CHAPTER II
RUMBLINGS OF COMING TROUBLE

“Oh! Did you see that hump on his back, Rob? What could it have been?” gasped Tubby, gripping the sleeve of the other’s khaki coat in his excitement.

“Why, Tubby, don’t you know that was the pirate of the northern woods?” cried the equally aroused Andy, who had also been stupefied while the little drama was being enacted, and only recovered the use of his hands, and realized that he was carrying a gun, when the leaping buck had completely vanished from view.

“Do you mean a filibuster?” asked the stout boy incredulously.

“Well, yes; you might call a panther by that name,” laughed Rob.

“A panther!” echoed Tubby, thrilled more than ever. “Was that what the bunch across the poor deer’s shoulders was, Rob? Oh, to think we didn’t get a chance to use a gun and save the noble buck!”

“It all happened too fast for me,” admitted Andy dejectedly. “Besides, I don’t believe any of us could have hit that crouching beast and not harmed the deer.”

“No, that’s right, Andy,” said Rob convincingly. “After all, we only chanced to see one of the woods tragedies that are taking place right along. Panthers must have meat to live on, and deer are their legitimate prey. That’s why there’s never a close season on the gray buccaneers, nor on wildcats and wolves.”

Tubby did not express any timidity in words, but it might have been noticed how he somehow managed to keep a bit closer to his chums after that. If there were such savage “varmints” at large in the country along the International Boundary, Tubby did not think it wise to take any unnecessary chances; not that he would have admitted being afraid, of course; but then, as he always said, he offered a shining mark, because a discriminating beast was sure to pick out a plump morsel when foraging for a dinner, and consequently lucky Andy would get off scot-free.

They continued to walk on in a clump, and chatting as they advanced, though Rob kept his eyes and senses constantly on the alert for signs that would tell him what he wished to know.

“I’ve heard a lot about the Maine woods, and how all sorts of people manage to get a fair living from them, winter or summer,” Tubby was saying later on. “Rob, you know something of such things, because you’ve been up here before. How about it?”

“It’s just as you say,” Rob replied. “Thousands on thousands of men find ways to wring a living from Nature’s storehouse up here in the great pine forests. I’ve met some of them personally, and asked questions. I’ve been told all about the others, and what interesting stunts they do.”

“Tell us a little about them, please, Rob?” urged Tubby.

“Well,” began the scout leader, always willing to oblige his chums when it was within his power to accommodate, “first of all there are the thousands of guides, both natives and Indians, who in summer take parties along the waterways of Maine in canoes, fishing for trout, bass, or salmon in the countless streams and lakes; and in the fall serve the hunters in their camps, when they are after deer and moose. They go to make up quite a little army in themselves, and their wages amount to many hundreds of thousands of dollars per annum. Next in order and importance, I expect, is the gum-hunter.”

“Well, I declare, what is a gum-hunter, anyway, Rob?” demanded the listening Tubby. “I’ve heard of a gumshoe man; but do hunters go shod that way in the Maine woods?”

That allowed Andy, better posted, to have another little explosion,

“Oh, dear innocent, trusting soul, you’ll be the death of me yet!” he gasped, between his fits of laughter. “For pity’s sake, Rob, tell him quickly what a gum-hunter is, or he’ll surely burst with curiosity.”

“You must know, Tubby,” said Rob, himself smiling broadly, “that spruce gum is used in immense quantities, not only in the manufacture of chewing gum but for several other purposes.

“It is found here in the pine woods of Maine by expert searchers, who at a certain season of the year go forth and gather their harvest. They probably make good wages at their work, too, or there would not be so many of them keeping at it year after year. Some other time I’ll go further into details, and tell you how they find the deposits of gum. Some of them even gash trees, and come back in due season to garner the crystal profits that have exuded from the wounds. But the gum-hunter is only one of many chaps who earn a living in these Maine forests. There is the hoop-hole man you’re apt to run across in any section where it happens there’s a second-growth crop of ash saplings.”

“What does he do, Rob?” asked Tubby.

“He gathers the saplings, and occupies his evenings in camp by splitting and assorting and fastening them in bundles. These are later taken away in bulk. They are intended as hoops for barrels, nail-kegs, and such objects. The hoop man does a cracking big business in season, let me tell you.

“Then there’s the man who gets out the poles themselves to be used for various purposes; the fellow who hunts for certain crooked woods calculated to make good boats’ knees; the sassafras hunter; the ginseng and other root man, who knows where to pick up a little fortune in discovering patches of wild weeds that possess a marketable value when the roots are dug and properly cured; the herb gatherer; and last but far from least the bee man, who goes about looking for hives of wild bees in hollow tree-tops, so he can gather hundreds of pounds of honey.”

