Neither of the boys would be likely to forget that night of the storm, when they passed so many wretched hours in their rude shelter. It was pretty cold, being without a blanket and unable to move around so as to keep their blood in circulation, though, after all, they realized that it hardly deserved the name of a blizzard.

“Oh, thank goodness, it’s really getting daylight, Bluff!” Jerry called out, at last, arousing the other from a nap.

“And the snow seems to have stopped pretty much, likewise that awful wind,” remarked his companion, as he, too, took an observation.

“Let’s get outside and stretch a bit,” proposed Jerry. “I feel as though I were seventy years old, and every bone and muscle in my body creaks or pains like everything.”

“A good idea, Jerry, and I’m with you,” Bluff conceded. “After we’ve jumped around a while, we’ll get limbered up. Here you go, now!”

They proceeded to carry on as if they had just escaped from an asylum, waltzing this way and that, clasped in each other’s arms, or attempting some sort of darky hoedown – anything to get their muscles in shape.

“There, that makes me feel young again!” declared Jerry, panting as he threw himself down beside the fire.

“The next burning question of the day is: What will you have for breakfast?” demanded Bluff; and with that he commenced to rattle off a great variety of dishes, beginning with ham and eggs, coffee, wheat cakes with maple syrup, and so on down the list.

Jerry presently threw up his hands, and as the other continued to tantalize him by keeping up a running fire of breakfast hints, he even went so far as to thrust his fingertips in his ears.

“That’s adding insult to injury, Bluff,” he told his chum, when he found a chance to speak. “Because I don’t believe we could scare up a scrap of grub this morning, no matter how hard we searched our pockets. We cleaned it all out at suppertime, you remember.”

“Well, there’s one last resort, if we have to come to it!” remarked Bluff, with an assumed dejected air, as he rubbed his chin between his thumb and forefinger.

Something about his manner caused Jerry to look at him in horror.

“Now, I can guess what you’re hinting at, and I tell you right straight from the shoulder I never could be hired to eat wolf, not if I was actually starving.”

“Oh, well, I can’t say I’m really hankering after the dish myself,” Bluff admitted; “but you never can tell what you may have to come to. Some people don’t like to eat crow, but it’s been found they’re not so very bad, after all. It might turn out the same way with wolf.”

“Are you going to help me get that jacket off the rascal?” demanded Jerry.

“Sure I will!” he was told. “You’d make a sorry mess of the job, I reckon; and if the thing’s worth saving at all it ought to be taken the right way. I don’t say I could do it as well as Frank, who’s had a heap more experience; but you’ll get the pelt, Jerry, never fear.”

“Then the sooner we finish the job the better,” said the other boy; “because it strikes me we had better be leaving here and heading for home as soon as we can make it. I only hope we don’t get lost, and that we strike camp in time for the middle-of-the-day feed.”

Both were speedily engaged in the task of taking off the skin of the slain wolf. Bluff did the main part of the work, but the other was handy at times in various ways.

“I don’t remember hearing another howl the whole night through; did you, Bluff?” Jerry presently asked, when the skin had been rolled up in as compact a bundle as possible.

“Can’t say that I did,” was the reply.

“And now, do we make a start for home?” demanded Jerry anxiously. “I hope you’ve got your bearings all correct.”

“Leave that for me,” the other boy replied; “but before we quit this region for good I’d like to take a turn over yonder.” And he pointed in a quarter which his chum knew took in the region where they had had the meeting with Bill Nackerson and his two friends, after bringing down the big moose.

“Yes, we ought to see what became of our moose, hadn’t we?” Jerry admitted.

“That’s right, for I’d like to get hold of those splendid horns. But there’s another thing I want to find out.”

“Yes, I can give a pretty good guess what it is,” the other told him. “I’ve been worried some, myself, about it. Lots of times in the night, when I was lying listening to the wind moan and howl, I found myself wondering how those three men were making out, if, as we had an idea, they couldn’t scare up a match among ’em.”

