Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1953

by The Raiders of Beaver Lake (v1. 1)

  "Stew beef,” said Jebs, somewhat plaintively. "Keep that, I love it.”

  "And what’s all this hardware down at the bottom of your sack?” Randy pulled out a coffeepot, a stew pan and a small kettle.

  "We’re going to have to cook all that truck, Randy. Shoo, you don’t want us to starve, do you?”

  "I don’t want us to founder, or to drop dead under a backbreaking load. Let’s cut down this stack of edibles.”

  Despite Jebs’s half-hearted protests, Randy firmly put aside the frankfurters, corned beef, canned peaches and oatmeal. He took only two big potatoes and as many carrots, and carried the stew beef to the kitchen where he opened the parcel and selected about half of the pieces. Then while Jebs watched, he scraped and sliced the vegetables he had taken, and found two onions in the kitchen bin. These he cut up and added. The mixed slicings he wrapped in a new parcel. Then he blended flour, salt and pepper, rubbed his mixture into the meat, and made a second parcel.

  "That’s for our hunter’s stew,” he announced to Jebs. "We’ll take a quarter of a pound of butter, and half the loaf of bread. That ought to be ample for supper and breakfast.”

  "But you want me to leave my pots and pans behind,” complained Jebs.

  "Come into my room and let me show you what I’ve got in the way of cooking tackle,” invited Randy, leading the way.

  On his cot he had laid out two mess kits, each with a clamped-down cover, and knife, fork and spoon inside.

  There were also two canteens, complete with fitted cups and covers of stoutly-lined olive-drab canvas.

  "Is that Scout stuff?” asked Jebs. "It looks more like army equipment.’’

  "It was army equipment, originally, replied Randy. “Dad gave me one set, and I borrowed the other from my grandfather. It dates back to the First World War. And here,” he reached into a corner, "are two regulation army packs. We can make our bedding into rolls that will fit in these and I’ve got one waterproof shelter half. I didn t bring a Scout ax into the Sandhills with me, but Uncle Henry will lend us a hatchet.

  "How’ll we make coffee?” asked Jebs. "We’ll have to bring along that pot of mine.”

  "No, here’s our coffee.” Randy held out his palm, on which lay several small, carefully sealed containers, no bigger than cartridges. "Soluble coffee, the kind G. I.’s carried with their emergency rations. It saves trouble and carrying.

  The boys returned to the kitchen. "We’re going to need dessert, though,” Jebs pleaded, picking up the can of peaches.

  "Okay, bring them along,” said Randy, with an air of granting a favor. "But never mind a can opener. I have a knife with a special can-opening blade. Let’s fill up these canteens of ours. They hold a quart apiece, and I’ll show you how to hang yours on your belt.

  Even after Randy’s reduction of the supply volume, the two packs proved taut and heavy when Jebs and Randy strapped them in place. Major Hunter walked with the boys into the woods, along the trail to Beaver Lake and to a point where Randy paused, looked carefully around, and finally nodded his head as though in confirmation of something.

  "We camp there,” decided Randy, and pointed.

  Jebs looked, then shook his head disapprovingly. "That’s one of the few spots in this part of the woods where there isn’t any shade,” he argued.

  ’That’s all to the good,” said Randy. 'The weather looks fine, but in case a storm should come up, we’re better off if we’re not under any trees. The branches will drip on us, and lightning is a lot more apt to hit a tall tree than to strike in the open. On top of that, the ground’s high and firm, and it’s down wind from Beaver Lake in case we want to study our beavers later tonight.”

  "Correct, Randy,” approved the Major. "Spoken like an expert. How do you intend to make your camp?”

  "Bed first,” said Randy. "We have plenty of time before we have to gather wood for the fire.” He looked around at the pines. "Fir tips make the best beds, but I thought some ends of longleaf pine branches might do.”

  "It’s worth trying,” Major Hunter said. He watched in silent interest as the two boys gathered several armfuls of shaggy twigs, taking care to injure no young trees that might not survive the plundering. Under Randy’s direction, a slight hollow was made big enough for two to lie in with plenty of room, and the bough ends were carefully spread to cushion the space. Over this Randy spread his waterproof sheet.

