Step Hen began to twist his head around frequently. At first Thad thought he was developing a new eagerness to discover signs of game; but then he soon saw that the wistful expression on the other's face was brought about by quite a different cause.

To tell the honest truth about it, Step Hen was trying to figure out in his benighted brain just what the cardinal points of the compa.s.s might be. It was not that he possessed any alarming interest in proving certain facts Thad and Allan had explained, concerning the fascinating game of learning where the north lay by marks on the trees; the general direction in which they slanted; signs of moss on the north or northwest side of the tree, and various other well proven methods of locating one's self. Oh! nothing of the kind. Step Hen wanted to find out one particular fact. They had started _north_ when leaving camp; and now, if he could only learn that they were heading due south, it would tell him that Thad had swung around, and was facing back home again; and thus he would not be under the painful necessity of informing his companion that he was tired of the useless hunt, when nothing worth while showed up.

And then it happened!

Step Hen happened to have his eyes in the right quarter when suddenly a fine big buck sprang to its feet, and stared at them a second or two, before starting to spring away. They had been heading up into the wind all the time, which was a part of Thad's principle as a true still hunter; and the deer had not known of their presence until the greenhorn happened to step on a small branch, which snapped under his weight.

Possibly Step Hen never really knew just how he did it. Indeed, he afterwards confessed to himself that his ready little rifle just seemed to swing upward to his shoulder by some instinct, which was probably the exact truth; for hunters seldom have time to do any thinking.

He saw that splendid deer standing there before him. Now, Step Hen had often fired a target rifle at just such a picture of a deer as this in the shooting gallery in Cranford. And when he took a hasty aim just behind the shoulder of the startled buck, he was really following out his usual custom of covering the bull's-eye on the artificial deer, so familiar to his boyish eyes.

Bang! went the rifle, as he pressed the trigger.

Thad had his double-barreled gun in readiness, and could have supplemented the shot of Step Hen by pouring in a broadside of small bullets that must have dropped the animal in his tracks. But he refrained, for his instinct seemed to tell him that the missile from Step Hen's little rifle had struck home, as the buck gave a convulsive leap, and pitched over; and Thad knew how much a new beginner in the game delights in the knowledge that he has accomplished the work of bringing down a deer una.s.sisted.

True, the buck managed to scramble to its feet again, and run; but even then the patrol leader held his fire, for he knew that the animal could not go more than a hundred or two feet before it must drop.

"I rung the bell then, Thad; didn't you hear me?" almost shrieked Step Hen, so excited that he never once thought of pumping the exploded cartridge from the firing chamber of his repeating rifle, and sending a fresh one in after it; and then, as the stricken buck scrambled to his feet again, and went off at a wobbling gait the astonished and dismayed Step Hen, who should have been prepared to send in another shot on his own account, actually forgot that he held a rifle calculated to repeat, and wildly besought his chum to fire.

"Oh! there he's going to get away after all, Thad!" he cried, jumping up and down in his excitement; "why don't you blaze away, and knock my buck over? Thad, oh, do let him have it good and hard! There, now he's gone, and we've lost him! It's a shame, that's what it is, when I so nearly got him. And he had six p.r.o.ngs too! Oh, me! oh, my! what tough luck!"

"Don't worry, Step Hen," said Thad, quickly; "that deer can't get away.

You shot him to pieces, and he's just bound to drop before five minutes.

We'll just follow him up, and find him lying as dead as----"

Just what Thad had in mind as a comparison Step Hen never knew. Perhaps he was going to say "as dead as a door nail," that being a favorite expression among the scouts; or it might be Thad meant to take a little flight into ancient history, and compare the condition of that buck inside of five minutes with the Julius Caesar of olden Roman times. It did not matter.

He was interrupted by a sudden loud explosion. The sound came from the quarter in which the buck had just gone, and could not have been far distant. And even the tenderfoot understood what it meant.

"Oh! listen to that, would you, Thad?" he burst forth with. "There's somebody else hunting up in this neck of the woods, and they've got my fine buck! Now, ain't that the worst thing ever; and just when it began to look as if he ought to belong to me, too; for you said he was hard hit; and I just know I rung the bell with that bullet. And now I reckon it's all off. Oh! why _didn't_ you knock him over when you had the chance, Thad?"

"I sure would if I'd had the least suspicion that there was any other hunter around these diggings," declared Thad, with a frown on his usually smooth brow; for he instantly began to scent trouble. "But come on, let's start along, and see what it all means. Perhaps now old Eli, or Jim may have wandered out to take a little side hunt."

"But anyway, it's _my_ buck, Thad; you said I got him!" grumbled Step Hen, as he started after his leader.

They had no trouble in following in the direction taken by the stricken deer; even Step Hen, upon having his attention directed to the ground by Thad, could readily discern the trail of blood spots that told how the buck had been badly hurt by the shot back of the shoulder.

And less than three minutes later the two scouts came upon a scene that caused Thad to frown; while Step Hen's mouth opened with surprise, even as his eyes were unduly dilated in his intense excitement.

CHAPTER X.

BARE-FACED ROBBERY IN THE MAINE WOODS.

Three men were bending over the dead deer, and all of them carried rifles. They were a rough-looking set, all told; and any one would know at a glance that they could not be city sportsmen, up here in the Maine woods on a hunt; but must belong to the native cla.s.s of guides, loggers, or possibly something worse.

One of them was in truth a giant; and as soon as Thad set eyes on this individual he knew that his worst fears were about to be realized. This could be no other than the big poacher, Old Cale Martin, the man whom the game wardens seemed to dread like poison, and had never yet dared arrest, though his breaking of the laws had become notorious all through that section where he roamed.

