"No," replied Pat. "We'll have to make a camp to-night," and advanced no further information.
All their duffle and the supplies which Pat was taking in were loaded on the toboggan, and to this Pat had rigged a sort of harness so that two walking single file could drag it. This relieved them of packs. Walter and Hal each carried his rifle on the chance of picking up a rabbit on the way. The snow-shoes were slung3 over their backs, Pat explaining that for a time they would follow a broken out lumber4 trail and it would be easier walking without the shoes than on them.
It was when they turned into this trail that the first suspicion of where they were bound for flashed through Upton's mind, but he held his peace and settled to the task of doing his share of the pulling. And this proved to be no easy matter. The trail was but roughly broken out by the passage of lumber sleds, and it soon became necessary for one to steady the load to keep it from capsizing. It was slow, toilsome work, and when at the end of ten miles Pat called a halt for a rest while he made four cups of hot pea soup by the simple process of melting snow and crumbling6 into it a roll of erbswurst the others were ready to declare that they had come twenty miles.
As he drank his soup and munched8 a cracker9 Walter scanned his surroundings closely. Presently he discovered what he sought, a partially10 obliterated11 blaze on a big tree just beyond and to the right of where they were squatting12.
"I've got you now, old Mr. Foxy!" he cried. "This mysterious camp of yours is the cabin in Smugglers' Hollow, and we're going to camp to-night at Little Goose Pond. More than that, your partner is Alec Smith. Why didn't I guess it before? Own up now, old Crafty13!"
Quite unabashed, Pat bestowed14 a grin on Upton. "Three bull's-eyes," he commented. "I've been wondering how long it would take you fellows to catch the scent15. Began to think I'd have to rub your noses in it."
"Hurrah16!" interrupted Hal, who had been an eager listener. "I never thought of the Hollow, and yet there is no place I should like to go to so much as that. Say, Walt, these heads of ours sure are thick. Don't you remember that Pat told us that first night in New York that Alec was trapping, and the last he heard of him he was over in the Hollow? Well, we'd make good detectives, we would. I've done a lot of wondering about Pat's partner and what sort of a fellow he would prove to be and whether or not we'd like him. And to think it's Alec! If you weren't such a young and tender innocent I'd throw you in the snow and give you a shampoo. What do you say, Walt, to doing it anyway?"
"Come on!" cried Pat, "the two of you, or all three!"
Upton shook his head mournfully. "I'd like to, but it wouldn't be right. He isn't as big as the two of us, and so it wouldn't do at all. It would be the same as a big fellow picking on a little one. You know I thrashed him once for doing that very thing, and now if we should turn around and do it I'm afraid the force of my beautiful example would be wholly destroyed. I tell you what, you do it alone, Hal."
"He's too small," declared Hal. "That's why I wanted you to help. Then my conscience would be only half guilty. I'm going to let him off this time with just a snowball."
Suiting his action to the word he landed a big soft snowball full on the side of Pat's head. Pat made a rush for him, but Walter thrust out a foot and sent him headlong into the snow, and before he could regain17 his feet Hal was on him endeavoring to wash his face with snow. In a second there was the liveliest kind of a snow fight, Upton and Sparrer yelling encouragement with absolute impartiality18. It ended with Hal's smothered19 cry of "enough" and Pat's allowing him up just in time to see Walter and then Sparrer unceremoniously pitched into the snow, by way of showing that all Scouts21 are equal, Pat explained, as he rubbed their faces.
Panting and glowing from the frolic they put out the fire built to heat their soup and were ready to hit the trail again. From this point on the snow-shoes were an absolute necessity, for they left the lumber trail for another ten miles through the woods. This time they were not dependent on the blazed trees as they had been when they went that way in the fall, for some one had been over the trail since the last snowfall, evidently coming out from Little Goose. Pat studied the tracks for a few minutes. Then his face cleared. "It was Big Jim," said he. "I wonder now if he took a look in the Hollow to see how Alec was getting on. He may have been over to the Gillicuddy camp, the trail from which comes in at the pond, you remember, but I have an idea he swung around to see Alec. I wonder now where he saw that fox. I just took it for granted that it was around where he is cutting and didn't ask any questions for fear of letting the coon out of the hole about where we were going. Then when I was alone with the doctor we both forgot all about Jim, there were so many other things to talk about. It may be that he saw that silver gray somewhere along this trail. We'll keep our eyes peeled for signs."
