First at the North Pole; Or, Two Boys in the Arctic CircleStratemeyer, Edward
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First at the North Pole; Or, Two Boys in the Arctic Circle
Stratemeyer, Edward
Adventure stories; Arctic regions -- Discovery and exploration -- Juvenile fiction; North Pole -- Juvenile fiction
Chet wished with all his heart that he had his gun. But the weapon was
out of sight under the snow, and the moose was standing over the spot.
What to do next, the lad did not know. The moose did not show any
inclination to leave. He breathed heavily, as if his wound hurt him, but
Chet was certain that there was still a good deal of fight in the
creature.
"Perhaps he'll keep me here all night," thought the boy, dismally.
Presently an idea came to him to call for help. Andy might hear him, and
come up with his gun.
"That shelter is a long way off, but it won't do any harm to try it,"
Chet reasoned, and expanding his chest, he let out a yell at the top of
his lung power. He repeated the cry several times, and then listened
with strained ears. No answer came back but the gentle sighing of the
rising wind, as it swept through the woods.
"Huddled inside the shelter, I suppose, to keep warm," Chet murmured,
dismally. "I might yell my head off and it wouldn't do a bit of good.
I'll have to try something else."
What that something else was to be was not clear. He moved from one
branch to another to investigate, then a thought struck him, and he
resolved to act upon it.
With caution, so as not to attract the attention of the moose, he
climbed far out on a branch of the spruce, and thus gained a grip on the
wide-spreading limb of another tree. He swung himself to this, and
crawling along and past the trunk of the second tree, moved to the end
of a branch on the opposite side.
He was now a good twenty-five feet from where the moose was standing.
Would it be wise to drop down in the snow and make a dash for liberty?
"If he catches me, he'll kill me--he's so ugly from that wound," Chet
told himself. "If it wasn't so awful cold, I'd stay here till morning."
Cautiously he lowered himself toward the snow below. He was on the point
of dropping when he heard the moose move. The animal came on the rush,
and in drawing up into the tree again, Chet had one foot scraped by the
moose's antlers.
"No escape that way," he told himself, and lost no time in pulling
himself still higher into the tree.
Thus far he had managed to keep warm, but now, as he sat down to rest,
and to study the situation, he became colder and colder. Occasionally
the wind drove in some of the snow, to add to his discomfort.
Presently Chet thought of another idea, and wondered why it had not
occurred to him before. He knew that all wild animals dread fire. He
resolved to make himself a torch, and try that on the moose.
Making sure that he had his matches, he got out his jackknife and cut
off the driest branch that he could find. Then, holding it with care, he
struck a match, shielding it from the wind as best he could, and lit the
end of the branch. At first it did not ignite very well, but he "nursed"
the tiny flame, and soon it blazed up into quite a torch.
"Now we'll see how you like this," Chet muttered, and started to climb
to the lower branch once more.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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