Despite his sensation of acute alarm, Thad surveyed the man with more or less interest and curiosity. He had heard so much about his doings that he would have actually felt a certain degree of disappointment had he gone away from Maine and never met Cale Martin.

Then, what Jim Hasty had told him, added to his desire to look upon the face of Little Lina's awful father.

No doubt Step Hen must also have jumped at some sort of right conclusion with regard to the ident.i.ty of the three men. The unusual size of the leader was quite enough in itself to tell who they must be.

Thad did not halt long upon sighting the others, but walked forward.

Even though poachers, this did not mean that the three men were desperate outlaws by any means. No doubt they walked in and out of the villages in this extreme northern section of the State, and were greeted by those who knew them as fellow guides, though seldom were any of them employed in such a capacity nowadays.

Step Hen tagged at the heels of his chum. He did not know what Thad might be going to do; but although white of face just then, with a sudden fear of trouble, at least Step Hen showed no sign of running away.

The three men looked up as the boys approached. All of them seemed to be grinning, as though amused. But while the big man really looked somewhat as a mastiff might appear to a little terrier, his two companions had a sneer on their dark, evil faces that gave Thad more or less uneasiness.

He knew that while Step Hen was ent.i.tled to that fine buck, the chances were his claim would never be considered for a single minute. Might made right in the Maine woods, with men of this stamp.

"Hullo! younkers, lookin' arter yer deer, hey?" remarked the giant, as the boys boldly approached. "Wall, they hain't any, d'ye see? We got a fine leetle buck here as Si fetched down with his big bore cannon; only fur him the deer's been in ther next county afore now, eh, Si?" and the giant as he said this, turned on the man who wore the greasy suit of buckskin, and sported a c.o.o.nskin cap, after the style of the old-time hunters, now so nearly extinct.

"That's right, Cale, he'd a ben agoin' like two-forty yet, on'y for the ounce of lead I throwed into him on the jump. I guess as haow that leetle pepper box jest tickled him a mite, an' made him feel frisky.

Step right up, an' take a look at _my_ buck, ef so be yeou wanter, strangers; I hain't begrudgin' yeou that much conserlation; but doan't yeou be sayin' yeou had any hand in knockin' him over, 'cause I don't stand fur any foolishness, see?"

He looked particularly ugly when saying this last, and Thad knew there was not the slightest shadow of a chance that they would get justice from these fellows. Seeing the sadly wounded deer plunging blindly toward them, Si had fired at the animal, and now they claimed to own the prize!

Well, there was no use trying to make a fuss over it; two boys could hardly expect to overawe three such hardened woods' rangers as these.

Nevertheless, for his own satisfaction Thad accepted the rude invitation of Si Kedge to advance closer, so that he could stand over the deer.

Something caught his eye as he looked, and bending down he deftly took the object from the motionless body of the deer, just back of the shoulder, where a patch of blood appeared.

Thad held the object up so that all could see. Even Step Hen recognized it as the mushroomed bullet that had been fired from his rifle. The evidence was as positive and clear as noonday; for that bullet, after spreading out, had bored completely through the body of the buck, and was ready to drop from the other side when it caught the sharp eye of Thad. And that other wound in the neck must have been where the boasted large calibre bullet from Si's big gun had gone, producing only a superficial hurt that would not have seriously inconvenienced the st.u.r.dy buck.

"Oh! that's my bullet!" exclaimed Step Hen, hardly comprehending what a storm his words might bring about their ears; "and just as you said, Thad, I hit him in the side where his heart lies. That would have killed him in a short time, I just guess, don't you, Thad?"

But Thad did not make any answer. He was keeping his eyes on the three men, even while dropping the spread-out bullet into his pocket to show it to Eli and Jim and Allan when they returned to camp, as proof that the glory of killing the fine six-p.r.o.nged buck really belonged to Step Hen.

The giant actually gave a little chuckle. Evidently he admired the nerve shown by this half-grown lad; for like most big men Cale Martin could on occasion, exhibit a sense of generosity toward those smaller than himself.

With just that brief chance to see what the three poachers looked like, Thad was able to size them up along different lines. He believed that Si and Ed were both shallow brained bullies, with revengeful natures; but that Cale Martin, while known as a desperate man, was really more so through his a.s.sociation with such rascals as these, than for any other cause. And Thad chanced to know just why he had doubly earned this reputation for ugliness during the last year or so; Jim Hasty's running away with his little girl, Lina, had been the last straw that broke the camel's back; since it had made Old Cale feel reckless, and as though he cared no longer for anything in this world.

"What d'ye think of that, Si," burst out the other fellow, who had not spoken, up to now; "the pesky critter is aclaimin' as how his friend sent that bullet through ther buck's ribs, w'en we all know 'twar from yer gun."

The shorter poacher gritted his teeth, and looked daggers at Thad. He even made a significant movement with his heavy rifle, which the boy saw was of the repeating pattern, and had the hammer raised at that moment.

"I doan't stand for any sech talk ez that," he declared, with savage energy; "an' ef ther cubs knows what is good fur 'em, they'll turn tail, an' mosey outen this here region some quick. Scat naow! an' be mighty keerful haow yeou start tew claimin' a deer agin, what another man shot.

It's sumpin that ain't goin' ter be allowed up here in the woods. I gives yeou fair warnin' tew change base, an' clar out."

"Come on, Thad, let's move along!" exclaimed Step Hen, who was white in the face, and trembling more or less.

Of course, the patrol leader was far too smart to think of trying to defy that ugly lot. At the same time Thad showed no sign of fear as he turned and gave the bully of the woods one sneering look, as though plainly telling him what he thought. Indeed, it seemed to stir the ire of the man who claimed to have killed the deer, for with a snort, he started to throw up his gun, as if bent on threatening mischief, unless the boys ran in a hurry.