Читать книгу The Outdoor Chums in the Big Woods: or, Rival Hunters of Lumber Run - Allen Quincy - Страница 1

“That looks like a challenge, Frank.”

“It was well fired, at any rate, Bluff!”

“I should say yes, because it knocked my hat clear off my head. Do we stand for that sort of thing, or shall we accept the dare?”

“There are half a dozen and more of the enemy against four Outdoor Chums, but what of that? This is the first snow of the fall, with a real tang in the air. Say yes, Frank, and let’s get busy!”

“Here are Bluff and Jerry ready to eat up that crowd in a snowball fight. What do you say, Will?”

“Oh, count me in, because I can see they’re just spoiling for it!” exclaimed the fourth boy in the party, who did not look quite so hardy as his comrades, although no weakling.

“Well, I should think it’d be a shame to miss it, when the snow is just soft enough to handle easily,” and Jerry Wellington held up a big round ball he had quickly manipulated in his practiced hands.

“That settles it. Everybody get busy making a supply of ammunition. Then we’ll charge their line, and give them as good as they send!”

The last speaker was Frank Langdon. His three comrades had always been proud to look up to Frank as their leader. They had been through a great many lively adventures together, and up to the present no one had ever found cause to regret the fact that when it came to deciding on their plans Frank’s word carried the greatest weight.

While they are feverishly stocking up with a supply of such ammunition as is required to win snowball battles, it might be well for the new reader to learn a few important facts concerning Frank and his chums, as narrated in previous volumes of this series.

They lived in the thriving town of Centerville, which was situated in one of the Middle States. Coming together in order to encourage the spirit of outdoor life, to their mutual profit, the four lively lads had called their little association the Rod, Gun, and Camera Club. In the initial story, under the name of “The Outdoor Chums; or, The First Tour of the Rod, Gun, and Camera Club,” were given numerous strange happenings that befell them on the occasion of their first camping trip together.

Later on they ran upon a mystery connected with an island that had a bad name in the neighborhood, and of course could not rest satisfied until they solved this puzzle to their satisfaction. In order to understand just what they did you must read the second volume, issued under the title of “The Outdoor Chums on the Lake; or, Lively Adventures on Wildcat Island.”

With the coming of Easter, and another chance to get abroad, the boys formed a plan to visit a section of country some miles from the home town. Here they found an opportunity to clear up a ghost scare that had been giving the country people of the neighborhood the time of their lives. It is all told in the pages of “The Outdoor Chums in the Forest; or, Laying the Ghost of Oak Ridge.”

Fortune was certainly kind to Frank and his chums. At Christmas time they were given a chance to pay a visit to the Sunny South, and had some wonderful adventures on a Florida river that ran to the Gulf. Aboard a motorboat that belonged to a cousin of Frank’s, and which was fully stocked with supplies, with the owner ordered to Europe for his health, they had the time of their lives, as told of in “The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf; or, Rescuing the Lost Balloonists.”

After this came another opportunity for a trip, this time to the Far West, where among the mountains and valleys of that wonderful country they found occasion to call themselves the luckiest of boys. Every one of them had a share in the exciting adventures that came their way, and it would be hard to tell which deserved the greatest credit for true manliness. You will be better able to decide that point for yourself after you have read “The Outdoor Chums after Big Game; or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness.”

Again it was summer, and the boys home from college planned a voyage down the great Mississippi on a houseboat belonging to Will’s Uncle Felix, at the time in New Orleans. There was something very queer about the conditions under which he proposed that they make this trip at his expense. The boys could not understand it at all when they started out, though anxious to accept the offer. Of course, during the progress of their cruise, the mystery began to clear up. That Frank and his friends carried their plans through to a climax can be proved by reading the sixth volume, just preceding this, called “The Outdoor Chums on a Houseboat; or, The Rivals of the Mississippi.”

And now we can return once more to the present conditions surrounding Frank and his three chums, Will Milton, Jerry Wallingford and Bluff Masters.

