After all, no hunting party started out that afternoon. Jerry probably ate too heartily of the midday meal, for he complained of pains in his stomach and “guessed he had better lie around the rest of the day.”

He wanted Bluff and Frank to go, but the former was busy doctoring his heel, while Frank would not break the rule he had set and go alone.

“Besides,” Frank remarked, as he once more put his rifle away inside the cabin, and “hefted” the ax, as though meaning to have another spell with the firewood, “we’ve still plenty of that venison on hand. To-morrow will do just as well.”

So it was settled.

Of course, that did not mean they expected to be idle the remainder of the day, for none of them liked to do nothing. Jerry and Will were gone a little while after the former had recovered from his indisposition.

“We found a place where I think a fox passes along a trail,” Jerry announced, on their return, “and to-night Will means to try and take his picture. I should think a fox would make a good one, if only you get him as well as you did the wolf.”

“And I’m much obliged to you for helping me, Jerry,” said Will earnestly.

“Oh, that’s all right!” was the reply. “It’s beginning to get interesting; and I can see how a fellow could easily develop a hobby like this.”

“It means matching your wits against the shyness and cunning of these little animals,” said Will proudly; “and when you’ve succeeded in getting their pictures, in spite of everything, you feel that you’ve done something more than just aiming a gun and pulling a trigger.”

Bluff shrugged his shoulders. He had his own opinion about that; but of course Will could never understand the thrill that comes to the sportsman when he is tracking his quarry, and has to meet the cunning or ferocity that is the common heritage of all wild animals.

But Frank knew all about it, and met Bluff’s look with a smile and a nod.

“Every one to his taste, Bluff,” Frank said. “We can’t all of us expect to be crazy over taking pictures. And at the same time it would be queer if every man wanted to be out in the woods all the time with a gun on his shoulder, as we do. But I can understand how Will feels, and in a small way share his pleasure.”

“What was it you were telling us, Frank, about the mink that live along the bank of the creek just below the cabin?” asked Jerry.

“Only that you can find some interesting tracks there, and see how the little rascals travel about from one hole to another. If you care to step down now with me, we’ll look things over.”

“And perhaps I might get a good chance to take some of the tracks, so as to remember what sort of a print a mink makes,” observed Will, tucking his camera under his arm.

“Shall I step in and get my gun, Frank?” asked Bluff.

“If you want to, though we’re not going to be out of sight of the cabin at any time, I should think.”

Thus it came about that none of them carried any weapon. It could hardly be conceived that one would be required under any circumstances when within a stone’s throw of the home camp, and with all present.

Frank had such an interesting way of showing anything. He seemed to know all about the habits of the mink.

“They live along the banks of streams,” Frank said, as they prowled about, examining the various tracks, “and can swim and dive almost like an otter. They are not as destructive to game fish as the otter, though, I’ve been told. All those animals – badger, fisher, mink, and otter – are hunted for far and wide by trappers, and even weasels and muskrats have pelts that bring fair prices.”

“Why,” said Bluff, “I’ve read that even the common rat skin is being used now, because there’s a scarcity of furs. Moles have always been fine for gloves, I know.”

“That bunch of tracks seems plain enough to make a fine picture, with the sunlight shining on the place. Let me get it.” And Will proceeded to carry out his idea.

He had just “clicked” his shutter when Jerry said, in a low tone:

“Great governor! Frank, is that one of the wolves over yonder?”

Of course they all looked in the direction Jerry pointed, and it goes without saying that more than one of the boys felt nervous upon remembering that no one had brought a gun along.

Then Frank spoke up, and his voice, as well as his words, went a long way toward stilling their alarm.

“That’s no wolf, boys; I’d rather say it might be a dog. He seems to have come upon a hole in the ground, and has got some sort of animal cornered. Listen to him bark as he digs with his forepaws!”

“And see the dirt fly, will you, as well as the snow!” observed Bluff. “But say, Frank, seems to me we know that cur.”

“Yes, we’ve met him before,” Frank admitted.

“It’s Nackerson’s beast, then,” suggested Jerry.

“No doubt about it,” he was informed by Frank, who still watched the excited dog, digging and thrusting his nose as far down in the burrow as he could. “Better take care, Carlo, or you may get a nip from the claws or the teeth of your game!”

It seemed as though Frank must have been a prophet, for hardly had these words left his lips than the dog gave utterance to a howl, and started to run away as fast as his legs could carry him.

“Whee! That must have taken him square on the nose!” ejaculated Jerry.

“And didn’t he put his tail between his legs in a hurry, though?” Bluff asked. “That’s always a sign a dog is whipped. How about it. Frank? What’re you looking so serious about?”

“Only this,” came the reply: “where that dog is, there’s a chance of the men being, too.”

