John Henry Goldfrap

“ They were gaining on the man. The boys began to feel the excitement of the chase gripping them more and more every instant. The meal was eaten almost in silence. Then—on again.
The day died out; but allowing only a halt for supper and to rest the dogs, old Joe insisted on pressing on. It was a brilliant, starry night, and onward over the creaking snow under the twinkling luminaries of the sky the relentless pursuers of the man with the black fox skin pressed steadily on. Had their excitement been less, or their frames more unused to hardship and long “treks,” the boys might have felt the pace. ”

“ He could almost feel the breath of the leaders of the yapping pack at his neck when he found himself, he hardly knew how, on his legs once more and struggling with the last remaining ounces of his strength to reach the rocky cliffs, which alone held out a promise of safety.
Many things raced through his mind as he drove on. Thoughts of Tom and Jack, of his old school fellows and of his parents far away in Scotland, memories of old grudges and repented wrongs. Sandy had read of drowning people whose whole lives race before them in a dazzling film of realism in their last moments. ”

“ But ever and anon the old man cast an uneasy eye about him. It was plain that he was worried and wished the long trail were at an end.
In that gloomy canyon between the beetling walls that rose on either side seemingly straight up to the gray sky, the old trapper’s voice rang stridently as he called to his dogs or cracked his whip with loud words of encouragement.
“Courage, mes enfants!” he would cry to his struggling team. “Soon we be at Pierre La Roche’s; den plentee feesh for you—bien—Boosh! En avant!”
His words always had a magical effect on the drooping mamelukes. ”

“ Like great waves of gray the wolves were hurling themselves forward. They fought blindly and desperately and the bear’s blows were growing weaker.
“I’ll help you, old fellow!” breathed Sandy. “I’ll take a hand in this myself. I’ve no more reason to love your enemies than you have.”
He reached out to the rocks and secured his rifle. When he turned back he was just in time to see a gray form at the bear’s throat. The wolf hung on while the big animal beat the air helplessly with his paws. ”

“ Among his other talents, the Glutton is possessed of a sense of smell and wariness keener than that of a fox. No bait has yet been devised that will lure him into a trap, no poisoned meat, no matter how skillfully set out, has, except on rare occasions, been known to tempt him. And so the wolverine, low, black and snakey-eyed, with ferocious teeth and claws, roams the northern woods seeking what, of other’s capture, it may devour. ”

“ It was far too cold for spiders, as the boy reflected, with a rueful grin; and then he doubted if even Bruce’s foes were more remorseless or deadly than the ones awaiting him outside the rock masses, piled in the snow desert like an island in a vast ocean of white.
He prepared another cartridge, sprinkling more powder on his kindling. This time there arose a puff of flame and smoke from the pile as soon as he fired the rifle. Casting his weapon aside, Sandy threw himself down on his knees by the fire. ”

“ The suspense was a cruel test of the boys’ nerves. Remember that they were out in the open, affording an easy mark for anyone lurking within the shadows of the dark balsams that screened the tent with its smoking stove-pipe. For all they knew, in fact, the man might not be alone. He might be one of a gang regularly organized to raid traps and skin stores. Such organizations were not rare in that part of the country, as the boys well knew.
At length old Joe rose, knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and faced the boys. ”

“ They got on their feet and began to mill about, barking and yapping in bewildering discord.
“I wonder what is the matter with them,” thought Sandy, as he watched, and then it began to dawn upon him that something that either alarmed or excited the wolves must be approaching the rocks.
“Perhaps it is a man,” thought Sandy, with a thrill of pleasurable anticipation. The next minute he almost began to hope that no human being was near unless there were several of them in a large party, for a lone hunter or trapper would be able to make only a feeble stand against the pack. ”

“ When the mass of struggling, famine-stricken wolves surged apart again, Sandy saw that a few bloodstains on the snow and some bones in the mouths of the stronger of the wolves were all that remained of the leader of the pack.
A king among them when alive, the dead wolf had been to his followers nothing more than so much meat. ”

“ CHAPTER V—THE WILDERNESS TRAIL.
It is a peculiarity of the wilderness, be it in the frozen north or under the blazing sun of the southwest, that it breeds in its dwellers and sojourners a stout and hardy independence and self-reliance that no other life can. In the midst of primitive solitudes, where man has to battle with nature for his means of life, every quality of hardiness and ingenuity that may have been dormant in civilization is called forth by that stern task-mistress, necessity. ”

“ From time to time, too, they could still hear the howling of the wolf pack, and occasionally the night air would ring with the sharp cry of some small animal pounced upon by a great snow owl or a weasel. But both lads were well used to these sounds of the northern night, and it was not long before their senses began to swim and they dropped off into sound and refreshing sleep. ”

“ But old Joe, who well knew how an Indian can drag out a story to interminable lengths, diplomatically pleaded fatigue and sought his blankets. Long after he slept the Indian sat motionless, squatting on his haunches, smoking without ceasing and gazing into the fire. Then he, too, curled himself up, and the firelight in the tepee glowed upon four slumberers.
Bright and early the next morning they took up the trail. Old Joe was in high spirits. He flourished his aged rifle vindictively. He belabored his dogs without mercy. ”

“ Tom dropped his rifle butt on the ground and looked at Jack with quizzical eyes.
“One of our old friends!” he said with a short laugh.
The trail, which was somewhat like that of a small bear but much narrower in the feet, was a thoroughly familiar one to them. It was that of the most cunning creature to be found north of fifty-three, and one that is pretty well distributed throughout the wild regions of the north.
It was, in fact, the track of a wolverine, carcajou, or, to give him the trapper’s and woodsman’s expressive title, “the Glutton.” No animal is so detested by the trappers. ”

