“Caribou is starting out well, at all events,” said Merry, speaking to Bruce Browning.

The guide had built a rousing fire, which had now died down to a bed of coals, on which he was getting supper, handling coffeepot and frying pan with the skill that comes from long experience in the woods.

The light of the fire flung back the encroaching shadows of night and sent a red glare through the woods and across the surrounding stretches of water.

Frank Merriwell’s party was camped on one of the many small islands in Lily Bay, in the southeastern angle of Moosehead Lake, not a great distance from the mainland, which at this point was well wooded.

The tall pines were visible from the island in the daytime, but nothing could be seen now at any great distance beyond the ring of light made by the camp fire.

The wind was stirring in the tops of the low trees of the island and tossing the waves lappingly against the sterns of two birch-bark canoes that were drawn up on the shore and secured to stakes set in the earth.

John Caribou rose from his task, and stood erect in the light of the fire, a long bread knife in his hand. He presented a striking appearance as he stood thus, with the red fire light coloring face and clothing.

[19]

“That fellow is all right, even if Diamond thinks he isn’t!” declared Merriwell. “I’m willing to bank on him.”

The hoot of an owl came from across the water. Caribou started at the sound, stood for a moment in a listening attitude, then, observing that he was noticed, he resumed his work of getting supper.

They had reached the island, coming from Capen’s, late in the afternoon. But their two small A tents were already in position, and everything was in readiness for an enjoyable camping time.

Though there were so many tourists at Greenville and Capen’s that Frank and his friends had begun to doubt that they would see any game at all round Moosehead Lake, their present location seemed wild and remote enough to satisfy their most exacting demands.

They had already discovered there were trout in the lake, and big, hungry, gamey ones at that. The odor of some of these, which Caribou was cooking, came appetizingly on the breeze. It was the close season for trout as well as game, but fish wardens seldom trouble campers who catch no more than enough fish for their own use, and Caribou had declared that he would assume all responsibility.

Frank Merriwell got out his guitar again after supper. And what an enjoyable supper it was! Only those who have experienced the delights of camp life in the odorous woods, with the rippling music of water and the song of the wind in the trees, can have any true conception of its pleasures. Cares indeed “fold their tents like the Arabs and as silently steal away.”

[20]

The shadows advanced and retreated as the fire flared up or sank down, some wild beast screamed afar off on the mainland, a sleepy bird hidden somewhere in the bushes twittered a sleepy response to the music of the guitar and the words of the song, and the note of the owl heard earlier in the evening came again.

Merriwell played the guitar and he and Diamond sang until a late hour, when all retired, to speedily fall asleep. The night was well advanced, and there was a light mist on the face of the water, when Diamond roused up, pushed aside the canvas flap of the tent and looked out. The moonlight fell faintly.

The young Virginian had a feeling that something or somebody had disturbed him. Unable to shake this off, he crept softly into his clothing and slipped out of the tent. The fire had died down, but some coals still glowed in the bed of ashes.

He was about to put wood on these, when he heard a rustling.

“What was that?” he asked himself, turning quickly.

Then he saw the form of a man stealing away from the vicinity of the camp.

“That’s the guide,” he whispered, his suspicions instantly aroused. “Now, I wonder what he’s up to?”

He saw the form melting into the darkness, and wondered if he should call Merriwell or some member of the party.

“No, I’ll look into this thing myself!” he decided.

He had no weapon save a pocket knife; but, nevertheless,[21] he set out after the gliding form he supposed to be the guide.

“I must be careful, or I’ll miss him!” he thought, stopping when clear of the camp. “He walks like a shadow.”

He heard the bushes rustle, and, guided by the sound, hurried on, and soon came again in sight of the stealthy figure. He was still sure it was the guide, and was much exercised as to why the man should be astir at that hour of the night.

Straight across the island went the man, with Diamond hanging closely behind.

“He’s gone!” Diamond whispered, in astonishment, stopping again in the hope that other sounds would guide him.

When he had listened for full two minutes, he heard a splash like the dipping of a paddle blade in the water. It was at one side and some distance away.

He dashed through the bushes and stood on the shore of the lake. A canoe was vanishing in the mist.

“That rascally guide is up to some dirt, sure as I live!” he muttered. “I’ll just go back and rouse up the boys, and when he returns we’ll demand an explanation!”