That caused them to exchange glances.

“And, sure enough,” Jerry hastily remarked, “there they come, breaking through the brush, all three loaded down with birds as though they’d been having sport somewhere, though none of us heard any firing this morning.”

“No use trying to make the cabin, is there, Frank? They happen to be between it and us,” Will observed, with a catch to his voice, although he would possibly have indignantly denied being frightened, had any one shown the temerity to accuse him.

It seemed as though Nackerson and his companions must have discovered the four outdoor chums almost as soon as they themselves were seen. At any rate, they were even then starting toward the boys.

“He looks pretty huffy, doesn’t he, Frank?” Will asked, in a troubled tone.

“Like as not he thinks we kicked his dog and sent him off howling,” ventured Bluff; which it turned out was exactly what the other did believe.

Frank did not like the situation. He would have felt relieved had some of them been in possession of weapons with which to stand up for their rights. Some men of ungovernable temper act first and do their thinking afterward.

The dog was trotting at the heels of his master, every now and then stopping to paw at his muzzle, which Frank could see at a glance was bleeding freely.

As the big man came up to the boys, possibly noting that none of them carried a gun, he was scowling.

“Which one of you cubs kicked my dog?” he growled. “I’ve got a good notion not to wait to find out, but start in and give you a licking all around, so as to be sure to strike the right one.”

Frank looked him straight in the eye. If his heart was thumping faster than usual, one never would have known it from the deliberate way in which he spoke. At the same time there was calm dignity in his manner, and he tried not to make his words seem like a defiance.

“I wouldn’t try anything like that, if I were you, Mr. Nackerson. We have had nothing to do with your dog getting hurt, and none of us either kicked him or threw a stone at him.”

“That’s one of your lies, youngster!” snarled the hunter.

“It is the simple truth!”

“But didn’t we hear him yelping like a crazy thing; and didn’t he come running to me straight from here? Tell me I haven’t got eyes to see? You’re going to pay dearly for that kick, understand me!”

“Let me tell you what happened,” continued Frank steadily, at the same time watching the man closely, for he feared the other might strike him.

“I wouldn’t believe anything you might tell me,” answered the other, with a sneer in his voice that caused Bluff to grit his teeth and wonder whether the stick he held in his hand would be heavy enough to use as a club, in case of necessity.

“Go on, boys,” urged one of the companions of Nackerson, who perhaps had a grain of common sense in his make-up, and realized that it was only fair they should allow the boys a hearing.

“We were down here looking after some mink that use this bank,” Frank continued. “You can see their tracks here and there all around. Our chum who has a camera was taking some pictures, when we discovered an animal close by which at first sight looked something like a wolf, for we heard wolves howling last night.”

Nackerson moved a trifle uneasily at the mention of wolves; it afterward turned out that once he had been treed by a pack of those animals, and came very near freezing to death during a long night’s vigil.

“Then we saw that it was a dog,” continued Frank. “He seemed to be trying to dig out some animal whose scent he had been following. All of a sudden the dog set up a screech, and went away on the jump, with his tail between his legs. A fierce old buck mink in that burrow had given him a nasty dig along his nose with his teeth or his claws.”

Nackerson sneered again, while his ugly face looked more scowling than ever.

“A likely yarn,” he said angrily.

“Take a look at your dog’s nose, and perhaps you’ll see the scratches there, because he’s bleeding now!” Bluff broke in, unable longer to refrain from having a hand in the game.

Nackerson showed no sign of bothering himself; but one of his cronies bent over the dog, which whined when he touched its lacerated muzzle.

“He’s been badly scratched, all right, Bill,” was the report.

“If you want any more proof,” Frank went on coolly, “take a look over by that bush yonder. That’s where we saw him digging first. You’ll likely find there’s a burrow, with the snow and dirt thrown out.”

“Yes,” added Bluff, “and if you look sharp, perhaps now you’ll discover a few specks of blood on the snow along the trail the dog made when he skipped out.”

No one took the trouble to find out. The two men with Nackerson must have been already convinced that the boys were not guilty. As for the big hunter, he did not wish to put himself in a place where he might have to admit that he had wronged them.

“Don’t believe a word of it, I tell you,” he persisted, as though bent on making trouble. “You’ve got a pretty slick tongue, youngster; but you can’t fool me. I cut my eye-teeth long ago.”

“I suppose you are a gentleman of considerable experience in the woods,” Frank observed, still hoping to conciliate the man, who he saw had been making a liberal use of his pocket flask, as usual. “But we have told you only the truth, and say again that your dog was not harmed by us.”

“Then there was that nasty business aboard the train,” continued Nackerson, “when you purposely upset that heavy pack on his back. Seems like you’ve taken a spite against my dog, and he never harmed you that I know of. I wanted to teach you cubs a lesson right then, but my friends held me back. Now you’ve gone and done another mean trick.”

