“There is too much danger of finding him,” was the significant reply of Bob.
The point of this remark was so apparent to all that they smiled and agreed that the best thing they could do was to return to camp. They naturally felt exhausted after their lively experience with the animal, of whose pluck they had gained a better knowledge than ever before.
“Suppose there had been two of them,” remarked Tom, leading the way down the mountain path.
“Then there wouldn’t have been any of us,” replied Jim, who was walking next to him, