The boys surveyed the speaker for a moment with great interest. His appearance was rugged and honest, and a kindly light beamed from a pair of keen, gray eyes. Open air life had bronzed his skin until it was almost as brown as an Indian's. He stooped slightly, but all his movements showed that a life amid danger had made him exceedingly active and alert.
"I'm John Yardsley, at your service," he repeated, "an' powerful glad ter see yer. Step inter my office," and he waved his hand toward the door.
"Well, Yardsley, we're glad to meet you, too," said Nat, with his old-time, easy familiarity. "We're the Bounding Brotherhood of Hunters—members, warble out your names."
"Ha, ha!" laughed John Yardsley. "Bounding Brotherhood, ha, ha! Did you do some bounding yisterday mornin'?"
He broke into a short laugh, and pushed the door open to its fullest extent, while the boys crowded in.
At one end of the interior, they saw a big stove, and near the window a long table. A bunk occupied one corner, while several rude stools were scattered around.
But what interested the visitors most of all were a number of stuffed animals and birds which rested on various shelves. Each was in a natural position and looked quite life-like with its yellow glass eyes.
"This your work, Yardsley?" asked Nat, forgetting, for the moment, that he had intended to hurl forth a lot of questions.
"Everything mine," answered the trapper, with a smile.
"And look at that moose's head over the door," said Bob, pointing to one with enormous antlers.
"Brung him down myself," said the trapper, "and after as pretty a tussle as you'd want ter see. That was long ago. And here's something else, young fellers."
He pointed to a corner of the room. The boys crowded over and saw a number of clay modelings of animals, which made them open their eyes in astonishment.
"My eye! A wildcat," cried John Hackett, "and natural as can be."
"A wolf, too," said Bob. "That certainly is great."
"Christopher, I wish I could do work like this," put in Nat Wingate.
The trapper smiled at their enthusiasm. "Why shouldn't I be able to make 'em?" he asked. "Ain't I seen them critters for years an' years? Ain't I shot 'em—an' trapped 'em? I ain't got none too much book learnin', mebbe, an' who has?" he went on, "but I can tell you a few things 'bout the woods, an' the wild critters in 'em. Know the things about yer, that's what I calls eddication."
The trapper spoke earnestly and continued to enlarge upon a theme which was evidently a favorite one with him. At length, however, he paused, and asked the boys to tell him how they had managed to read his message.
Bob complied with the request, explaining the matter briefly but clearly.
At his conclusion, the trapper nodded approvingly, and was about to make some remark, when Billy Musgrove suddenly blurted out, in his loud, impudent voice, "See here, old sport, you was the feller what put a stuffed cat in front of them chaps' huts, eh?"
John Yardsley began to smile.
"I've got one failin'," he admitted, "an' I can't help it."
"An' you fired snowballs at 'em?"
Yardsley chuckled.
"Well, see here!" Musgrove's face assumed an angry expression. "I don't like them jokes—no, sir—it's good that you didn't try 'em on me an' Tim Sladder—'cause we don't stand for nothing like that. No, sir!"
This very frank statement seemed to amuse the trapper hugely. He broke into a laugh. Then turning toward the others, he said, "I seen you fellers several times, I guess, when you didn't think no one was near. I can't help jokin'. I hope you don't take no offense, but I says to myself, 'A few little tricks an' them fellers will pack up an' git back to their own little firesides.'"
"Humph! You didn't think we had much sand, did you?" sniffed John Hackett.
"A feller without it ain't got no business out in the woods. I was only a-testin' of you."
"I'm glad you didn't do none of it on us," remarked Musgrove. "No, sir!—Lay down, Bowser."
"There's another thing we'd like to know," broke in Tom Clifton, rather timidly. "Have you heard any strange cries lately? Some animal was prowling around our camp, and—"
"Strange cries?" echoed the trapper. "What were they like?"
"Oh, awful—I can't describe 'em."
"Wust you ever listened to," observed Tim Sladder. "We heard 'em at our camp, too."
"An' it didn't sound like no animal, or humans, either," added Musgrove.
"Ah, ha! This is interesting."
Yardsley seemed to reflect.
"We heard the beast twice," said Hackett.
"Well, now," continued Yardsley, "kinder think I did hear something like that. Strange critter it must have been—jest wait a second."
He opened a door and walked into an adjoining room. Then the boys heard a peculiar click.
Just as the trapper emerged, with a broad smile on his face, a terrible series of wild, weird screeches, exactly like those they had heard before, filled the cabin.
His visitors jumped to their feet in astonishment, while the effect upon Bowser was magical. Whining and whimpering, the big dog flopped heavily upon the floor at his master's feet and looked intently into his face.
"Was it something like that?" asked Yardsley, innocently.