  "Looks like home already,” commented Jebs. "Now how about firewood?”

  "There’s plenty of it in sight from here, dead and dry,” said Randy.

  His grandfather smiled approvingly. "You’ve set up a good simple camp, boys. I won’t have any worries about you. See you in the morning.”

  He turned away toward the trail again. As he went out of sight among the trees, he paused and waved a farewell.

  As his grandfather vanished, Randy felt a return of the uneasy feeling that had possessed him again and again in the vicinity of Beaver Lake. Jebs guessed his mood, and attempted to joke him out of it.

  “Comb your hair back,” he said. “It’s standing up. What makes you feel we can’t spend the night out here all alone?” “What makes you think I think that?” Randy asked quickly. “Do you figure I have a case of the creeps?”

  “Yes. As a matter of fact, I’ve got a creep or two myself,” confessed Jebs. “But I came out here on purpose. What say we eat supper early, and then quietly observe? Maybe our Bickram beaver burglars will come sneaking around. If we’re quiet, we can surprise them.”

  “If they don’t surprise us,” said Randy. “Let’s get wood.” Jebs took the hatchet and cut some dead pine branches into kindling, then roamed farther for chunks of hard wood. Randy began to lay a fire, but Jebs returned and stopped operations with a dramatic gesture. Then he himself cleared away all trash from a slightly hollowed depression, and there laid a handful of dry twigs. On these he set a big pine cone. Near at hand he piled larger bits of pine, and beside him his hard wood chunks. Finally, wetting his finger, he tested for breeze, and produced a single match, struck it close to the windward side of the twigs and cone, and applied it. The twigs blazed up, then the dry, separated scales of the cone. Quickly Jebs laid smaller pine sticks across. When they caught and burned brightly, he added hard wood sparingly.

  Randy watched with admiration. “You country boys really know your firemaking,” he praised.

  “Shoo,” said Jebs, “I’ve been cracking that Scout handbook of yours. It tells how to make a fire with no more than two matches — Second Class Requirement Number Seven. I aim to pass that test a month from now.”

  “Good. Keep the fire small, for cooking.”

  Randy unwrapped the parcels of meat and vegetables. He opened the two mess kits, clamped their handles open, and shared the vegetables evenly among them, then added enough water to fill the kits halfway. At last he propped them carefully above the fire like frying pans, and added the chunks of meat.

  "Shouldn’t that stuff be put where it would heat up more?" asked Jebs.

  Randy shook his head.

  "No, let them simmer for about an hour and a quarter, and they’ll be ready."

  "So will I be ready," announced Jebs. "This camp-making has started my appetite to work early."

  They spread their bedding on the waterproof sheet, and cut more wood. Then they returned to the camp and sat watching the two kits of stew as they seethed and steamed. When it was pronounced done by Randy, the two boys produced bread and butter from the food pack and sat crosslegged, each with mess kit in hand, eating with a keen outdoor hunger. When the last scrap of stew had vanished, Randy took his knife with the can-opener blade and sliced the lid from the peach tin. He and Jebs spooned the dripping fruit halves onto the plate-like lids of the kits and quickly devoured them. As they finished scrubbing their kits and utensils in the sand, and rinsed them in the swift stream below Beaver Lake, it was nearly sunset.

  "Let’s quiet down a while," Jebs suggested.

  "The fire’s almost dead," sai
d Randy, reaching toward the woodpile.

  "Let it quiet down, too. We don’t need it anyway. The night’s going to be pure down balmy, and there aren’t any dangerous wild animals."

  "Except maybe Bickrams," added Randy.

  ''Except maybe Bickrams. And fires wouldn’t scare them, it would only warn them.”

  "I get what you mean.” Randy sat with his back to a tree, watching Beaver Lake.

  There was a drowsy quiet everywhere, like a gently draped blanket. The sunlight kindled red splotches on the quiet waters. These splotches deepened into darkness as the sun slipped away below the trees. Finally the fire went out, as if it, too, were weary.