"How do you know that Big Jim made these tracks?" asked Walter, who had been studying them closely, hoping to find out for himself the clue which made Pat so sure of his man, but unable to see anything distinctive22 save that they were of odd shape, being nearly round.
"By a combination of two things—the shape of the tracks and the length of the stride," replied Pat. "Jim always uses bear's-paw shoes, and I don't believe there are more than half a dozen other pairs in this neck of woods. Then look at the length of the stride. It's a good three inches longer than mine, and there's nothing dainty about mine. There isn't a man in the woods who could take that stride and hold it but Jim Everly. So I'm as sure it was Big Jim as I am that if we don't get a hustle23 on we'll have to camp in the snow, and it'll be a lot more comfortable at the pond. We've got another long hike to-morrow, and we want to be in shape to do it."
For some miles the going was fairly level, and once they had got into the swing of the thing the boys found it comparatively easy. There were two or three mishaps24, but these were counted part of the sport. About two miles from their destination they came to a spur of a mountain over which the trail led. In fact, it was the very spur on the other side of which Spud Ely had overrun the trail and got lost the fall previous. Pat called a halt.
"It's going to be no small job to get this load up there," said he. "We can go around the spur, but to do that will add a good three miles, and in the valley it will be dark before we can reach camp. What do you think? Are you game to try the hill?"
"The hill! The hill! Follow me, comrades, up yonder heights, and drive the enemy from their guns!" shouted Hal, striking a heroic attitude and pretending to flourish an imaginary sword.
"Where lives the Scout20, by difficulties pressed,
Who will admit a chicken heart possessed25?
Who will not rather bravely face the wust
And do and dare and conquer or go bust26!"
"Bravo!" cried Walter.
"When dares our comrade coin and use a word like wust
We'll take his dare and see who'll scale yon hillside fust!
Lead on, Mr. Malone. We'll make it or die in the attempt."
"All right, me brave Scouts," replied Pat. "Up we go! 'Tis a chance to see the kind of stuff that's in the likes of you, for 'twill be no child's play getting this load up there. And when we get up there where you see the bare rock watch your footing. That rock is slippery, and a fall there would be serious."
The next half hour was one of panting, sweating toil5. In the first place, as soon as the grade began to rise sharply the boys found that the only way they could progress was by digging their toes into the snow through the toe holes in the shoes, which brought an added strain on the already weary muscles of the calves27. It would have been bad enough in view of their inexperience if they had had nothing else to consider, but there was that heavy load, and it grew heavier every minute. As they got higher where the wind had had full sweep there was comparatively little snow, and in some places the bare rock was exposed. Here they found it easier going without the snow-shoes than with them.
Hauling and pushing they worked the toboggan up until at last the spur was crossed.
"Gee28 whiz!" exclaimed Hal. "I'm sweating like a butcher. That's what I call work."
"And we're doing it for fun," added Upton. "Funny what a difference the view-point makes. I suppose it's all in the way you look at it whether work is fun or fun is work. I can tell you one thing, and that is that I for one am mighty29 glad that there isn't another one of those things to cross to-day. I'm afraid I'd lie down and holler quits. What are you rubbing your legs for, Sparrer?"
"Just feeling of 'em to get wise if dey's all dere," replied Sparrer.
The remainder of the trail to Little Goose was comparatively easy and they reached the familiar lean-to just as dusk was settling down, and there was more than one sigh of thankfulness as the shoes were kicked off for the last time.
"I'm tired enough to drop right down and go to sleep in the snow, but my little tummy won't let me," confessed Hal. "Ring for the waiter, please, and have him bring me a planked steak with half a chicken on the side, grapefruit salad, and a pot of coffee with real cream. Wake me up when it comes."
"Nothing doing," declared Pat. "This isn't the Waldorf Astoria, but Hotel de Shivers; heat and food supplied only to those who pay in labor30, all bills payable31 in advance."
"That's me!" Hal seated himself on the pile of stuff and gave vent2
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CHAPTER VI SNOW-SHOES AND FISH
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CHAPTER VIII ALEC HINTS AT DARK THINGS
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