Frank did not answer. He saw it would be useless, for the man was only working himself up to a pitch where in his rage he might attempt an attack. The boy, on the contrary, was wondering just what he and his chums might do, should they be actually set upon.

“Hold my gun, Whalen!” said the giant hunter, turning to one of the others. “Now don’t you dare say a word to me again about not laying a hand on these troublesome kids. I’ll teach ’em a lesson they won’t soon forget.”

Frank shut his jaws hard. Bluff edged up alongside, as though it was his earnest desire to be on the firing line if there was going to be trouble.

At that critical moment a voice was heard, saying:

“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you, Bill Nackerson!”

Looking in the direction whence these words came, Frank saw with the liveliest satisfaction that the speaker was no other than Mr. Darrel, the lumberman.

CHAPTER XII – BLUFF TAKES A HAND

A great load seemed lifted from Frank’s mind. With the coming of the lumberman, he had good reason to believe things would brighten up. For one thing, he was pleased to see that Mr. Darrel carried a rifle, which he was holding in a half-threatening manner as he advanced.

“Oh, here’s where we get busy right away!” Bluff was heard to mutter.

“Now things are going to look different,” Jerry added, with considerable satisfaction.

Frank looked deeper than the surface. He saw that the lumberman was alone.

“There are three of the sportsmen,” Frank told himself, “and each carries a gun. Mr. Darrel wouldn’t be able to manage the bunch if they started to get ugly. We ought to be able to lend a hand.”

He did not think it advisable to go toward the cabin himself, but that was no reason some one else might not make the attempt.

“Bluff!” he whispered, for it happened that the other was close by his elbow.

“What is it?”

“Try and make your way to the cabin without attracting their attention.”

“To get my gun?”

“Yes; and fetch mine along, too. Careful, now; and if you see them watching you stand still and appear innocent.”

Hardly had Frank spoken the last word before Bluff was in motion.

Other things chained Frank’s attention just then. Mr. Darrel had walked forward until he was now not more than thirty feet from the boys and Bill Nackerson’s crowd. It might be said that they formed a triangle, of which the lumberman was the apex, and the boys formed one of the base corners.

Frank knew that Mr. Darrel was acquainted with Nackerson. When they had told him about the trouble on the train, the lumberman related some differences he had once had with the sportsman, who had been coming to the Maine woods for a good many years.

The sight of Mr. Darrel had been anything but agreeable to the bully. When he saw, however, that the lumberman seemed to be unattended, the old look of anger came back to his face.

“Just keep your hands out of my business, Darrel,” he said threateningly. “This is no affair of yours, and I don’t want to have any trouble with you.”

“Well, that’s what you will have, Bill Nackerson,” replied the lumberman calmly, “if you go to bothering these boys, who are good friends of mine.”

“Oh, you don’t say!” sneered the other. Frank was of the opinion that it was Nackerson’s intention to egg the lumberman on until finally they might come to blows, when his superior weight and muscle would give him an easy victory, he thought.

“What’s all this I hear about your accusing them of hurting your dog?” demanded the newcomer, who may have heard only fragments of the talk as he was coming up.

“Look at the poor brute and see how his nose has been treated!” roared the bully, trying to work himself up into another passion.

“Well, it is hurt some, I can see,” replied Mr. Darrel, “but didn’t I hear Frank Langdon here explain that it was done by some animal the dog had tried to dig out of its burrow?”

“Yes, sir,” spoke up Jerry, eager to get in a word of explanation, “and over there’s where the dog was digging when first we noticed him. Then all at once he gave out a lot of yelps, and took to his heels. Frank said he had been nipped on the nose by the animal, which he thought must be a savage old mink. And that’s all any of us know about it.”

“You didn’t touch a hair of his dog, then?” asked the lumberman.

“Why, none of us was within thirty or forty feet of him at any time!” replied the indignant Jerry.

“How about throwing a stone at him?” continued Mr. Darrel, as though meaning to have a thorough understanding of the whole matter, once and for all.

“I give you my word, sir, not one of us even picked up a stone,” answered Jerry. “Of course, when we saw how funny the dog looked, running with his tail between his legs as he let out those queer yelps, we may have laughed. Anybody would have done that, Mr. Darrel.”

“And shouted in the bargain, too!” added Will.

“You hear what these lads say again, Nackerson?” resumed the owner of Lumber Run Camp, as he once more wheeled and faced the three sportsmen, with the dog cowering at their feet rubbing at his injured muzzle and whimpering.

