The Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island Part 3

"You can make up your mind I won't give him a chance to grab me,"

a.s.serted b.u.mpus, never dreaming that by accident he would be the very first to feel the force of that curved beak.

"Listen!" exclaimed Step Hen; "as sure as anything there's another!

Why, this must be what you might call Owl-land."

From far away in the timber came the plain sound of hooting. All of the scouts knew what it was easily enough, though there had been a time when they were real tenderfeet, and could hardly distinguish between the call of an owl and the braying of a donkey; but camping-out experience had done away with all such ignorance as that.

"There, don't that make you feel foolish, Step Hen?" demanded b.u.mpus.

"Me? Whatever put that silly notion into your head, b.u.mpus?"

"Why," the other went on to say reproachfully, "it was you that really wanted to keep the poor old bird; and just listen to its mate mourning for it, would you? I'd think you'd feel so sorry you'd want to unfasten that chain right away, and give the owl its freedom."

"Not for Joseph, though I'll let you go and undo his chain if you feel inclined that way," Step Hen observed, knowing full well that b.u.mpus did not want to see the feathered captive set free quite that bad.

"Besides, how d'ye know that's a mate to my bird whooping it up back there?"

"Well, if you want to find out, just you sleep with one eye open,"

b.u.mpus told him; "and take it from me you'll see that other owl come winnowing around here, wanting to know why our new pet don't come when she calls."

"Huh! mebbe I will,"' was all Step Hen would say about it; but evidently the idea had appealed to him; and there was a chance that he would indulge in very little rest that night, for trying to "keep one eye open while he slept."

After supper was all over, and the boys lay around on their blankets, they fell to talking of other days when they had been in company, and met with a great many, surprising adventures.

Then b.u.mpus, who really had a very fine tenor voice, which he could strain so as to sing soprano like a bird, was coaxed to favor them with a number of selections, the others coming in heavy in each chorus.

Sometimes it was a popular ballad of the day that b.u.mpus gave them; but more often a school chorus, or it might be some tender Scotch song like "Comin' Through the Rye," "Annie Laurie," or "Twickenham Ferry;" for boys can appreciate such sentiments more than most folks believe; and especially when in an open air camp, with the breeze sighing through the trees around them, or the waves murmuring as they wash the sandy sh.o.r.e of a lake, and the moonlight throwing a magical spell upon all their surroundings; for there is the seed of romance in the heart of nearly every healthy lad.

So the evening wore on until some of them began to yawn frequently, showing that they were ready to turn in. As one of them had said, this might be the last time they would camp ash.o.r.e during trip, because on the morrow they antic.i.p.ated, unless something unforeseen came up to prevent it, going aboard their boat, and starting on the cruise upon the big waters of Superior.

They had no tent on this occasion, but really that was not going to prove any hards.h.i.+p to these bold lads, accustomed to spending many a night in the woods, with only a blanket for a cover against the dew and frost.

It was arranged to keep the fire going. This would serve in a double capacity, for not only would they be kept warm through the cold part of the night, but if there did happen to be any wild beasts around in that section of the Lake Superior country, which both Allan and Thad rather doubted, why, the glow of the blaze was apt to make them keep their distance.

The last thing Giraffe remembered, as his heavy eyes persisted in closing, was seeing Step Hen bob up his head to stare over toward the low branch upon which the captive owl was fastened; as though he might have arranged a program with himself and meant to do this thing at stated intervals all through the night.

Giraffe chuckled at the idea of sacrificing good sleep in the interest of knowledge; he was willing to simply ask some one who knew, and be satisfied to accept their answer as conclusive.

An hour later and the camp seemed to be all quiet, for every one was apparently sound asleep. Even Thad and Allan had known of no reason why a watch should be maintained, for they felt sure there could hardly be a human being within miles of the camp; and even if this were not so, the chances were strongly in favor of its proving to be an honest farmer, or some miner on his way to the workings further west.

The only sounds that could have been heard from time to time were an occasional peevish fretful croak from the captive owl, as it continued to peck savagely at the chain around its leg; or it might be a snore from b.u.mpus, or some other fellow who had a fas.h.i.+on of lying squarely on his back.