“Come along, let’s hike out that way,” said Bluff, frowning, as though he did not feel any too happy at the thought. “After all, it isn’t going to be so very much out of our way.”

They took one last look at the rude shelter that had served them so well in warding off considerable of the storm’s violence. Often in memory they would again see that bough barricade; and even take note of the hole which the bold wolf had torn in it.

Bluff walked along with a confident tread. Jerry was pleased to note this, for it assured him his chum really knew where he was heading and the chances of their becoming lost in the Big Woods were not serious.

“I tell you I’m glad I’ve got as fine a woodsman along as you are,” he remarked, after a little while; “because, if I had been alone, while I might be able to locate north by means of the compass, I declare I could not tell whether home lay to the north, east, west, or south. So what good would a compass be to such a greenhorn, I’d like to know?”

Bluff liked to hear such talk; any boy would when he set up to be an authority on woodcraft.

“We’re going to hit the place right soon now,” he assured his companion soberly and with a manner that showed that Bluff did not think he was doing anything so very wonderful in leading the way back to the scene of the previous afternoon’s double adventure.

Three minutes later he spoke again.

“There, you can see the leaning pine right now. That was only twenty feet or so away from where we dropped our moose.”

“I don’t see anything that looks like a camp,” hinted Jerry.

“No; seems as though they must have cleared out,” he was told; “but they couldn’t take the moose along with ’em, of course.”

“What became of it, then?”

“We’ll find that out soon enough. Just follow me, will you? Looks as though there had been a banquet around here, seems to me. Hi! see the bones, would you? And the snow’s all trampled down, with patches of red showing through it here and there.”

“Bluff, the wolves struck this place after we chased ’em away; or else this may have been another lot of them. They cleaned up our moose, hide and all. But, tell me, isn’t that the skull and the horns over there?”

“Just what it is!” Bluff exclaimed, as he started on a run for the spot, to bend anxiously over the object that was half concealed in a drift, and then joyfully burst out: “Jerry, they haven’t been hurt a single bit. Why, we ought to thank those wolves for gnawing all the flesh off! It’ll be easy enough now to hack the horns out with our hatchet. And as we’ve got so little to tote back home with us, mebbe we’d better try and get our prize there.”

“I wouldn’t like to risk leaving such wonderful horns here,” Jerry replied seriously. “Any sportsman happening on them would be tempted to make out that he had killed the big moose himself. What do you really think could have become of those men, Bluff?” he presently asked, uneasily; which question proved how the thought was worrying him.

“Oh, like as not they made up their minds to start back home right away,” the other boy asserted, as though he wished to think so himself.

“But I thought I heard something like a faint shout just then, Bluff; let’s listen a bit; for with that hatchet banging away it’s hard to catch anything.”

Hardly had Bluff ceased hacking at the moose skull when they caught a wailing cry, plainly a human voice, calling:

“Help, oh, help!”

CHAPTER XXIV – THE TRIUMPHANT RETURN

“Somebody’s in trouble!” exclaimed Jerry.

“Makes me think of the time we found Teddy with his foot caught in the bear trap,” said Bluff. “But come on, let’s make for over there, and find out what’s going on.”

With that they started to run. The shouts had ceased. Both boys used their eyes as they hurried along, and pretty soon Bluff cried:

“Hey, what’s that jumping up and down over yonder? Strikes me they look like a pack of dogs or wolves!”

“Oh, Bluff, they’ve got those men up a tree, don’t you see? Perhaps they’ve been there all night. I pity them, if that’s so.”

“Yes; but first let’s see if we can pepper the wolves some, so’s to make ’em tired of hanging around. Be ready to blaze away.”

The half dozen or more animals had discovered their presence by this time. They immediately began to display signs of meaning to clear out, for several ran short distances, to turn and snarl, as though uncertain whether to show fight or not.

