled Andy. “Eyes have it this time; there’syour camp ahead of us. Look over the top of that clump of brush, you’llsee the flat roof of a long log shanty, which must be the bunk-house ofthe lumber jacks in the days when they spent a winter here chopping.”

  Even Tubby agreed with Andy after he had shaded his eyes with his handand taken a square look. The thought that they were finally at the endof their search for Uncle George was very pleasing, and Tubby laughed asthough a tremendous load had already been taken from his shoulders.

  “Why, it wasn’t such a great task after all,” he remarked, as though hehad never once dreamed of being despondent.

  “Wait,” cautioned Rob. “Don’t count your chickens before they arehatched, Tubby. It’s poor policy to be too sanguine.”

  “But Rob, didn’t you just say that was the camp?” pleaded the other.

  “No doubt about it, Tubby. But possibly the person we’re wanting tointerview may not be in the place,” reminded the scout master.

  “What makes you say that, Rob?”

  “Oh! I’ve got a sort of suspicion that way,” responded Rob. “In thefirst place we haven’t heard a single gunshot since arriving in thevicinity of this place yesterday, and that alone looks queer. Then wecan see the roof of the bunk-house, with the mud and slat chimney inplain sight; it’s after the noon hour, too, and the chances are there’dbe more or less cooking going on if the place were occupied, but so faras I can make out not the faintest trace of smoke is flowing from thathomely chimney.”

  Tubby, staring hard again, saw the truth of these assertions. He heaveda heavy sigh and shook his head dismally.

  “Tough luck, I should call it, if Uncle George has never been here atall, and ours is going to be a regular wild-goose chase. Whichever waycan we turn, Rob?”

  “There you go jumping at conclusions, hand over fist, Tubby,” said Andyquickly. “Rob doesn’t mean that at all. Why, stop and think how youruncle was so very particular to mention that communications ofimportance sent to this camp would get to him in due time. He’s handlingsome big business, and couldn’t afford to drop out of the worldentirely, even for two weeks. If he’s left here be sure we’ll findsomething to tell us where to look for him.”

  “Come along and let’s see,” urged Tubby, “they say the proof of thepudding lies in the eating. Inside of five minutes or so we ought toknow the worst, or the best. I’ll try and stand the shock, fellows.”

  Once more they advanced. They could not always keep in a direct line onaccount of the obstacles that beset their course, so that Tubby’sestimate of the time required to reach the deserted logging camp provederroneous; but by the end of ten minutes the little party drew up beforethe door of the long cabin which they understood had once sheltered ascore of those rough wielders of the ax known as lumber jacks.

  Some of the other rude buildings constituting the “camp” were in variousstages of decay and in tumble-down ruin, but the bunk-house seemed tohave been more substantially built, for it looked a
s though intact.

  Before they arrived all of the boys had made a discovery that increasedtheir haste to reach the door. There was some sort of paper fastened toit, and Rob had a pretty good idea as to what it would turn out to be.

  “Uncle George has gone away from here, and left directions where to lookfor him,” announced Andy promptly, showing that he, too, had made aguess concerning the nature of that notice on the door.

  “Shucks!” Tubby was heard to grunt, at the same time giving his burdenan impatient flirt, as though almost in a humor to rebel against anotherlong siege of packing it over miles and miles of dreary pineland.

  But a surprise, and a pleasing one at that, awaited them all as theyfound themselves able to decipher the writing on the paper.

  It proved to be a business sheet, with Uncle George’s printed address upin the left-hand corner. He himself had written the message in a boldhand, which any one capable of reading at all might easily make out; andthis was what the trio of scouts read:

  NOTICE.

  “We have gone over to the Tucker Pond to try again for the big moose that for two past seasons has managed to fool me. This year I hope to bag him. He is a rare giant in size. Make yourselves at home. The latch string is always out. We expect to be back in a few days at the most. The door is only barred on the outside. Enter, and wait, and make merry.

  (Signed) “George Luther Hopkins.”

  When Tubby read that delightful news he fell to laughing until he shooklike a bowlful of jelly. It evidently made him very happy, and he didnot hesitate to show it to his two faithful comrades. Indeed, all ofthem had smiles on their faces, for it would be much more satisfactoryto loaf around this spot, possibly taking toll of the partridges, andperhaps even a wandering deer, than to continue their search for anelusive party, whose movements might partake of the nature of awill-o’-the-wisp.

  “I’m going to make a sign reading ‘_Alabama_,’ and stick it above thedoor, the first thing,” announced Tubby, with a grateful heart. “Itmeans ‘here we rest.’ If ever three fellows deserved a spell ofrecuperation we certainly are those fellows.”

  “How generous of Uncle George,” said Andy, “to say the latch string isalways out! Then, too, he calls attention to the fact that the door isonly held shut by a bar on the outside, instead of within. All we haveto do, fellows, is to drop our packs here. I’ll remove that bar, andswing the door wide open, after which we’ll step in and takepossession.”

  He proceeded to follow out this nice little program,—at least he got asfar as dropping his pack and removing the bar; but hardly had he startedto open the door than Andy gave a sudden whoop, and slammed it shutagain with astonishing celerity. Tubby and Rob stared at him as thoughthey thought he had seen a genuine ghost.