Part 39 (1/2)
”After you, my dear Alphonse,” Tom laughed. ”Anyhow, we both hit him, and that's some shooting at a hundred feet, in the middle of the night, even if it is moonlight. We better get our snow-shoes on, and drag him home. Wonder if Mr. Mills will come, or stick it out at the other yard?”
”I bet he comes,” said Joe. ”He must have heard us fire.”
They made an improvised sledge of a big, broken pine bough, to keep the body up on top of the snow, and were tying it on to this with their handkerchiefs knotted around the feet, when they heard a far call.
”He's coming!” said Joe, and making his hands into a trumpet, he answered the call.
They had the body out of the yard, and were crossing an open park with it, tugging hard, when the Ranger's halloo sounded much nearer, and shortly after he appeared in the moonlight, coming fast.
”You got him, eh?” he said. ”That's good work. I heard your two shots, and then one more. That was to finish him at close range, I bet.”
”You win,” said the boys. ”Gee, but he's heavy to drag.”
”That's a b.u.m sled,” the Ranger laughed. ”Either of you got your axe on?”
”No, we haven't,” the boys said.
”I'll find a fallen pole, then. Drag him along to the next stand.”
The Ranger went ahead, and found a small fallen tree from which he broke the dead branches and made a pole. Slipping this between the lion's paws (which were knotted together with handkerchiefs) he picked up one end and Tom the other, the lion hanging down between them. Joe took the rifles, and they started home.
The moon was setting behind the Divide and the world growing dark under the frosty stars as they neared the cabin. Once inside, the boys got a rule, and ran back to measure their prey. He was exactly eight feet long, with three feet more of tail, and by lantern light they could see his yellowish-brown color, his gray face and dirty white belly. He looked like some gigantic, elongated house cat.
”Is that what used to be all over the country, and was called a panther?” Joe asked.
”I suppose it is,” the Ranger said. ”Probably this type that lives in the Rocky Mountains looks a bit different, but it's the same breed o'
cat. You don't have panthers out East any more, do you?”
”No, they say one hasn't been seen in Ma.s.sachusetts for fifty years or more,” Tom answered. ”Don't know that I'm sorry. I like the deer too well.”
”Speaking of deer, to-morrow we'll go up and rescue the good carcases he didn't eat, and have some fresh meat,” said Mills. ”Now to bed. Do you know it's two o'clock?”
”'Most time to get up!” the boys laughed, as they cleaned their rifle barrels and made ready for bunk.
CHAPTER XXVI--A Hundred Miles in Four Days, Over the Snow, Which is a Long Trip To Get Your Mail
The next morning Mills was up at the usual time, but he let the boys sleep, and it was the sound of the breakfast dishes that woke Joe, who was usually first up to do the cooking and get the stove red hot. Joe himself slept in a separate little room part.i.tioned off at the back, so he could have his window wide open without freezing out the whole cabin.
He got up now and hurried out, still sleepy.
”I had a funny dream last night,” he said. ”I dreamed we were bringing the lion home on the sledge Peary took to the North Pole.”
”Not a bad idea!” the Ranger exclaimed. ”We might make a sledge to get the deer meat home on. Suppose we do that to-day, and to-night we'll take turns guarding the yard from possible wolves.”
In the Ranger's cabin was a kit of tools, and outside was plenty of wood. A sled like Peary's, however, was impractical in the soft snow, and, moreover, they soon found that without small hard woods to work with it would be impossible to build any kind of an enduring sledge.
”Why don't we make a toboggan?” said Tom.
”You need hard wood for that, too, to curl the end--and it takes time to steam the wood and get it bent, anyhow,” Mills replied.
”Wait--I have it!” Joe cried. ”You folks be getting three or four strips of board ten feet long planed down thin, with the under side smooth.