Bluff fired, and one of the gray-coated pirates from the Canadian border went limping away. The rest decided they would be wise to put considerable distance between themselves and the owners of those sticks that coughed and sent forth unseen missiles that stung.

Jerry managed to get in a couple of parting shots, and always declared that he hit one of the running beasts, though if so it could not have been a fatal wound since none dropped.

Hurrying forward, the boys discovered a bulky object in the crotch of a tree.

“Why, it’s Bill Nackerson!” cried Jerry.

“Yes, that’s who it is, sonny, or what’s left of him; because I’m mighty much afraid both my feet are frozen. I’ve been cooped up here for hours, while that hungry gang kept watching and jumping and growling all the while. I’m glad you came up. It’ll cheat ’em out of their breakfast, no matter what happens to me.”

“Can you drop down?” asked Bluff, touched by the evident suffering in the man’s face.

“I’ll do the best I can,” the other replied, “but I don’t seem to have any feeling in my feet. If they were a couple of clubs they couldn’t be more useless to me.”

The boys helped him to some extent. Presently Nackerson was sitting in the snow, with Bluff and Jerry trying to get his leggings and foot coverings off so that they might rub the frozen feet with snow to draw out the frost.

“Where are your two friends?” suddenly asked Bluff, remembering that there were three hunters when he and his chum last saw them.

Bill Nackerson groaned.

“I was a fool, and deserve what I got,” he declared. “They wanted to make camp through the storm, and we quarreled. I said I’d stick it out here by the moose, and if the worst came, I’d have something to fall back on. So in the end they went away, and I started to make a shelter the best way I could.”

“Yes; I noticed that somebody had done that,” Bluff told him. “Then the wolves came, did they?”

“When I heard their howls getting closer all the time,” continued the man, “I knew what was going to happen. My rifle had stuck, so I couldn’t work the pump action. It was no better than a club. I started off to see if I could find you boys camping, or come across a bigger tree than the ones around where the moose was lying.”

He groaned again, as though the recollection gave him pain.

“We’re not hurting you, I hope?” asked Jerry; for at the time both were rubbing his feet with snow.

“Oh, no; I wish it did hurt,” replied Nackerson, “because then I’d know there was some life left in my feet. I climbed this tree when I knew the critters were not far away. And here I’ve had to stay ever since. I tried to move around and slap my arms, but my feet began to get numb in spite of me.”

“Don’t you begin to feel a little burning sensation?” asked Bluff anxiously.

“Well, now that you mention it, I believe I do, son. Keep rubbing harder than ever, please. Oh, if ever I get out of this scrape alive it’s going to be a lesson to me. I’ll sure turn over a new leaf, I promise you, and try to do the right thing from now on.”

“Glad to hear it, Mr. Nackerson,” said Jerry, impressed by what he believed to be the man’s sincerity.

Bluff did not feel so sanguine. Perhaps he remembered an old rhyme that he had heard long ago about the Evil One, and which ran to the effect that when Satan was sick he would be a saint; but that the desire faded out of his mind as soon as he was well again.

By degrees the man told them his feet were beginning to hurt him. They persisted in their labors until Bluff decided that the rubbing had gone on long enough.

“And now, what’s the next question?” asked Jerry.

“If you are meaning to try for your home camp,” Nackerson told them, as a pleading expression came into his face, “I hope you’ll let me go along. Don’t desert me here. You might as soon have left me to the wolves as abandon me now.”

“Do you think you could manage to hobble along with us?” asked Bluff.

“Sure I can; watch and see how well I’m able to walk,” the sportsman hastened to say.

He did the best he could, and if his gait was uncertain, the outdoor chums knew that he would walk better after he had become limbered up.

Accordingly, they started, heading back along their trail, so as to come upon the spot where the horns of the big moose lay. Their intention to carry these all the way to the cabin had not changed.

It did not take long to separate the horns from the skull. They felt pretty heavy, once Jerry started to hoist the burden on his back.