  "Peaceful,” said Randy after a while. "You’d think this was the beginning of time. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a good-humored, kindly old dinosaur stick his long neck up out of the water.”

  "A turtle would help,” commented Jebs, and again they lapsed into half-dreaming silence.

  Half a moon was rising to eastward. Randy sighed deeply. He had almost forgotten his earlier mood of menace lurking somewhere.

  The moon had climbed well above the lakeside treetops, and the voices of night insects were blending into a sort of soft rhythm, when Jebs put out a broad hand and nudged Randy.

  "Listen,” breathed Jebs, so faintly that Randy could barely hear.

  Down by the lake, where a considerable thicket of brush made deep blackness, sounded a stealthy movement.

  "Beavers,” Randy whispered back.

  Just then there was a noise that sounded like whup, and a slight splash, as though a heavy foot had slipped on the lakeside mud and driven into the shallow water. A grumbling exclamation followed, and a higher voice muttered, "Shut up!”

  "Those aren’t beavers,” said Jebs in Randy’s ear.

  TRAPS!

  There was silence down by the lake, silence that lasted for long moments that seemed long hours. Plainly, whoever was there had made himself motionless and soundless, to learn whether any possible enemy had heard him and would come to investigate. Silent, too, were Randy and Jebs, sitting beside the dead fire at the camp.

  Eventually there came the stealthy sound of rustling brush, then another, as two bodies — big, cautious bodies — moved away from the lake. For a moment Randy thought they were heading straight toward the campsite, and his heart seemed to ram its way straight up his throat against the root of his tongue. But then two silhouettes emerged into an open stretch at the side of the water and paused close together, as if in consultation. They were upstanding human figures, and one of them carried a bunch of dangling objects like heavy plants on slack stems or creepers. When this figure moved, the dangling objects gave forth a muffled, metallic clink.

  Then the pair began to walk carefully along the shore toward the dam. They paused on the dam, and Randy could see one of them kneel down. Another muffled clink — something was being lowered into the water. The second figure stooped, as if to help arrange something. An electric torch flashed on for a moment or so, and a grunt of businesslike satisfaction floated back to the camp. Then another sound echoed through the lakeside thickets:

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  Like the driving of a tent peg.

  “What are they doing, Jebs?” Randy dared to whisper, but Jebs pinched Randy’s arm hard to make him keep quiet.

  After another moment, Randy saw Jebs lower himself carefully until he was on all fours, his face almost at ground level. Then Jebs began to creep, like a big, furtive cat, down toward the dam.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  The peg-driving noises resounded from where the two unknown figures held their position on top of the dam. Jebs moved slowly and skilfully, employing the knowledge and experience of many a nature- study expedition in the woods. The pine needles that carpeted the ground over which he crawled lay like a thick, heavy mat, and did not betray him by the telltale rustle that might have come from fallen leaves. Shrewdly Jebs moved aside to keep from jostling a bush, and gained the deep shadows under a tree beyond, where Randy could not see him. Thump. Thump. The peg-driving stopped. The two figures straightened themselves, finished the crossing of the dam, and moved along the far shore of the lake.

  As soon as he could see and hear them no more, Randy rose and advanced at a crouch. Remembering all of his stalking lessons, he avoided making noise, setting down his heel first, then lowering the sole with care to give stray crackling leaves and murmuring grass stalks a chance to collapse silently under the weight of his shoe. As fast as this policy of caution would allow, he made his way to the tree under which Jebs had ducked. He found his friend standing up close to the trunk, peering after the departed strangers.

  “Quiet,” whispered Jebs. “Hark at that.”

  The driving sound was coming again, from a short distance. Thump. Thump. Thump.

  “I know what they’re doing,” Jebs told Randy softly.

  "What?”

  "Tell you that later. Come on.”

  As before, Jebs dropped close to the ground and crept forward, this time straight toward the dam. Randy followed him on all fours. Jebs paused in the dampness just where the dam joined the natural shore of Beaver Lake, and slowly lifted his head to see beyond. As Randy imitated him, the rhythmic beating, pounding noise came again, from a greater distance still. Thump. Thump. Thump.