Sladder and Musgrove, with wildly staring eyes, looked toward the room as if fascinated, but upon all the others the truth instantly dawned, and they received it with varied feelings.
"A phonograph!" cried Bob.
"My eye! A—a—phonograph!" echoed Hackett.
Then Nat Wingate began to laugh, and all at once the absurdity of the whole thing appealed irresistibly to most of the boys, and a wild burst of merriment rang out.
Tim Sladder and Billy Musgrove remained ominously silent. There was a steely glitter in the latter's little blinking eyes, which seemed to say,—"Look out!"
"I'm powerful glad you fellers ain't took no offense," grinned John Yardsley. "I notice I come nigh to killin' that dorg. I met one of them scientific fellers oncet. You know the kind what can tell how many hairs a squirrel's got in its tail? He was an animalist; mebbe that ain't the word, but he know'd everything. He stayed out in the woods a spell with me, one winter; bunked right in here; an' he kinder took a fancy to yours truly.
"Well, I happened to run acrost him in town the next summer. 'Yardsley,' says he, 'you did play some awful jokes on me, out in the woods—it's a wonder my hair ain't gray.' An' he says, 'Yardsley, I've been having a lot of records took of different animals' voices. I want to give you one of a laughing hyena—it reminds me so much of you!'"
A titter went around the room.
The trapper continued, "'It would make me feel better, Yardsley,' he says, 'if you would take it an' kinder test it on some one out in the woods. I don't like ter feel I was the only one.'"
"An' that's jest what you done, eh, Pardsley?" broke in Musgrove, shaking his head vigorously. "An' me an' Tim didn't sleep a wink all night—an' all fer that, eh? An' Bowser most took a spell. Well, I like it; yes, sir, I do—for a fact." And Musgrove's expression indicated a state of feeling exactly the reverse of his words.
"I'm powerful glad ter hear you say that," remarked the trapper, with a sly wink at the others. "That's the way ter take them things, an'—"
"But don't never try no more, Bardsley," interrupted Musgrove, fiercely. "We won't stand fer it. No, sir, not me,—nor Tim, neither. No more jokin'—mind yer."
"All right!" responded Yardsley, with pretended meekness. "I like ter hear a feller speak right out in meetin'. And by the way," he continued, "do you know them fellers 'crost the lake?"
"They came over to see us once," replied Bob Somers.
"Wal, I don't know nothing about 'em. They was nosing around yesterday morning, kinder curious like, an' askin' if I had many furs—but I ain' tellin' my affairs ter strangers nohow."
"Been hunting and trapping long?" asked Nat.
"Wal, I guess! I come from down East, an' been at it off an' on for quite a spell."
"How do you like it out here?" asked Hackett.
"Powerful well, my slim young friend. Say, with them legs you oughter be a good runner."
"Maybe he's a good runner, but he can't skate with me," interposed Musgrove. "No, sir, I—"
"What!" exclaimed Yardsley, with an amused glance at the other's short stature. "He can't! Why—say, I don't believe—no offense, mind yer—that you could run with any feller in this crowd."
Billy Musgrove's face flushed—his little eyes blinked angrily.
"You talk like an idjit, Pardsley," he exclaimed. "I didn't say I could run, but I ain't skeered to try—no, sir—I ain't."
"Why not get up a little race? Them two," indicating Sladder and Musgrove, "can try it first between 'em."
"I don't mind," said Tim Sladder; "eh, Billy?"
"Suits me," grinned Musgrove.
"Might work up a little appetite fer lunch by having that race now," suggested the trapper, with a rather quizzical look. "What say? Or if Musgrove's kinder skeered, mebbe—"
"Skeered? I'll show you I ain't skeered, Bardsley. No, sir! Come on!" and Billy Musgrove strode toward the door.
"Good! That's the way ter feel about it. We'll hev a little fun."
Just beyond the cabin was a clear patch of level ground.
"A good place for our games," remarked Yardsley, rubbing his hands together. "See that there tree over there? Round it and back. Here's a line ter start from."
Grinning broadly, Tim Sladder and Billy Musgrove took their places, an expressive wink from the latter indicating his confidence.
"All ready! One—two—three—go!"
At the word, the Stony Creek boys were off. Musgrove, with all the vim and determination at his command, struggled through the snow, and despite Sladder's most desperate efforts, his longer legs seemed to give him but little advantage.
"Go it, Sladder!" yelled Hackett. "Hi, hi! He'll never make it."
"That he won't!" grinned the trapper.
And now the two dark figures were approaching the turning-point.
"Keep it up, Tim!" encouraged Hackett, at the top of his voice.
Suddenly the spectators were treated to a most unusual sight.
Both boys were seen to lurch forward, two wild yells floated over the air—then the contestants, frantically waving their arms, plunged head first into a great pit filled to the brim with snow.