With this resolution, he started back across the island, puzzling vainly over the guide’s queer actions.

Scarcely had he left the shore when he tripped and fell.

“Chug!”

“Spt! Spt! Gr-r-r!”

The first sound was made by Diamond dropping into a hole between some roots or rocks; the other sounds revealed[22] to him the unpleasant fact that he had tumbled into some den of wild animals.

“Goodness! what can they be?” he cried, scrambling out with undignified haste and retreating toward the high rock that he saw towering just at hand. “Wildcats, maybe! They sound like cats!”

There was a scratching and rattling of claws and an ugly-looking brute poked up a round, catlike head and stared at him with eyes that shone very unpleasantly in the moonlight.

Jack Diamond was not a person to scare easily, even though he was unarmed.

Another head appeared close by the first; then the two big cats crawled out on the ground, and sat erect like dogs, looking hard at him.

They were right in the path he desired to take.

“If I had a gun, I’d have the hide of one of you for your impudence!” he thought, returning their look with interest. “It would make a pretty rug, too.”

As he studied them, the knowledge came to him that they were the ferocious lynx called by the French Canadians loo-sevee—loup-cervier. There was a silky fringe on the tips of their ears, and they had heavy coats, sharp claws and cruel teeth.

Having decided that they were loup-cerviers, and believing that he had tumbled into their den, where were possibly some young, the Virginian, courageous as he was, lost much of his desire to fight.

He began to retreat, thinking to make a circuit and pass them.

[23]

“We’ll have fun with you in the morning!” he muttered. “There’s never any close season against loup-cerviers.”

But the lynxes seemed quite willing that the fun should begin then and there. As he retreated, they advanced, convinced, probably, that he was cowardly.

Thereupon, Diamond backed up against the rock, and picking up a stick, hurled it at them.

“Gr-r-r!”

Instead of frightening them, they came on faster than ever, uttering a sound that was nearer a growl than anything to which Diamond could liken it.

The young Virginian did not like the idea of turning about in an ignominious flight, so he climbed to the first shelf of the rocky ledge, feeling with his hands as he did so in hope of finding something that would be a valuable weapon.

“If I ever leave camp again without a rifle, I hope somebody will kick me!” he growled.

The loup-cerviers came up to the foot of the ledge and sat down like dogs, just as they had done before; and there remained, eying him hungrily, and evidently determined that he should not pass.

“This is decidedly unpleasant,” was his mental comment. “I guess I might as well call for help. If I’m kept here too long, that guide will have a chance to get back and declare that he hasn’t been away from camp a minute.”

Then he lifted his voice.

“Yee-ho-o!” he called, funneling his hands and sending the penetrating sound across the island like the blast[24] of a bugle. “Yee-ho-o! Come over here, you fellows, and bring your guns with you!”

That ringing call roused out the boys at the camp on the other side of the little island.

“What’s the matter?” demanded Browning.

Hans Dunnerwust drew back, shivering, and covered his head with the blanket.

“Oxcoose me!” he begged. “Shust tell dem dot you sawed me. I vos doo sick do gid up, anyhow. I don’d t’ink anypoty lost me, dot I shoult go hoonding vor mine-selluf. Oxcoose me!”

“That sounds like Diamond,” said Merriwell. “Is he gone? Hello! Jack old boy, are you in your tent?”

To this there was, of course, no reply.

“It’s Diamond all right, I guess,” said Hodge, tumbling out. “At any rate, he isn’t in his blanket.”

“Is anyone else missing?” asked Merriwell.

He looked around on the gathering company. John Caribou was there, and had been one of the first to appear.

Merriwell funneled his hands and sent back a resounding “Yee-ho-o!” Then he shouted:

“All right, old man; we’ll be with you in a minute!”

Hans Dunnerwust pulled the blanket down off his face and inquired timidly:

“Is I goin’ do leaf eferypoty? I dink somepoty petter sday py me till he come pack. I don’d pen britty veil!”

“Perhaps some one had better remain at the camp,” said Merriwell, with a wink. “Otherwise the wolves will come and eat up our provisions.”

[25]

Hans came out from under the blanket as if he had been suddenly stung by wasps.

