Tom Fairfield's Hunting Trip; or, Lost in the Wilderness
CHAPTER I
THE BIG SNOWBALL
“Well, Tom, it sure is a dandy plan!”
“That’s right! A hunting trip to the Adirondacks will just suit me!”
“And we couldn’t have better weather than this, nor a better time than the coming holiday season.”
Three lads, who had made the above remarks, came to a whirling stop on their shining, nickeled skates and gathered in a small ring about the fourth member of the little party, Tom Fairfield by name. Tom listened to what was said, and remarked:
“Well, fellows, I’m glad you like my plan. Now I think – ”
“Like it! I should say we did!” cried the smallest of the three lads grouped about the one in the centre. “Why, it’s the best ever!” and he did a spread eagle on his skates, so full of life did he feel that crisp December day.
“Do you really think we can get any game?” asked Jack Fitch, as he loosed his mackinaw at the throat, for he had warmed himself by a vigorous burst of skating just before the little halt that had ended in the impromptu vote of thanks to Tom.
“Get game? Well, I should say we could!” cried another of the lads.
“What do you know about it, Bert Wilson?” demanded Jack. “Were you ever up there?”
“No, but I’m sure Tom Fairfield wouldn’t ask us up to a hunter’s camp unless he was reasonably sure that we could get some kind of game. I’m not very particular what kind,” Bert went on, “as long as it’s game – a bear, a mountain lion, a lynx – I’m not hard to suit,” he added magnanimously.
“Well, I should say not!” laughed Tom.
“But say!” exclaimed the youngest member of the quartette – George Abbot by name. “Do you really think we can bag a bear? Or a lynx, maybe? Or even a fox? Are there really any big animals up there, Tom? What sort of a gun had I better take? And what about an outfit? Do you think – ”
Tom reached out and gently placed a gloved hand over the mouth of the questioner, thereby cutting off, for the time being, the flow of interrogations.
“Just a moment, Why, if you please,” he said, giving George the nickname his fellow students at Elmwood Hall had fastened on the lad who seemed to be a human question mark.
“Well, I – er – Buu – er – gurg – ”
But that was the nearest semblance to speaking that George could accomplish. His companions laughed at him. He finally made a sign that he would desist if Tom removed the hand-gag, and when this had been done, Jack proposed a little sprint down to one end of the small lake on which they were skating.
“No, we’ve had enough racing to-day,” declared Bert Wilson. “I vote Tom tells us more about this hunters’ camp, and what we expect to do there.”
“All right, I’m agreeable,” Jack said.
“Are they – ?” began Why, but a look from Bert warned him, and he stopped midway in his question. His chums well knew that if George once got started it was hard to stop him.
“Well, there isn’t so much to tell that you fellows don’t know already,” began Tom slowly. “In the first place, there are three hunters’ camps, not one.”
“Three!” exclaimed Jack and Bert, while George looked the questions he dared not ask.
“Yes. You see they belong to a party of gentlemen, a sort of camping club. The camps are about five miles apart, in the wildest part of the Adirondacks.”
“Why – three?” came at last from George. Really he could not keep it back any longer. Tom did not seem to mind.
“Oh, I suppose they wanted to change their hunting ground,” he answered, “and they found it easier to make three camps, or headquarters, than to come all the way back to the first one. And the club is pretty well off, so it didn’t mind the expense.”
“But you don’t mean to say we can use all three of ’em?” cried Jack, incredulously.
“That’s the idea,” Tom said. “We’re just as welcome to use all three camps as one. They’re all about alike, each with a log cabin, nicely fitted up, set in the midst of the big woods.”
“That’s jolly!” cried Bert.
“And aren’t the men themselves going to use them?” George wanted to know. Again he went unrebuked.
“Not this season,” Tom Fairfield explained. “The club is sort of broken up for the time being. Some of the men want to go, but they can’t get enough together to make a party, so they had to give up their annual holiday outing this year.
“A business friend of my father’s belongs to the club, and he mentioned to Dad that there was a chance for someone to use the camps. Dad happened to speak of it to me, and I – well, you can imagine what I did! I jumped at the chance, and now you know almost as much as I do about it.
“I’ll tell you later just where the camps are, and how we are to get to them. We want to get together and have a talk about what we’ll take with us. School closes here day after to-morrow, and then we’ll be free for nearly a month.”
“And won’t we have some ripping old times, though!” cried Jack.
“Well, I should say yes!” chimed in Bert.
“Tell you what let’s do, fellows!” broke in George. “Let’s go up to the top of that hill and have a coast. Some of our lads from Elmwood are there with the bobs, and they’ll give us a ride. I’ve had enough of skating.”
“So have I,” chimed in Jack.
“I’m with you,” agreed Bert, stooping to loosen his skates, an example followed by Tom Fairfield.
“I hope this snowy weather holds,” spoke Jack. “But are you allowed to shoot game when there is tracking snow?”
“I don’t just know all the rules,” said Tom, “but of course we will do what is right. I guess we’ll have plenty of snow in the mountains, and cold weather, too.”
“It’s getting warm here,” observed Bert. “Too warm,” for the variable New Jersey climate had changed from freezing almost to thawing in the night, and the boys were really taking advantage of the last bit of skating they were likely to have in some time.
There were not many besides themselves on the ice of the lake when they started from it, heading for the big hill not far away – a hill whereon the youth of Elmwood Hall, a boarding school near the Jersey state capital, had many jolly times.
When Tom Fairfield and his chums, talking about the camping and hunting trip in prospect, reached the hill, they found it deserted – that is, by all save a few small town boys with their little sleds.
“No coasting to-day,” observed Jack, ruefully.
“No, it’s getting too soft,” added Bert, digging his foot into the snowy surface of the hill. But the small boys did not mind that. With the big lads out of the way, smaller fry had a chance.
George Abbot picked up a handful of snow and rolled it into a ball. As he noticed how well it packed, he exclaimed:
“Say, fellows, another idea!”
“Ha! He’s full of ’em to-day!” laughed Jack.
“Get rid of it, Why,” advised Tom. “Don’t keep ideas in your system.”
“Let’s roll a whopping big snowball,” proposed George, “and send it down hill. It will roll all the way to the bottom, and pick up snow all the way down.”
“It will be some snowball when it gets to the bottom,” observed Tom. “This snow does pack wonderfully well,” he added, testing it.
“Come on!” cried George, and he started to roll the ball. In a few minutes he had one so large that it needed two to shove it about, and as it gathered layer after layer of snow, it accumulated in size until the strength of the four lads was barely sufficient to send it slowly along.
“Now to the top of the hill with it!” cried