"Bully! bully!" he exclaimed, as he still ran forward after his chum; "we did get him all right, didn't we, Thad? And I'd just like to see any woods' thief try to hook _this_ deer away from us. Don't you let 'em do it, Thad, will you, even if we have to fight for it?"

"Don't worry," said Thad, as they came to a halt over the fallen buck; "we're not going to have any trouble--not from that source, anyway."

If Step Hen had been less excited he might have noticed that the words of his companion seemed to admit of their having trouble of another kind; but just then the tenderfoot was too much wrapped up in other things.

"Oh! that's too bad, Thad!" he remarked.

"What is?" asked the other; "both of us. .h.i.t him, all right; for there's the place your bullet went in; and these smaller holes show where my buckshot struck."

"But look at his antlers, would you, Thad?" the other went on; "why, this is only a two-year-old, I sure reckon, because he's got only two p.r.o.ngs on his horns."

"Well so much the better for us, when we start to eat him," chuckled Thad; "because the meat'll be just that much more tender, you see."

"Then let's get busy, and cut him up, Thad," Step Hen went on. "Seems to me night's coming right along down on us; and the chances are we'll be awful late getting back to camp."

What Thad really thought he did not take the trouble to mention; but no doubt he had long before then made up his mind that they would never make camp that evening, for he felt that Step Hen must be nearly all in.

He did start to work, however, and with the other to a.s.sist in various ways, managed to get the deer cut up, after a fashion. The meat they expected to carry with them, together with the head, which Step Hen would not think of leaving behind, was made up into two packs, so that each of them might carry a fair portion.

By that time it was pitch dark. Indeed, Step Hen had to kindle another little fire of dry pine cones in order that the operation of getting the meat secured might be brought to a finish.

"Wow! just look how dark it is!" exclaimed Step Hen, when finally Thad announced that he was ready to go on, after getting his bearings, which he did easily by sighting the North star, the clouds having very conveniently disappeared, and all present danger of a heavy snowfall vanishing with their going.

Step Hen was rather slow and clumsy about getting his load fastened, and Thad had to a.s.sist him. He knew full well what was the matter. The other was really dead tired, and could hardly put one foot before the other without a great effort. He had been artificially kept up by the excitement until the game was secured, and now the reaction was setting in.

They had been slowly moving along for about ten minutes, when from a little distance away there broke out a strange sound that, heard under those peculiar conditions, struck Step Hen as more blood-curdling than he had ever thought it before, when sitting safely in a camp beside a cozy fire, and surrounded by comrades.

It was that same long-drawn howl of the Canada gray wolf; and as he listened to a second answering cry from another quarter, somehow Step Hen found himself shuddering.

CHAPTER XII.

BROUGHT TO BAY BY WOLVES.

"Ooh! how awfully queer them howls seem, Thad!" remarked Step Hen, presently, just as the patrol leader expected he would; for he had a pretty good idea as to what was just pa.s.sing in the mind of the tenderfoot.

"Well, they do sound different somehow, from what they did when we were sitting around the cheery camp-fire, listening to stories told by the guides," Thad admitted. "But then, wolves as a rule are cowardly brutes.

They may do a heap of howling, but they seldom show any bravery. Only when in packs are they feared by hunters, away up in the frozen-up parts of Canada, I'm told."

"But, say, don't you think there's a pack around here, right now?"

demanded Step Hen, apprehensively.

"What makes you ask that?" the other questioned.

"Why, in the first place, old Eli told us they never came away down here unless in numbers; and then again, Thad, didn't you notice that when one gave tongue over yonder to the right, a second answered him back from the left; and by jinks! listen to that, would you, a third and a fourth, as sure as you live! Say, they're all around us, Thad; they've got us surrounded!"

"Let 'em surround, if it does 'em any good," laughed the other; and if he felt the slightest bit of uneasiness himself on account of those wolfish howls, Thad at least managed to conceal it; because he knew Step Hen was feeling "creepy" enough as it was, without having his alarm augmented by seeing his companion concerned.