“We’ll tote them as far as we can, anyhow,” Bluff declared, “and then if they get too heavy we will find some hiding place, where they will be safe till we come back after ’em.”

With this understanding, they pushed on. Nackerson was gritting his teeth and summoning all his grit to the fore, in order to keep his lower limbs moving. As Bluff had anticipated, he began to improve as he went along.

When an hour or two had passed and they knew they were far on the road toward home, the boys became more determined than ever to save the trophy. They wanted to see the look of astonishment on the faces of those in the camp when they came marching in.

That would be much more satisfactory than simply telling the story of the successful hunt, that had been followed by such stirring events.

First one boy assumed the load and after a certain time, when he found it was telling upon him, he would fix it upon the other’s back.

“We’re going to earn this thing twice over, you know,” grunted Bluff, after he had in turn disposed of it and Jerry was staggering along under the burden.

“Well, everything tastes all the better when you’ve had to go to a lot of trouble to get it,” the other chum replied, as he buckled to his task.

These spells were growing shorter, which told plainly enough that the boys were drawing closer to the point of exhaustion. Still they kept encouraging each other by remarking that it was only another mile or so now, because of a certain landmark they recognized, or something of that kind.

“Just think what the boys will say when they see us lugging these horns into camp!” Jerry observed, as well as he could, considering the fact that he was panting with the exertion his burden compelled him to put forth.

“And at seeing who we’ve got towing along behind us, too,” muttered Bluff; for to him the gathering in of Bill Nackerson in the way they had was more remarkable than any other happening that had befallen them.

“Every step counts,” added Jerry hopefully.

“Whenever you’re feeling tuckered out, don’t hesitate to say so,” Bluff told his chum, “and shove her right along this way. By making these changes frequently we’ll keep things going.”

“I don’t believe Bill can stagger along much farther,” whispered Jerry. “Perhaps you’d better offer to lend him a hand.”

All feeling of animosity toward the big sportsman had died out of their hearts by this time. He looked so forlorn as he limped along, trying to repress the groans welling to his lips, that they could only feel pity where once had been disgust and distrust. Bitterly had Bill Nackerson paid for his evil deeds. Both boys only hoped the lesson would be remembered.

Bluff insisted on giving the man a shoulder, and after that Bill seemed to get along better. He even brightened up some, and wondered if his feet could be saved to him, after all.

“Half a mile, about, and we’ll be there,” said Bluff, to bolster up their spirits.

Presently both boys began to recognize landmarks that had been noticed on previous occasions. Bluff brought these features of the landscape to the attention of his comrade.

“I want you to take the horns just when we come in sight of the cabin, Jerry,” he declared, with self-denial that the other appreciated.

“That’s mighty good of you,” Jerry said feelingly, “’specially since they belong just as much to you as to me. I’m not going to be greedy. I insist that from this place on we carry them between us.”

That pleased Bluff very much, for he liked to know he had a chum who could match his own generosity. So it happened that from that point forward they carried the horns of the giant moose between them, spread out in the most conspicuous way possible.

“There, I can see smoke coming up out of the chimney, which means there’s somebody home!” remarked Bluff suddenly.

“Yes, and, oh, Bluff, seems to me I can get a whiff of cooking away off here!” Jerry gasped. “I don’t think I was ever so hungry in my life. I hope they’ve cooked an extra supply, because here come three mighty savage fellows to dinner.”

“Ready now, to give a shout!” cried Bluff.

A minute later, at a signal from Bluff, the boys raised their lusty voices in a series of whoops that created no end of bustle within the cabin. The door was flung wide open to give egress to three excited boys. How they stared at those massive moose horns carried so proudly between the pair of successful Nimrods; but most of all were their wondering eyes fixed on the shuffling figure of Bill Nackerson, as he came limping dolefully in the rear!

CHAPTER XXV – BLUFF REMEMBERS – CONCLUSION

“Wait, oh, wait up a minute, till I get my camera, and take a picture of you coming home like that!” called Will, as he darted back into the cabin.