Tubby looked helplessly around him.

“Well, well,” he was heard to say, “you never would believe fortunes could be dug out of such forlorn-looking woods as these. It’s simply wonderful what some men can pick up, when others are as blind as bats in the daytime. I’m going to keep my eyes open. We might run across a diamond field.”

“Well, you may mean that as a joke,” said Rob, “but rare gems have been found around here, which brings up another calling that some men have followed. That is searching all the streams for mussels, because some pretty valuable fresh-water pearls have been discovered, they say, in Maine bivalves.”

“It beats all creation how many sources of revenue a smart man can unearth, if only he keeps his wits about him,” remarked Andy, who, apparently, was hearing this last bit of information for the first time. “If this terrible war continues much longer there’s likely to be another lot of professionals working industriously up here in the woods of Maine. They’ll be the friends of the Central Empires, who want to give Old England and her Colonies a backhanded blow by cutting off the supply of munitions and supplies that keeps on flowing toward the coast day after day.”

“Oh, why can’t the nations of the Old World keep the peace like it’s been kept for a hundred years between Uncle Sam and his big northern neighbor?” sighed the tender-hearted Tubby sincerely. “Here’s a boundary of over three thousand miles, and not a single fort to mark the dividing line; whereas over across the water, look at the enormous fortresses France and Belgium and Germany have maintained, though none of the Belgians’ stood the awful pounding of those enormous guns brought up by the Kaiser’s troops.”

“There’s a good reason for that, Tubby,” explained Rob. “Americans and Canadians speak the same tongue, and as a whole have the same aspirations. They understand each other, you see. It’s different over in Europe, where different nations hate like poison. We don’t seem to meet with the same measure of success down along our Mexican border, because those greasers never can understand our motives, for we think along entirely opposite lines.”

“When are we going to have a great World Peace, and war be abolished?” begged Tubby, almost piteously.

“Search me!” said Andy. “Because I don’t believe such a thing ever will be, as long as human nature is like it is; though of course I’d be glad to see it brought about. If the nations of the world could only form some sort of practical union, like that of the States now, and so were bound to keep the peace, it might be done. Happy the man who has a hand in such a vast undertaking. If the chance came to me to handle the steering wheel of such a glorious job, why, I’d feel as lofty as – as that hawk soaring right now away up there in the blue heavens!”

Tubby mechanically followed the extended finger of the speaker, and then uttered a sudden startled cry.

“Hawk!” he ejaculated derisively. “That shows your ignorance, Andy. Hawk, do you say? Why, bless your simple and confiding nature, don’t you know that object away up near the fleecy white clouds, and heading due north at this minute, is nothing more or less than an aeroplane? Rob, am I right?”

Rob was himself staring upward, and he hastened to reply:

“That’s just what it is, Tubby. After seeing so many of those mosquitoes of the upper air currents soaring above the hostile armies across the big pond, you are able to tell one the minute you glimpse it. Yes, that’s an aeroplane, as certain as that we are standing here gaping up at it. I want you to notice that it’s heading directly so as to cross the International Boundary line.”

“What does that mean, Rob?” questioned Andy curiously, meanwhile continuing to crane his neck.

“Well, I’m only making a guess,” Rob ventured. “The chances are that pilot up yonder may be connected with some vile plot to destroy railroad property in the Dominion of Canada, and is now bent on spying out the land so as to make a chart of the country.”

CHAPTER III
BY AEROPLANE ACROSS THE BORDER

When the leader of the Eagle Patrol made this astounding assertion both of his friends betrayed additional interest. Indeed, it was a question whether Andy or Tubby, by the rapt expression on their faces, showed the greater excitement.

Tubby had one great advantage over his comrade. He had been abroad with Rob and Merritt Crawford, and had watched aeroplane pilots, both of the Allies and the Germans, shooting like meteors across the skies, bent on their work of learning what was going on back of the enemy’s lines so as to give points to those who handled the monster guns far in the rear, allowing them to drop their shells exactly where most wanted.

“Well, to think of the nerve of that fellow!” exclaimed the indignant Andy. “He snaps his fingers at the proclamation of the President about all true Americans standing for strict neutrality. Why, he’s meaning to give those Canucks the best chance ever to protest and claim damages from our Government. Isn’t that a fact, Rob?”

“Just what it is, Andy,” replied the scout master, watching the course of the small object so far up in the air that it resembled a giant bird.