"But don't you think they might be able to pull us down just by force of numbers, Thad?" the other went on.

"Oh! there can't be any such bunch of the cowardly brutes around, as all that, I guess, Step Hen. And don't forget, please, that we're armed with weapons calculated to knock the spots out of any gray sneak that ever tried to steal venison won by two husky hunters. Think how you have six bullets in that little gun of yours; and each one ought to count for a wolf, if it came to the worst."

"Oh! there's where I was a fool!" said Step Hen, in a disgusted tone.

"What's that?" demanded his chum, stopping short.

"Why, I never stuck a blessed cartridge in my pocket, you see. Thought the six I had in the magazine of the gun would be good and plenty for all the needs I'd run up against. Now I wish I had the whole hundred along. Just my luck. I'm always losing things, and if it ain't anything else, it must be chances. Think of a hundred dead wolves, and all killed with this great little gun while I sat perched up in the crotch of a nice tree! It makes me sick to think of it, that's what, Thad."

"Are you sure you did put six cartridges in the magazine before we left?" asked the other.

"Well, that's what I meant to do, and I reckon I did, all right; though Giraffe was joking me at the time, and he might have upset my calculations," Step Hen admitted.

"Well, then, suppose you drop your bundle of meat, and take a look,"

advised Thad. "If it gets to warm quarters it's just as well that you know how many wolves you can account for. Throw them out in one, two, three order, now."

So Step Hen began working the mechanism of his little gun. Not being excited, he was able to do this excellently. With the first cast a cartridge flew out of the rejecting opening; but when he tried to repeat, nothing happened. He looked at the gun blankly, and tried twice more; but with the same result.

"No use," remarked Thad, grimly; "nothing doing, it seems. When you _thought_ you put six cartridges in the magazine, you stopped at three. And just such little mistakes have cost many a hunter his life before now, let me tell you, Step Hen."

"Oh! mercy, what do you mean, Thad?" asked the other, alarmed.

"Why, suppose now, several wolves were rushing at you with open mouths; and when you stood there, feeling able to take care of them all, your gun missed fire, not because it went back on you, but through your silly fault in not making sure it was fed to the limit when you started; things would look kind of gloomy just then, wouldn't they?"

"I'll never go out without being dead sure my magazine is plumb full; and a handful in my pocket besides, catch me again," said Step Hen, solemnly.

"That's a good resolution to make, and see to it that you remember it.

But all the same, my boy, it isn't helping us any just now. You've got one bullet, and I advise you to hang on to that to the bitter end. Let me do most of the shooting, if it ever comes to it, which I hope it won't; because I've got a belt full of all sorts of sh.e.l.ls, from buckshot to Number Sevens. Now, shall we go on again?"

"Sure," replied Step Hen, cheerfully.

But when he had managed to get his arms through the loops of his bundle, and began to heave it up on his back, he groaned audibly, so that Thad knew full well they would hardly make camp that night, at least not without several rests by the way.

"How far d'ye think it is, Thad?" asked Step Hen a few minutes later, as he dragged along behind the other.

"Well, I can't just tell," replied Thad. "It may be only three miles, and then again perhaps it would tally up twice that. We're going to strike the lake sh.o.r.e by keeping on as we are; but just how far away from camp, gets me. Like as not we can sight their fire, and give the boys a hail that will fetch a canoe for us."

"Whee! wish that blessed canoe was here right now," murmured poor Step Hen.

"You're pretty near at the end of your rope, ain't you?" asked Thad.

"That's right, I acknowledge the corn, Thad. I never was so dead tired in all my life. But I've still got the grit to keep along as far as I c'n put one foot in front of the other."

"Good for you; we'll try it a little further, and see," Thad went on.

He was chuckling to himself even while he spoke; for he knew full well that, although it pleased the tenderfoot to call it "grit," in truth it was fear of those lurking, howling wolves that was driving Step Hen to making these astonishing efforts. After all there is absolutely nothing like fear to make a laggard run like a Marathon sprinter. It has even effected cures in people supposed to be paralyzed, as Thad remembered reading not a great while before.