He was out in a jiffy, and succeeded in getting them, to his complete satisfaction. As Will seemed a master hand at developing and printing all his pictures, it could be taken for granted that his work would do justice to the coming back to camp of the expedition in search of the giant moose of the Big Woods.

“Where did you run across Bill Nackerson, boys?” asked Frank, almost the first thing. “And what makes him limp and groan that way? Has he been shot?”

Of course it was up to Bluff and Jerry to explain.

“Before we try to give you the whole yarn, Frank,” said the former, “I want you to take a look at his feet. He got both of them badly frozen while sitting up in a tree most of last night with a pack of wolves jumping at him.”

“What’s that – wolves?” demanded Will, getting interested.

“Like this one that tried to break in through the back of our bough shelter, and that I nailed with a single shot.” And, saying this, Jerry spread out the skin before their admiring eyes.

“Well, I should say you fellows have been busy,” Frank remarked, smiling with pleasure; “but keep the story until I can be with you, please.”

With that he went over to where Bill Nackerson had dropped to the ground, and offered to assist the man into the cabin.

“One of my chums tells me you’ve been unlucky with your feet, and got them frosted a bit,” Frank said, in his pleasant way.

“Yes, that’s so, and I reckon I’m in a bad way,” Bill replied, with lines across his forehead. “They were mighty kind to me, and I’m sure ashamed of the way I’ve carried on while up here. It’s a lesson to me, I tell you.”

“Well, let me help you inside,” said Frank. “I’m something of an amateur doctor, and as I was born and raised here in Maine I know something about frostbites and what to do for them. It may be I can help you temporarily; though if it’s a bad case we must see Mr. Darrel, and have him get you down to a hospital.”

Frank saw the man cringe at mention of the lumberman’s name, and he knew the reason why.

Some time later Frank came out to where all the others were waiting, the dinner having been postponed. It could keep, but that wonderful story must be partly heard, at least.

“How about Bill?” asked Bluff. “Feet in pretty bad shape – eh, Frank?”

“That’s what they are, and I’m a little afraid he’s going to have lots of trouble with them yet,” the other responded. “I’ll take a run over to the lumber camp this afternoon. I want to see Mr. Darrel about several things, and will try to make arrangements to get Bill to town, some way or other. He ought to go to a hospital.”

“Will was just telling us that Teddy had owned up to you about hearing Nackerson threaten to set fire to Lumber Run Camp,” remarked Jerry.

“Yes,” Frank admitted, with a smile in the direction of the confused Teddy. “He had been bothered to know just what his duty was. You see, although Nackerson has treated him badly, still he is a relative, and blood is always thicker than water. Finally Teddy couldn’t keep in any longer, and he told us all about it. That was the main reason he ran away; he was getting afraid of Nackerson while the man drank so heavily.”

“And now, please tell us a little of all that happened to you fellows, before we go in to dinner,” pleaded Will.

“Make it as short as you can, Bluff,” said Jerry; “because, you see, none of us have had a bite since last night, and Bill’s gone even longer than that. I’m nearly as ravenous as those wolves were. Hit only the high places, Bluff.”

Bluff made short work of it, for he, too, was hungrier than he had been for many a day. After a rapid sketch of their numerous adventures had been given, Bluff declared he would say no more just then.

“The rest will keep until some time when we’re sitting around the fire and want something to help keep us awake,” he told them.

“Now let’s adjourn to the refreshment hall, where Teddy here has got a fine dinner all hot and ready waiting,” suggested Jerry.

Luckily there had been a double portion made ready, because Frank expected that when the two boys got in they would be almost famished.

“If you hadn’t shown up in another hour or so, Will and I intended to start out and try to find some trace of you,” he told the returned hunters.

“Yes,” added Will, “and I told Frank I wanted to be sure to carry my camera along, because the chances were we’d find that the old bull moose had treed you both, and it would make a cracking good picture!”