“ He raised his rifle and singled out the great, gray wolf that appeared to be commander-in-chief of the creatures. This was a huge animal with bristling hackles who was covered with wounds and scars received no doubt in defending his title of leader of the pack.
Sandy took careful aim between the wolf’s blazing yellow eyes that shone in the gathering dusk like signal lamps. He pulled the trigger and a blaze and a sharp crack followed. Mingled with them was the death cry of the big gray wolf. ”

“ But the wilderness traveler has had to learn by many hard experiences how to make the best of things, and the experiments of successive travelers have resulted in a score or more of makeshift devices for comfort and safety.
While the party of adventurers ate their supper with hearty appetites, washing it down with big drafts of scalding tea, the dogs outside made their own camp in their peculiar fashion. The mamelukes make themselves comfortable very easily. Having gorged themselves on fish, they burrowed into the snow and slept the sleep of the faithful sled dog. ”

“ Tom already had a theory in his head as to what it was that had made the sounds, and, deducing from the fact that the thief alone would desire to try to scare them, the first things he looked for were traces of some prowler in the vicinity of the hut.
He had discovered footprints among some trees on the edge of the clearing, the prints of a big, soft moccasin-shod man. Then came the finding of the peculiar woods-made megaphone with which, beyond doubt, the man who had tried to scare the boys off his trail had uttered the alarming sounds. ”

“ The thought flashed through Sandy’s mind that the hunting must have been bad for the pack to make them pursue a human being, something which the savage but cowardly creatures rarely do unless driven to desperation by ferocious pangs of appetite. Hunger, as with most animals, will convert wolves, ordinarily despised by the northern woodsman, into beasts as dangerous as tigers.
Sandy had heard tales of the northern wolves when feed is scarce and the snow lies on the land. ”

“ 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!” ”

“ Old Joe gave one of his shrugs and took his pipe from his mouth.
“Dey what you call beeg bluff,” said he. “All time dey play tired. Boosh! Dey no can fool me. Allez!”
Crack went the whip, and the cavalcade moved on as briskly as before.
It was twilight when, on rounding a turn in the trail in a deep valley, they suddenly heard the barking of dogs. Those of their own team answered vociferously, old man Picquet yelling frantically at them above the din.
The cause of the noise ahead of them was soon apparent. From the midst of a clump of second growth Jack-pine proceeded a glow of firelight. ”

“ Old Joe looked up quickly.
“Maybe we find heem, maybe not,” he said; “all we can do is try. No good get sore, mon garçon. Boosh!”
Jack looked rather abashed, but said nothing, and they went on again in silence. Late in the afternoon, when near White Otter, they came upon two Indians fishing through the ice. They had a decoy, one of the oddest of its kind the boys had ever seen. It was a fish skin blown out like a bladder and anchored at the edge of the ice. They seemed to have had good luck, for a big pile of fish lay beside them. ”

“ It seems strange that these dogs—which are the mainstay of the traveler in the northern wilds—live through their whole lives without ever getting a kind word. They have performed wonderful feats of endurance and, with all their wolfish greed and viciousness, they have time and time again saved human lives by their wonderful stamina.
“‘A mameluke knows only one law, and that is contained in the end of a club or whip,’ an old driver told me once; and yet some, like Joe Picquet, have succeeded in getting them to do much of their work through kindness. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ He cracked his whip again, and the Mamelukes, yapping and snarling, drew the creaking sled up to the door. The old man checked the dogs with a word, and then turned to the boys.
“Ah! mes garçons,” he cried; “where you come from, eh? You look plantee young to be out on the trail alone.”
While the old man busied himself in unpacking the goods he had brought back from the trading post some fifty miles away, Tom told him of how they had passed the night in the hut. Then the old man told them that he was the owner of the hut, by name Joe Picquet, an old voyageur of the wilderness. ”

“ Jack made a brave effort to disguise his pain.
“I’ll soon be all right, I guess,” he said, “but, Tom, I’ll tell you one thing.”
“What is that?”
“I’ll never set another trap for a wild animal as long as I live. I know now how they must suffer.”
After a brief consultation, Tom and old Joe lifted the suffering boy and carried him back to the sled. A “snow-camp” had already been devised and Jack was made as comfortable as possible in this.
By the firelight old Joe examined his injury. The flesh was badly crushed and bruised, but so far as the old trapper could see there were no bones broken. ”

“ At the same instant, the boys, who had heard Joe’s shout, came running into the tent, their arms full of wood.
“Aloons, mes enfants!” cried the angry old man. “Do not give good wood to such as dis man. Twice he try to keel me. Once weez pistol, once weez knife. Let heem freeze in zee snows if he weel. We weel help heem no more.”
He thrust a hand under the man’s blankets where the latter had indicated. Then, with a shout of triumph, he drew out a beautiful skin. A black fox pelt, shimmering, glossy, beautiful! ”

“ The old man himself worked like a beaver. It would have seemed impossible that a man of his age and apparently feeble frame could perform so much work. But Old Joe Picquet was capable of doing a day’s work with men of half his age, and the way he hustled about that camp showed it.
The dogs were fed, but instead of fighting as usual, they devoured their food in silence and then began looking about for places to burrow. ”

“ Frank and Harry Chester, the boy aviators, are the heroes of this exciting, red-blooded tale of adventure by air and land in the turbulent Central American republic. The two brothers with their $10,000 prize aeroplane, the Golden Eagle, rescue a chum from death in the clutches of the Nicaraguans, discover a lost treasure valley of the ancient Toltec race, and in so doing almost lose their own lives in the Abyss of the White Serpents, and have many other exciting experiences, including being blown far out to sea in their air-skimmer in a tropical storm. ”