As they had been graduated a year and more previous to this time from private school, and had had one season at college, their presence at home with the advent of early winter needs explanation.

A fire had occurred, and part of the college buildings were in ruins. As the dormitory in which the four chums lodged had been burned to the ground, they lost a good part of their clothing, besides other things. Fortunately no lives were sacrificed in the blaze.

There being no suitable place at hand where their studies could be carried on until such time as hasty repairs were made, a portion of the pupils had to be sent to their homes for a month or two. It was arranged that they keep in touch with their studies and later on extra speed might push them up to their proper standing.

So it came about that they were home and wondering what they should do to pass away the weeks that must elapse before the summons back might be expected. Various projects had been suggested, although they only arrived in Centerville on the previous night; but up to the present nothing had been decided definitely.

There was an old trapper they knew, and with whom they had spent some happy days and nights on a previous occasion, and Frank was favoring a return visit. At any rate, they could settle this later on.

“All ready?” demanded Frank, when he had all the hard snowballs he could conveniently carry. The jeering cries of the six or seven boys anticipating the attack grew more and more strenuous.

“Wait till I make two more, and I’m with you!” begged Bluff, who had even filled his pockets with the hardest balls he could squeeze in his powerful hands.

“There’s our old enemy, Andy Lasher, in that bunch over yonder,” announced Jerry, who from previous fights with the one-time town bully had occasion to know the contour of Andy’s knuckles, since they had been printed on his face more than a few times.

“I wonder when he came back to town?” ventured Frank. “The last we heard of him he had to skip out because of some trouble he got into about taking things that didn’t belong to him.”

“Well, we’ve still an old score to settle with him,” observed Bluff, “so every chance you get, give him your hardest ball. Ready now, Frank!”

Frank led his forces to the attack.

“Hold your fire till we get close up!” he advised.

The consequence of this plan was that while they were greeted with a shower of missiles, some of which hit the mark, when the time came to commence a fusillade on their own account they had a full supply of ammunition, while the other side had more than half exhausted their stock.

It looked lively enough just then, with almost a dozen lads hurling the snowballs with might and main. All sorts of shouts accompanied the encounter, for of course they were pretty well aroused by the excitement of the battle.

The big fellow whom Jerry had called Andy Lasher seemed to be the real leader of the opposing band. Perhaps he had even organized the ambuscade so as to get even with Frank and his chums, because there was a long-standing account between them.

At any rate, it kept him busy dodging the cleverly aimed missiles that flew from the hands of Bluff and Jerry. They had singled him out for their especial attention, and at close quarters their aim was so good that pretty soon Andy failed to move fast enough, so that he found himself struck in the cheek, and as he started to dodge it was only to get another whack fairly in the eye.

Some people who had been passing stopped to watch the fight. Men remembered that they had once been boys themselves, and no doubt their blood tingled with rekindled memories of days long since gone, as they saw the hostile forces fiercely contending on the town street.

For a short time the entrenched battalion held its own, though Frank knew from the way some of Andy’s followers began to look over their shoulders that they were getting ready to retreat.

“Keep it going, boys!” he shouted to his three chums, as he scooped up more of the soft snow and started making fresh balls; “hit hard all along the line! We’ve got ’em wavering! Another rush, and the game is ours! Send in your best licks, and make every shot count!”

All of them were attacking Andy now. They realized that if he could be put to flight there must follow a complete collapse of his line; because these fellows were only held there by the fact that they feared Andy’s anger if they deserted him.

Andy had managed to make one last hard ball. He had even in desperation, as was afterward proven, snatched up a stone and hid it in the middle of the snowball he pressed between his half-frozen hands. This is reckoned a mean trick among most boys and frowned upon as much as hitting below the belt would be in a prize fight.

Frank saw that he had been selected as the victim of the bully. He managed to dodge in the nick of time, and the weighted missile, sailing across the street, smashed through the window of a house.

With the jingling of broken glass Andy Lasher gave a shout, and then with jeers of derision he and his followers vanished from sight, leaving the four outdoor chums to bear the brunt of the householder’s anger.