Perhaps pretty soon, when one of the scouts had been kept awake by this noise until patience ceased to be a virtue, he would get quietly up, and pour a tin-cup of lake water over the one who persisted in sleeping with his mouth wide open; for that sort of radical remedy had proven effective on other occasions, and brought relief.

It must have been almost midnight when a sudden change came about that took even the seasoned campers by surprise, for they had not been antic.i.p.ating any such startling event.

The stillness was broken by a piercing scream that caused every head to bob up, and the blankets to be hurriedly thrown aside.

"My owl's mate has come in on us, mebbe!" exclaimed Step Hen; for that idea was so firmly lodged in his brain that it had to occur to him as soon as he heard all that row.

But some of the others were wiser, for they knew that shout had surely come from human lips.

Giraffe was the first to call out and draw their attention to certain facts.

"Looky there at old b.u.mpus dancing a jig, will you! Whatever ails the feller, d'ye think! Acts like he'd clean gone out of his head, and got loony!" he cried, as with the other boys he came tumbling out from under the rude shelter made of branches.

CHAPTER IV

LAUNCHED ON THE INLAND SEA

Sure enough b.u.mpus was in plain sight, for the fire still burned, and there was also a bright moon high up in the heavens. The fat scout seemed to be trying to execute all the steps in a Southern hoedown, or an Irish jig; for he was prancing around this way and that, holding on to his hand, which the other boys now discovered was streaked with blood!

"Oh! what's happened to you, b.u.mpus?" cried Step Hen, as he ran out toward the spot where the other continued to waltz around in his bright red and white striped pajamas, that made him look like an "animated sawed-off barber's pole," as one of his chums had once told him.

"It bit me, oh! I'll bleed to death, I reckon now!" wailed the other; "say, Thad, get out some of that purple stuff you use for scratches from wild animals. Mebbe blood, poisoning'll develop; and I'd just hate the worst kind to die up here, away off from my own home."

"What bit you; can't you tell us, b.u.mpus?" asked Thad, though already he may have had suspicions that way.

"Jim did, the bally old owl!" came the dismal answer; "please, oh!

please tell me whether his beak is poisonous, won't you, Thad?"

"Well, what d'ye think of that?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Step Hen, "however did you happen to meddle with my owl, tell me? Sure, I did give you permission to unchain him, if you had the nerve; but I never did believe you'd go and take me up at that."

"I didn't neither," b.u.mpus declared, still dancing around.

"Here, let me see that wound!" called out Thad, as he and Allan cornered the sufferer; "all it may need is was.h.i.+ng, and then binding up with some healing salve. But it makes a nasty cut, don't it, Allan?"

"I should say yes," replied the other; "but it's some lucky it wasn't his face the bird struck at. Why, b.u.mpus might have lost an eye."

At that possibility the fat scout set up another roar.

"Just you believe the old thing meant to snap my eye out when he bit at me; and I must have happened to put out my hand--so he struck that!" he declared; while Allan hastened to open a package and take out some salve and tape such as scouts should always carry along with them when in camp, because there is no telling when it may be needed badly, just as in the present instance.

"But see here, what possessed you to walk around in this way, and go over to try and pet that savage bird?" asked Thad.

"Give you my solemn affidavit that I don't know a single thing about it!" the other went on to say, as solemn as the owl that sat on the branch near by.

"Do you mean you don't remember getting up, and coming out here?"

continued the scout-master, who always probed things to the very dregs, or until he had extracted all the information possible.

"Not a thing," reaffirmed b.u.mpus, and his face showed that he was speaking only the truth. "I can remember laying down for a snooze, and then everything seems to be blank after that, till all of a sudden I felt that awful pain, and it made me let out a whoop, I'm telling you."

"I should think it did," muttered Giraffe; "ten Injuns rolled into one couldn't beat that howl. I sure thought the panther had got you that time!"

"Well, likely I thought just that same thing, Giraffe, when I warbled that way, because I remember now I was dreaming about gray-coated panthers. Then I thought about rattlesnakes too, because you know I can't stand for the crawlers. Next thing I opened my eyes with a jump, and saw that old owl, with every feather on his back standing up like the quills of a porcupine, and trying to jab me a second time."