Dec. 20, 1913. 
FOREST AND STREAM 
791 
A little later, however, his mood brightened. 
He picked up the dead goose, and the weight of 
it made him smile. 
“Well, me boy,” I heard him say in an under¬ 
tone, “ef you was only three or four days older 
than you are, be jabbers! phwhat a grand feed 
we’d have ternight!” 
This remark reminded me all at once that I 
was hungry, and as twilight was rapidly closing 
in we forthwith repaired to the interior of the 
shanty and cooked ourselves a supper to fit appe¬ 
tites created by the occasion. When we had fin¬ 
ished and while Curly was drawing grateful puffs 
from his stubby little clay pipe, I stepped outside 
to see what kind of weather we were having. 
The night was windy and biting cold. Not 
a star was to be seen, but in the west a faint 
streak of light left by the departed sun glowed 
weirdly on the horizon. Against it I could see 
the clouds like great dark ships, sweeping south¬ 
ward before the gale. Back of the shanty I 
could hear this selfsame gale clamoring and hiss¬ 
ing through the bullrushes. Taken all in all, it 
was a wild, unholy sort of night, and I started 
to go back into the shanty, when a sound from 
the black spaces of the marshland suddenly and 
sharply arrested my attention. 
If I had been in Africa I would without 
hesitation have said “lions.” Mingled with the 
howling of the gale, the sound, whatever it was, 
had a decidedly ominous and hair-raising quality. 
As I could see the lights of the New York Cen¬ 
tral lines gleaming straight ahead through the 
darkness, the solution of lions, however, seemed 
hardly acceptable. 
For some minutes I stood listening for the 
noise to be repeated. At last it came reverberat¬ 
ing across the marshes, at once horrific and ridic¬ 
ulous. I smiled softly and went in the shanty; 
nor did I mention to Curly, who was already half 
asleep, anything of what had taken place outside. 
We turned in at an early hour. The bunks 
were hard and comfortless, but evidently to my 
companion the softest couch could not have in¬ 
vited slumber more luxuriant. Soon his sten¬ 
torian snores were shaking roof and rafters, and 
it seemed to me that I lay awake for hours lis¬ 
tening to the rumpus. Finally I dropped off to- 
sleep. 
It must have been sometime about the middle 
of the night that I was roused to consciousness- 
by a noise outside the shanty. Distinctly I heard 
heavy footsteps, and the crunch, crunch of frozen 
earth. I reached over and grabbed Curly by the 
arm. 
“Wake up, Curly,” I whispered, shaking him,, 
“wake up.” 
There was no response and the snoring con¬ 
tinued without interruption. So I shook him a 
little harder. 
“Hey, Curly, wake up!” 
This time my efforts were rewarded, for he 
made a leap out of the bunk and landed on his 
feet in the middle of the floor. 
“Phwhat’s the matter!” he spluttered. “Be- 
jabbers, ye nearly took the arm off me.” 
“Hush, there’s something prowling round the 
shanty,” I cautioned in a low voice. 
We both listened intently. It was pitch dark; 
so dark that I couldn’t make out Curly’s figure 
even at a distance of a few feet, but his loud, ex¬ 
cited breathing was quite sufficient to locate his 
whereabouts. Just at this particular moment, 
the thing outside, whatever it was, collided with 
the shanty. Then followed a peculiar scraping, 
scratching sound, while our dwelling fairly trem¬ 
bled on its foundations. 
Curly made a bound across the floor. First 
strike against the stove. There followed a sul¬ 
phuric explosion and I ducked under the blanket 
he upset the table, and next I heard his shin bone 
so he couldn’t hear me laugh. 
“Where’s me gun, where’s me gun,” he mut¬ 
tered, groping about frantically in the dark. 
“Hold on a minute till I strike a match.” 
“I’ll not hold on ter anything but me gun,” 
he cried; then in a triumphant voice, “I have it— 
no—by hivens, it’s the axe!” 
The door of the shanty was kept closed by 
stout fishing cord wound around a nail. In the 
darkness Curly, with his fingers all thumbs, at¬ 
tempted to unwind it. Of course, as is always the 
case at such a crucial moment, the line became 
immediately and horribly tangled. This was too 
much for him. He gave the door an annihilating 
blow with the axe, and forthwith precipitated 
himself into a freezing zone of unknown dangers. 
By this time the noise outside had ceased. 
Now a deathlike stillness ensued, broken only by 
a faint sound of Curly’s stealthy footsteps. Then 
in a moment all was uproar and confusion. 
A loud, angry squeal from the fabulous mon¬ 
ster which had so rudely disturbed our sleep; a 
yell from Curly; a wild trampling of feet, fol¬ 
lowed each other in quick succession. The fabu¬ 
lous monster, whatever it might be, was possessed 
not only of an ill temper, but, judging from the 
character of the noises, an enormous avoirdupois. 
The clatter of its mighty iron shod feet was 
earth-shaking; the stampeding of its huge body 
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