CHAPTER III
AN AMAZING DISCOVERY
There was a chorus of shouts as the boys felt themselves falling,followed by a heavy thud as they brought up on the floor of the atticin a blinding cloud of dust and plaster.
They had been so close together that they all came down in a heap, ina waving confusion of arms and legs.
Fortunately the distance had been only a few feet, but it was enoughto knock the breath out of them, especially out of Jimmy, who had themisfortune of finding himself at the bottom of the heap.
For a minute or two they were too dazed by the suddenness of the fallto speak coherently, or in fact to speak at all. Then gradually theydisentangled themselves and got to their feet.
Their first sensation had been that of alarm and the second of shock.But after they had in some measure recovered from these, there came athird sensation of immense relief.
For what had seemed at first a disaster revealed itself as a blessingin disguise when they realized that at least they had escaped fromtheir pursuer. They were inside the house and had a number of ways ofescape through the doors or windows available to them. The tables hadbeen turned, and now it was the bear that was at a disadvantage.
They rubbed their eyes to get the dust out of them, and had barelybegun to see clearly when they heard a voice calling from outside thehouse. The accents were foreign and they could not catch clearly whatwas said, but the words, whatever they were, were promptly followed bya scratching and clawing that seemed to indicate that the bear wassliding down one of the pillars of the porch to the ground.
"We must warn him!" cried Bob. "The bear will get him, sure!"
They rushed down the stairs to the ground floor and looked through oneof the front windows. At a few yards' distance stood a man, short andstocky and of a swarthy complexion. A bandana handkerchief was woundaround his head and earrings dangled from his ears.
As they looked, the great body of the bear dropped from the lower partof the pillar to the ground, and the beast turned and rushed towardthe man.
"He'll be killed!" yelled Joe, in great apprehension. "Killed rightbefore our eyes! Why doesn't he run? Can it be that he is blind?"
They all shouted in unison to warn the newcomer of his danger.
Then an amazing thing happened. The man not only stood his ground, butadvanced toward the bear. The huge brute reared on his hind legs andthrew his great paws over the man's shoulders. But even while the boysshuddered at the nearness of the tragedy that seemed about to beenacted, the man laughed joyously and passed his hand caressingly overthe shaggy head and playfully pulled one of the brute's ears.
The boys looked at each other in amazement. The look gradually changedfrom one of wonderment to one of sheepishness. Then Bob turned thelock of the front door, threw it open and stepped out on the porch.
"Hello there!" he called.
The man turned around and looked at him in surprise. It was evidentthat he had not known until that moment that there was anybody in thehouse.
"Hello, you'sel'!" he replied, with a smile that showed a row ofgleaming white teeth.
"Is that your bear?" inquired Bob, while his comrades, who had alsocome out on the porch, taking care, however, to leave the door open incase a quick retreat should seem desirable, clustered about him.
"Sure data mya bear," was the response. "He verra gooda bear. He dancean' maka tricks while I sing and we maka lota da mon. Mya name TonyMoretto. I coma from da Italy two, nearly tree years ago. I spika daInglis good," he continued, with evident pride in his accomplishments.
"Doesn't he ever get cross and ugly?" asked Bob. "He looks as thoughhe could eat you in two mouthfuls."
"What dat?" asked Tony, in a tone of aggrieved surprise. "Bruno getugly? Nevair! He verra tame." And to prove it, he thrust his hand intothe bear's mouth and took hold of his tongue.
Instead of this evoking any protest, Bruno took it as part of a game,and acted just as a big good-natured mastiff might while romping withhis master.
"You see," said Tony, with evident pride. "He lova me. I show you howhe minda me."
He gave a word or two of command and began a monotonous chant, to thenotes of which the bear began to dance with an agility that wassurprising in so clumsy an animal. Then he lay down and played dead,turned somersaults and went through his whole repertoire of tricks forthe edification of the boys, who looked on with very differentemotions from those they had felt only a little while before.
"What I tella you?" said Tony complacently. "Bruno verra nice bear."