“Oh, they gave us that song before; but we knew they were lying!” declared the other. “Boys never tell the truth. They’ll beat around the bush every time. I know just as sure as I’m standing here that they did something to my dog. On the train they tried to break his back by upsetting a heavy pack on him. And I’ve about made up my mind to show them they’re barking up the wrong tree if they think they can play their monkey-shines on Bill Nackerson.”

“I heard all about that incident of the smoker, Nackerson,” Mr. Darrel told him sternly, “and they assured me they had no hand in your dog’s hurt. He upset the pack on himself by squirming around and getting his rope caught in it.”

“Bah! Tell that to the marines!” snarled the other, now looking dangerously ugly, so that Frank felt a great relief when he discovered out of the tail of his eye that Bluff was slipping from the cabin door, and that he carried both guns.

Given half a minute more, and they would not feel they were an inferior force.

Fortunately neither of the men with the bully had noticed what Bluff was doing.

“Well,” said Mr. Darrel, “you don’t think that I’ll stand here and see you lay a finger on any one of these boys without protesting, do you?”

“I’d advise you to keep out of this mess, Mr. Darrel,” continued the other. “I’m not the man to be interfered with, once they get me riled up. And both of my friends here are going to stand back of me. So don’t you try to raise that gun of yours, or somebody will get hurt.”

“That’s so, Mr. Nackerson,” chimed in another voice just then, “and the first one to feel it will be you!”

Frank knew it was Bluff who made this assertion. He could see that the other had leaned one gun against a tree, and was leveling his own weapon straight at the intruder.

Neither of the other men made the slightest movement. They seemed to think that as Nackerson had brought all this trouble on them he should stand for it.

Frank started toward Bluff, for he wanted to get his hands on his own rifle.

“Hold on there, you young fool; that gun might go off!” exclaimed the sportsman, showing extreme nervousness; for he did not know what a reckless boy might be tempted to do.

“I expect it to, unless you clear out of this!” retorted Bluff, true to his name; for such a thing as actually firing was far from his thoughts, though as a last resort he would have been capable of it.

This seemed like adding insult to injury, in the eyes of the bully. It was bad enough to be baffled when bent upon carrying out his plan through brute strength, but to be ordered away by a mere boy galled him.

By now Frank had slipped behind Bluff, so as not to distract his attention, and snatched up his own rifle. Nackerson must have realized that the tide had changed and was now setting heavily against him.

“You’ll all be sorry for this, see if you ain’t!” he growled, for somehow that is always the threat of a defeated man.

“Well, I advise you to clear out while you have the chance, Nackerson,” the lumberman told him, perhaps more than a little pleased to see how ably the boys could look out for themselves.

“Are you going to stand back of me or not, Whalen?” snarled the big sportsman, not daring to make a hostile move himself while Bluff was holding that gun leveled at him.

The man he addressed gave a nervous little laugh.

“Well, we would, Bill,” he went on to say, “if we thought you had a clean bill; but it strikes us both that in this affair you’re away off your trolley. These boys didn’t have anything to do with the hurts of the dog, they say, and we can’t prove they did. So we’d best clear out.”

“Good for you, Whalen!” remarked Darrel. “And let me say right now, that if there’s any suspicious business attempted while you’re up here in this section of the Big Woods, you’re apt to get a pack of my lumberjacks hot on your trail. You’d better go slow about what you do. They’d as soon give you a coat of tar and feathers as not.”

Whalen did not make any answer. Apparently he and his companion felt ashamed of being caught in association with the bully.

Seeing that he was deserted by his friends, Nackerson realized that there was now nothing left for him to do but to give up. He was a hard loser, Frank saw, as he noted the muscles of the man’s face working.

“Oh, I’m going to clear out, Mr. Darrel,” he said, trying to speak contemptuously; “there are times when it’s policy to knuckle down. This is one of them, I reckon. But Bill Nackerson doesn’t throw up the sponge as easy as all that. Just wait. You or these young cubs here may be sorry for this.”

“Be careful how you make threats, Nackerson,” warned the lumberman. “They may be brought home to you later on, if anything does happen to these boys here.”

“Oh, I’m not threatening!” the other hastened to say. “That’s something I always try to keep from doing, and I want you to know it. But all the same, you may think of this time, and be sorry you rubbed it in so hard; that’s all.”

“Come along, Bill,” urged the man called Whalen, as though fearing that unless they got their boisterous companion moving he might bring matters to an open rupture yet.

“Sure, I’ll go with you, Cass Whalen, even if you have deserted a pal when he was up against it. I won’t forget that, either. I’ve got a long memory for such things, I have. And mark me, Mr. Darrel, I’ll often see this hour again as I think of how you insulted me. That’s all I’ve got to say.”

He wheeled in his tracks, gave a kick at his dog that started the poor beast to yelping again, and the party moved off, leaving the chums and Mr. Darrel exchanging looks of unbounded relief.