“Vollufs!” he gasped. “Meppe dey voult ead der brovisions instit uf me, t’inkin’ I vos dhem! Shimminy Gristmas! Vollufs! Vy didn’t you tolt me dere vos vollufs on dis islant?”

Merriwell did not answer. Having sent back that call to Diamond, he hurried into his clothing. Then he ran from the tents in the direction of the calls, with John Caribou running at his side, and the other members of the party trailing behind.

“Vait!” Hans was bawling. “Vot made me in such a hurry do run avay from you?”

Then he heard the crashing of the bushes, and, thinking the wolves were coming, he picked up a gun and a heavy case of ammunition and hastened out of the tent.

“Vait!” he screeched. “Vait! Vait!”

He was in his white nightshirt, and his head and feet were bare. With the gun in his right hand and the heavy ammunition case tucked under his left arm, he was as comical a figure as moonlight ever revealed, as he wallowed and panted after his comrades.

“This way!” shouted Diamond, hearing their movements.

The big cats began to grow uneasy, for they, too, heard that rush of footsteps across the island, though the sound was still some distance away. One of them got up and walked to the foot of the ledge, as if it had half a notion to climb up and try conclusions with Diamond at close quarters. But it merely stretched up to its full height[26] against the rock and drew its claws rasping down the face of the rock as if to sharpen them.

“Not a pleasant sound,” was Diamond’s grim thought.

The loup-cervier retreated, after having gone through this suggestive performance, and again sat bolt upright beside its mate and stared at the prisoner with shiny bright eyes.

But they became more and more uneasy, as the sounds of hurrying feet came nearer and nearer, and at last rose from their sitting posture.

Once more Diamond funneled his hands.

“Don’t come too fast,” he cautioned. “There are some wildcats here that I want you to shoot. You’ll scare them away.”

“All that scare for that!” laughed Merriwell, dropping into a walk. “I thought he was in some deadly peril.”

“I’m just wanting a wildcat,” said Hodge, pushing forward his gun to hold it in readiness. “No close season on wildcats, is there, Merry?”

“Think not,” Merriwell answered. “You go on that side with Browning and Caribou, and I will go on this side. Look out how you shoot. Don’t bring down one of us, instead of a wildcat.”

“Vait! Vait!” came faintly to their ears from Hans, who was struggling through the bushes, having fallen far behind in spite of his frantic haste. “Vai-t-t!”

As a seeming answer came the report of Merriwell’s gun.

One of the cats, scared by the noise of the approaching force, sprang away from the foot of the rock and[27] scampered toward the cover of the trees. Merriwell saw it as it ran and fired.

Instantly there was an ear-splitting howl.

The other cat leaped in the other direction and was shot at by Bart Hodge.

The young Virginian descended from the ledge in anything but a pleasant mood.

“They’re loup-cerviers, and they had me treed nicely,” he said; “but you got one of them, for I heard it kicking in the bushes after it let out that squall. I tumbled into their nest a while ago and that seemed to make them more than ordinarily pugnacious. I came——”

He stopped and stared. At Merriwell’s side he saw John Caribou, and he had been about to announce that he had followed Caribou and seen him row out into the lake. Clearly he had been mistaken.

“What?” asked Merriwell.

“Better see if I’m right about that cat,” suggested Diamond, his brain given a sudden and unpleasant whirl.

He was not in error about the cat, whatever he had been about the guide. The biggest of the loup-cerviers was found dead in the leaves, where it had fallen at the crack of Merriwell’s rifle.

While they dragged it out and talked about it, the young Virginian gave himself up to some serious thinking. If that was not John Caribou he had followed—and he saw now that it could not have been—who was it?

The question was easier asked than answered.

However, he decided to speak only to Merriwell about it for the present, and began to frame some sort of a[28] story that should satisfactorily explain to the others why he had left the camp.

Hans Dunnerwust came flying into their midst, dropping his gun and the case of ammunition.

“Vollufs!” he gurgled. “One py my site peen shoost now! I snapped his teeth ad me. Didn’d you see him?”

Hans’ wolf was the loup-cervier, which had run close by him as it scampered away.

“Only a wildcat,” Merriwell explained, as he turned to Diamond.

“A viltgat!” screamed Hans. “Dot vos vorser yit. Say, I peen doo sick do sday on dis islant any lonker. Vollufs mid wiltgats! Dunder und blitzens! Dis vos an awvul blace!”