boy was right. The gray rangers of the big timbers were abroad seeking their meat from God.
CHAPTER VII – IN THE TRAPPER’S HUT
Now, to a reader who has never been a woodsman, who has never penetrated the silences that lie north of Fifty-three, the word “wolves” conveys a distinct impression of uneasiness.
The cold fact is that the northern woodsman stands rather in contempt of wolves. He has no use for them, but he does not fear them; and the wolves for their part – except in some startling exceptions – leave mankind alone.
The boys had been long enough in the Northland to share this feeling, and it was not fear that brought them to a halt at the long, melancholy ululation that told them of the “gray brothers” wishing each other “good hunting.” It was quite another feeling: the sense of their isolation, that the moaning cry had brought sharply home to them, the loneliness of the solitudes about them, the possibly dangerous nature of their quest.
“Wow! but that sound always makes me shiver,” said Jack, glancing about him, as if he expected to see a gray head pop out from behind the trees at any moment.
“Yes, it never sounded very good to me, even when we were lying snugly in our bunks on the good old Yukon Rover,” agreed Tom. “I wish we could find some trapper’s shack or hut hereabouts. I wouldn’t mind making a good camp with some company around, for to-night anyhow.”
“Why, you talk as if we might be a long time in the woods,” said Jack, in rather dismayed tones.
“And so we may be, for it is up to us now to keep on that trail till we find the man that made it, or else run it out.”
Jack did not make any reply to this. His spirits had been good all day, and he had looked upon the chase rather in the light of an enjoyable adventure than anything else.
But now the twilight desolation, the fading line of light in the west and the long howl of hunting wolves, which ever and anon swelled and died out in the distance as they stood there, combined to give him a sense of forboding and creepiness.
Tom’s cheery voice aroused him.
“We can push on a way yet, anyhow,” his elder brother was saying; “even half a mile farther will be better than nothing, and who knows that we may not come on some Indian camp or trapper’s shack, where we can get a hot supper and find, maybe, some news of our visitor.”
Jack, thus admonished, roused himself. By an effort he put aside his gloomy thoughts. Side by side through the trees the two young adventurers forged ahead. But Jack soon began to sag behind. It was plain that he was beginning to get fagged. It was small wonder. They had come thirty-five miles that day, as Tom’s speedometer showed, which is a fair journey for a grown man, let alone boys. A seasoned woodsman can make fifty miles a day on snowshoes and pull up with no feeling but a huge appetite. But, although the boys were well muscled and used to following the trail, they could not hope to compete with the lifelong rangers of the forest in endurance.
Tom was just thinking of making camp right where they then were, in a grove of hemlocks and stunted spruces, when he gave a sudden cry of joy.
“Hurray! Jack, old boy! Talk about luck!”
“What’s up?”
“Don’t you know yet?”
“I do not.”
“Then you are a worse woodsman than I thought you.”
“You might explain. Have you gone crazy?”
“Not just yet. Don’t you smell anything?”
“Um – a-h-h-h! Yes, I do. Smoke.”
“Wood smoke, Jack, and wood smoke means a fire, and fire means a human being.”
“Yes, and a human being may – mean – may mean – ”
“Well?”
“A human being that may make us a lot of trouble; for instance, the man who stole that skin!”
“Cracky! It may be he! Wait right here till I creep ahead a little.”
Dodging here and there behind tree trunks, Tom stole cautiously forward. He made not a sound as he went except when now and again the snow creaked under his feet. As he moved, he was doing some rapid thinking.
All day long they had been striving with all their strength to get near the man of the long trail who had stolen their black fox skin. Yet now that he might be at hand, almost within earshot of them, Tom found his heart pounding in a most uncomfortable way. What kind of a man might he be? Perhaps some desperado who could easily overpower them. Perhaps there were even a gang of them.
All these discomforting thoughts kept popping into Tom’s mind as he made his way onward as cautiously as a scout. But suddenly, as he bent forward, his rifle that he carried slung by a bandolier over his shoulders bumped his back. It was like a dose of magic elixir and brought his courage back in a flash.
“Well,” he thought, “if that rascal wants trouble, he can – ”
He came to a quick halt.
“Here’s the end of the trail!” he gasped.
Before him, not ten rods away and just over a slight rise, which had prevented his seeing it before, was a small log hut.
It stood on the brink of a little lake, the latter, of course, frozen many inches thick. About it was a clearing where the logs to build it had been felled. But what brought Tom up with a round turn was the sight of sleigh tracks leading up to the door.
From the chimney a thin wisp of bluish smoke was curling, undoubtedly the subtle aroma they had sensed at a distance. Tom stood as still as a graven image for a minute, listening intently. Over everything about him hung the hush of the wilderness at nightfall.
For a space he stood thus, and then, giving his rifle a quick hitch so that it would be in readiness to his hand, he strode forward on his snowshoes with long, certain strides.
CHAPTER VIII – THE GHOSTLY CRY
There was a big wood pile at one side of the hut, from which the owner evidently drew for his fuel supply. Tom used this as a sort of screen to conceal his advance, and, slipping behind it, gained a place where, through a chink in the logs, he could gaze into the interior. It was deserted. Of that he was sure immediately after his first glance, for the shack consisted only of the one room.
Having made sure of this, he continued his way around to the front of the place, and then discovered to his astonishment that the sled tracks went straight onward through the snow. It was easy for him to guess that the man they were pursuing had camped for a short time in the hut, cooked himself a meal and left the fire in the stove burning. When he saw several brown-paper cigarette butts lying scattered on the snow in front of the place, the identity of the visitor to the lonely hut became a certainty.
The problem of a place to pass the night was thus solved, for it is the rule of the waste places that the benighted traveler may make himself at home whenever he happens to come across a shelter. Tom gave a loud “Hullo!” and there came back an answering hail from Jack. In a few minutes the younger of the Bungalow Boys was at Tom’s side.
“Well,