  The two figures were returning now. They crossed an open space, on the far side of the lake, and for a moment Randy saw the moonlight, pale on a heavy, half-lowered face. Jebs caught his arm, and both boys dropped flat.

  Thus close to the ground level, Randy heard the fall of heavy feet upon the dam and along its length. A few paces, and the two night prowlers were passing directly above them, so close that had Randy lifted his hand he could have seized an ankle. The two voices, one a growl and the other high and harsh, conversed softly. As they came to the point below which Jebs and Randy lay, one of them said something that sounded like tomorrow night. Then they were gone.

  Again Jebs took charge, touching Randy’s elbow to warn him to get ready. As the noise of the departing feet died away, both boys rose from under the dam and retreated to the shade of the tree that was their earlier observation post. Then they moved along high ground, holding their breath and straining their ears in an effort to hear the dying noises of departure. Apparently the two trespassers moved with some knowledge of the ground, and were heading away up the stream that fed Beaver Lake, toward some base of operations considerably distant. Randy and Jebs returned to their own camp. "Shoo,” said Jebs.

  This, the first syllable he had spoken aloud for many minutes, rang so clearly and solemnly in the night that Randy jumped.

  "One of that pair was Emory Bickram,” volunteered Randy. "I recognized his voice.”

  "Yes, and the other was his brother Ferd. I was more than saying my prayers when they stomped along the dam just above our heads. Ferd was carrying an ax, and Emory had a pistol in his hand one time when I got a good close look at him. If they’d spotted us there, I’ll lay my Christmas spending money they’d have gone to work on us with that ax and gun so hard there wouldn’t have been enough left of us to make a funeral worthwhile.”

  "But what was that bunch of dangling, clanking things they were lugging around?” Randy wanted to know. "I saw it when they were on the dam yonder, but they didn’t have it when they came back.”

  "Because they’d left the things back along the lake edge,” said Jebs. "Shoo, Randy, didn’t you figure out what they were doing here? Setting traps, that’s what.”

  "For our beavers!” exclaimed Randy, and turned suddenly, as though to head after the Bickram brothers. Jebs caught him by the shoulder.

  "Now don’t you go stumbling and rattling around this timber to chase those boys,” he warned earnestly. "Trapping beavers is a right serious break of the law, and coming onto posted property, the way your granddaddy has posted these woods, makes it twice as serious. If you caught up with them, it might get more serious still. Fur thieves are right apt to
be ugly customers when you crowd them the way you were aiming to do.”

  "I’m not going to let them catch our beavers in traps,” insisted Randy.

  "Me either. Look, they’ve gone a good piece away from here, having set out their trap line, and the situation being what it is they won’t be back —”

  "Not until tomorrow night,’’ added Randy. "They said so.’’ "At which time they figure to grab themselves off a few nice valuable pelts. Beaver’s better in winter time, of course, but they want to take their profits right now in the summer. And I don't aim to let them do it either. Come on.’’

  Jebs started for the lake shore, Randy at his heels. With some slow calculation, Jebs made his way to the brushy thicket clump where the accidental slip of a foot into the water had first brought the boys to the alert, with the realization that Beaver Lake was being prowled again. Jebs peered out over the water, thinking.

  "Give me that dry branch we just now kicked aside.” Randy turned and picked it up, a stick some ten feet long. Squatting beside the water, Jebs poked and stirred its surface, then probed for the bottom. After several attempts, he suddenly clicked his tongue happily and lifted the branch clear. To its ragged butt was clamped a steel trap, that was fastened to a chain. As Jebs brought it to shore the chain, too, lifted out of the water and proved to be moored to a short, strong piece of wood driven firmly into the mud at the very edge of Beaver Lake.

  "Take a look at that,” bade Jebs, hauling the trap close. "Double springs, and a pan that can be set as light as a hair trigger. And our beavers have all grown up hereabouts for years, without any experience with traps to warn them. Grabbing them would be as easy as shooting fish in a barrel.” "Why is that supposed to be so easy?” asked Randy. Then, putting out his hand for the trap, "Let’s carry that thing away and report it to the authorities.”