Later on Frank started for Lumber Run Camp. He took Will along, for the latter had been so wrapped up in taking pictures that he had not had much exercise of late.

They had no difficulty in reaching the lumber camp, and found Mr. Darrel there. He was deeply interested in all they had to tell him.

“Well, I’m glad to learn who it was tried to burn us out here,” he said. “And while he may not want to take the reward I’ll see that Teddy has it before spring. He’s a big husky boy, and I think if he’d like to stay up here with me, I could make a pretty fair lumberjack out of him.”

“How about Bill Nackerson, sir?” asked Frank. “He is in a bad way, and ought to be taken to a hospital at once or he may lose one or both feet. I’ve done all I could, but he needs special care and treatment.”

The lumberman frowned, and then his face cleared.

“After all, it isn’t best to hold resentment long,” he told Frank, who was more than pleased to hear him speak in that way. “That man is a rascal, I surely believe; but he’s down and out just now, and I can’t bear malice to a wretch whose feet are in such a bad way. Yes, I’ll see that he’s taken to town in a wagon that’s going to start early in the morning. It’ll be past your place an hour after sun-up. Have him ready to go. And I’ll forget all about his evil work. But he owes a heap to the outdoor chums.”

Frank and Will got back just as the shadows of night were gathering. When Bill Nackerson heard how forgiving the lumberman had proven, especially since he understood how the truth about the fire at Lumber Run Camp was known to Mr. Darrel, he shed tears. Frank hoped they were genuine, and not of the crocodile kind.

In the morning they saw the last of Bill Nackerson. The man asked Teddy to forgive his harshness, which the boy eagerly consented to do. Later on they learned that after great efforts Bill’s feet were saved, though he would very likely suffer with them every winter for years to come.

That afternoon two men came over to the cabin in which the boys were camped. They turned out to be Whalen and the other companion of Nackerson. It seemed that they had reached their cabin after a hard battle with the storm; and as Bill failed to show up, they were getting so worried they had come to ask the boys’ assistance in locating him.

When they heard what had happened, they were apparently relieved in mind, though professing to have had quite enough of their Maine outing. They parted from the boys, declaring it to be their intention to leave for civilization the first thing in the morning. This they probably did, for the chums saw nothing of them again.

The days came and went, until the time arrived for Frank and his friends to once more turn westward and head for Centerville, with school duties awaiting them.

They were all sitting at the breakfast table with their belongings packed waiting for the wagon to come which their good friend Mr. Darrel had insisted on sending over to carry them out of the woods, when Bluff started to say something.

Without paying any particular attention to what he was saying, he commenced:

“I sure reckon this outing is going to take the cake. It beats anything the outdoor chums have ever run up against before. Wait till I get a chance to tell it to that friend of mine, who was boasting so much what he had done the time he went into the woods with a fellow named Clarence Masterson.”

“I’m glad you have had a good time,” laughed Frank. “You and Jerry got your big moose horns; and now if only Will carries off the cash prize offered by the railroad companies for the best wild-animal life pictures taken by an amateur in the Maine wilderness, we’ll think our trip has been successful all around.”

It seemed as though success had set in their direction with a vengeance, for later on Will received notification that the pictures he had submitted in competition for the big prize had been unanimously selected. And really they were a fine lot; possibly ere this some of you have admired them as displayed in the recent folders of the enterprising railroads of the State of Maine.

Teddy said good-by to his new friends, and went back on the wagon, meaning to learn the ways of a lumberjack. He had good muscles, and promised to accomplish something in that line. The outdoor chums knew that in Mr. Darrel the boy would always find a sincere friend.

Once again at home, they could exhibit the trophies of their visit to the Big Woods with more or less pride and the wonderful pictures shown by Will to back up the story of their trials and triumphs added amazingly to the reality. We hope it may be our pleasing task later on to recount still further adventures that befell Frank Langdon and his three chums. Until that time, we must say good-by.