Red Hamblin Entertains by Raymond S Read online

  “We got to get an early start this charge of buckshot down the mountain.

  morning,” Red declared. “Them deers’ll be all Immediately the rifles opened up, and

  over the ridges, a purty morning like this.

  there was a fusillade.

  Mebby we’ll get that old bear an’ her cubs

  “Wha—what you shooting at?” D.

  started, too—the ones Mr. Vroon saw!”

  Cuecy exclaimed.

  They hurried down to the lobby, and

  “Heard sunthin’!” Red exclaimed

  by the time they were washed the cook called briefly. “Same’s you did last night! I didn’t them to breakfast. D. Cuecy, hopeful of hear nothin’ squeal, so I guess there wa’n’t escaping to another seat than the one next to nothin’ hit that time!”

  Red, failed. He discovered that once a man In half an hour, D. Cuecy was

  claims a seat at the table, it is his for the breathless; in an hour he was steaming with duration of his stay.

  sweat, and before mid-morning he was so

  If he feared a repetition of the previous tired he could hardly stagger along. Over and night’s overliberal helping, he was over again he had declared that he never had

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  hunted that way before—didn’t know people need some. That gun of his’n makes a good ever hunted that way—always had supposed

  roar, an’ we can hear him when he gets

  people must keep quiet when they hunted!

  excited.”

  “This ain’t still huntin’!” Red declared.

  There was a laugh, and the crew

  “This is what we call drivin’ ’em! You see, walked slowly toward the camp, which was

  when you get ’em all stirred up an’ runnin’ all hardly a quarter of a mile farther on. They around, good, all you got to do is set down, were jubilant. It had been a hot and breathless an’ purty soon the deers an’ bears’ll be ramble through the woods, but they had had runnin’ right up to you, ker-slam! Got to keep their reward in watching the “city feller”

  yer eyes peeled, then, er they’ll jump on you, tripping and stumbling and staggering along.

  like’s not!”

  “Mr. Vroon will certainly be pleased,

  “You bet!” Ross Comply exclaimed.

  greatly pleased, the way you boys have

  “I’d ruther be gouged by a hemlock bark spud entertained D. Cuecy!” Foreman Bigger

  than git hit by one of them deer’s dew claws!”

  grinned, when they had given him a minute D. Cuecy was staggering when Red

  description of the ridges they had gone over, stopped all hands with a yell. There are many of the swamps they had crossed, of the ledges tasks less exacting, less exhausting than they had climbed.

  following a score or so of loggers six or eight

  “The entertainment ain’t only jes’

  miles up and down mountains and through

  begun!” Red declared. “Long about ten-eleven heavy Adirondack timber.

  o’clock we’ll have to go out ’n look for him!

  D. Cuecy dropped upon a log and sat

  We kinda want to listen, so’s he won’t get too with lower jaw hanging, catching his breath.

  fur away!”

  He was so tired that his face was streaky white The camp guest was not at his place

  and red, and his lips pinched out and bluish.

  for the big Sunday dinner. But two or three

  “Here’s a good place to wait. We’ll set

  hours later, after taking naps in the dormitory, D. Cussy here, and the rest of us’ll scatter shaving and washing, doing the various odd around—you set here!” Red ordered, and little jobs that fall to the Sundays in a log immediately the loggers started away on their camp, Red and Slip Wanda went out to see if made courses.

  the hunter was still at his post.

  “Here’s yer gun!” Red handed him the

  They were half-way to the gap in the

  double-barreled shotgun. “Set here! Don’t ridge where D. Cuecy had been left when they move! When ye see a big buck, er bear, er heard the double-barreled gun roar twice.

  anything you want to kill, plug ’im! Then

  “Shootin’ at some noises!” Red spat in

  holler! We’ll all be around here, settin’, an’

  disgust.

  “Them kind ain’t fit to go out

  waitin’ fer them deers to stir aroun’ our way!”

  without a chain an’ collar on their necks! He’d Then Red hurried away at top speed,

  probably kill us if he hearn us!”

  watching over his shoulder, for he was afraid

  “I ain’t goin’ clost to him!” Slip swore

  that D. Cuecy might begin to shoot before he vehemently. “I never wanted to be took for no was out of sight. A few minutes later Red buck!”

  joined the rest of the loggers a quarter of a From the top of the ridge they could

  mile away, in the direction of the log camp.

  look into the gap. There sat D. Cuecy, with his

  “Leave him any cartridges?” some one

  shotgun ready for instant action, looking first asked.

  one way and then another. His alertness was

  “You bet!” Red grinned. “’Bout a commendable. The woodsmen, after a few hundred. Come along toward night, and he’ll minutes, returned to the camp.

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  7

  “He’s all right,” Red announced. “He

  out where he is, and watch him! Probably he’s ain’t learned much, yet!”

  crazy, now!”

  The day waned, and a little while

  They hunted along the ridge back and

  before dark the boys heard more shooting—

  called down into the gap from a safe distance.

  four quick shots—out toward the gap where

  “Hey-y! You there?” Red roared.