"What made him chase us then?" asked Joe. "We thought he was going toeat us alive."
"He chasa you?" said Tony, in surprise. "No, no. You mus' be mistake.He wan' to maka frens--to playa wi' you. Dat' ees it. He tink eet wasa game."
"I wish we'd known that half an hour ago," murmured Joe to hiscompanions. "It would have saved us a whole lot of trouble."
"How did he come to get away from you?" asked Herb.
"I verra tired," answered Tony. "I go sleepa in de woods. When I wakaup I no finda him. He hunt for grub in da woods. Den he seea you andtry to maka frens wi' you."
He took a chain from his pocket and fastened it to a collar on thebear's neck.
"Coma, Bruno," he said. "We go now."
"Wait," called Bob, and he and his companions emptied their pockets ofwhat loose change they had and pressed it on the Italian, who at firstshook his head.
"No," he said. "Bruno maka you much trubbeel."
"Never mind that," replied Bob. "You've given us a good show, and thiswill buy some grub for Bruno. He's a good old sport, and we don't bearhim any malice, even if he did give us the scare of our lives."
He was so insistent that Tony finally pocketed the money, and with asmile and another flash of his white teeth trudged off through thewoods with Bruno lumbering along clumsily beside him.
The boys watched the pair until they were out of sight and then turnedand looked at each other. Then the comical aspect of the whole affairappealed to them and they burst into inextinguishable laughter.
"Stung!" cried Bob, when at last he could get his breath. "Stung goodand plenty."
"Running away like all possessed when the bear was only lonely andwanted company," gasped Joe, wiping his eyes.
"He lova us, he wanta maka frens with us," chuckled Herb, and againthey went into convulsions of mirth.
"Well, fellows," said Bob, when they had regained some degree ofcomposure, "there's no doubt but that the joke is on us. But, afterall, we've nothing to reproach ourselves for, because we're not mindreaders and couldn't be supposed to know Bruno's intentions when hecame galloping toward us. There isn't a man on earth who wouldn't havedone just as we did under the circumstances."
"We can't say we haven't had excitement enough for one day," remarkedJimmy. "Gee, I feel as though I'd been drawn through a knothole. Whenyou fellows came down on me in the attic, I felt sure that you'd driveme through the floor."
"We showed good judgment in letting you fall first," said Joe, with agrin. "It was as good as falling on a rubber cushion."
"I guess I was born to be the goat," sighed Jimmy. "I'll bet I'm blackand blue all over."
"It's a safe bet that we're all pretty tired and sore," said Bob. "Andthat's too bad too, for we've got a lot of work to do before we leavethis old shebang. And we won't have any more than time to do it, forit's getting on pretty late in the afternoon."
"What do you mean?" asked Herb. "Seems to me we've worked hard enoughfor one day."
"All the same we've got to fix up that roof before we go," explainedBob. "It wouldn't be fair to leave it open to the wind and rain afterwe smashed it in."
"I tell you what!" exclaimed Herb, struck with a bright idea. "Jimmy'sthe one to do that to the queen's taste. He's had a lot of experiencein his father's carpenter shop, and he could make a far better job ofit than any of us could. It'll be a real treat to see him go at it."
"Sure," said Jimmy sarcastically. "Just the thing. I told yo
u that Iwas the goat. But all the same don't you try to hold your breath tillyou see me do it."
"We'll all go at it," declared Bob. "And we'll get it done in jigtime. Probably it won't be done like cabinet work, but we can make itreasonably tight and snug just the same. Come along now and let's getbusy."
They picked themselves up and made their way to the attic and set towork. They were hampered at first by lack of tools, but search of thehouse brought to light a couple of rusty hammers and saws, and theymanaged to make a fairly good job of it. At least they had made itsecure against rain or snow, and that was all they could hope to dounder the circumstances.
The sun was getting low in the western sky as they were putting in thelast nails. Suddenly Herb stopped and listened.
"Who's that calling?" he asked.
The Radio Boys at Mountain Pass; Or, The Midnight Call for Assistance Page 5