  D. Cuecy was sitting “hunting deer.”

  “You bet!” a shrill voice replied. “I

  “Whooe-e-e! He’s killed ’im now!” can see your light—right down this way!”

  Red grinned, “and the boys all laughed. “By

  “He don’t seem scairt up much,” Red

  an’ by we’ll hear ’im tryin’ to come to camp turned to Bigger with disappointment. “Got a with his meat!”

  fire, too! See it! The son of a gun!”

  They had left D. Cuecy out on the

  Sure enough, D. Cuecy had built a

  ridge to “enjoy the night.” They knew that little fire between a rock and a log, the sparks long since the tenderfoot had begun to grow of which they could see flying up. They roared hungry and that he was now expecting them to down the slope, talking, laughing and shouting arrive any minute to lead him to the warm for the hunter not to shoot.

  shanty of the log jobbers.

  “What luck’d you boys have?” D.

  After supper, in the dark of the night,

  Cuecy demanded the first thing. “See any deer they went outside and listened. They had not or bears, or anything?”

  long to wait. They heard a cry up on the

  “Only a few shots at ’em, here and

  mountain, a long, ascending wail. It was there,” Red admitted. “I suppose you got a followed by the hollow thunder that a shotgun few?”

  makes in the gloom. For answer, there was a

  “You bet!” D. Cuecy exclaimed. “My!

  hooting by a great white owl Somewhere But game’s awful thick around these woods!

  down in the creek swamp. The woodsmen

  Why, seems like there must be hundreds of kept silent.

  deer and bears around—right over there.

  “We’ll go get him, after a time!” Red

  Come on, I’ll show you!”

  grinned. “Two—three hours up there’ll do ’im Twenty yards a
way, lying sprawled in

  a lot of good!”

  the gap runway was a two-hundred-pound

  The woodsmen were restless, however,

  buck, and then, part way up the side of the and an hour later they took lanterns and gap, opposite, D. Cuecy showed them two started out to find the man. They spread out on bears, an old mother and her yearling cub.

  the ridge side, and they whooped and yelled at

  “Two got away!” the hunter

  each other at the top of their voices. exclaimed. “My! If only I’d had a repeater! I Sometimes they stopped to listen; when they couldn’t shoot but two, and the others ran so listened they heard loud response to their fast—I’d been awful hungry, but I killed a cries, and they all laughed. D. Cuecy was rabbit and a partridge, and I ate them, and waiting for them!

  wasn’t it lucky I had one of those woods salt-

  “I bet he won’t forget hisn’s fustest

  cellars in my pocket? I’m going to take these deer hunt!” Red laughed. “He’ll be that plumb right home to-morrow and then I’m coming

  wore out an’ hongry that he’ll never rest till back to hunt around here a month. I got some he’s hit the trail fer home—and Old Vroon’ll friends’ll be just wild to come! I just must tell send us a Thanksgivin’ dinner of thanks on his Mr. Vroon how awful good you’ve been to

  part, riddin’ him of that kind of a bug!”

  me! And say, boys, I must do something for

  “Look out the darned fool don’t shoot

  you, letting me have the best place to sit, the any of you!” Foreman Bigger warned. “Find way you did! I’ll make it right, I certainly

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  shall!”

  mistaken for deer, when the chappies were all

  “I guess we’d better cut some poles to

  there. No one could tell. Foreman Bigger

  pack them—them games in,” Red turned to

  announced that every man would have to wear the speechless loggers. “I just knowed that a red shirt for safety’s sake.

  feller’d plug’em. When’d the bears come

  Instead of D. Cuecy and his friends

  along?”

  coming, however, Mr. Vroon arrived.

  “Just after I shot the rabbit for supper.

  “Good evening, boys!” he greeted

  I shot twice at the rabbit and then the bears them at the supper table. “I thought I’d thank came running—”

  you for entertaining D. Cuecy so—so well. He

  “They smelled the bloods—fresh wrote and told how you drove deer and bear to blood!” Red explained.

  him in flocks. There’s a wagon load of stuff D. Cuecy Pelyon talked to midnight,

  coming in, special, for your Thanksgiving telling the boys what he had done and how he dinner. But he couldn’t come up himself with had done it. In the morning he saw his game his friends, not this year.”

  loaded on the tote wagon on its way to the

  “Well now, that’s too danged bad!”

  railroad. He departed with the wagon, but he Red exploded.

  left his luggage behind, except one suit case.

  “Yes—yes,” Mr. Vroon shook his

  He announced that he was going to return

  head. “He specially said I should thank Mr.

  immediately. He was going to bring his Hamblin. I thought at first I’d just send friends, he said, and they’d all enjoy it so word—but, say, boys, what did you do to

  much, among such good fellows!

  him? I couldn’t make out from what he said.”

  “Bring ’em on!” Foreman Bigger cried

  “Nothin’!” Red exclaimed, grinning

  grinning. “We kin stand it, if you can!”

  sheepishly. “It’s what he done to us what Out in the chopping the boys bothers me!”

  wondered how many of them would be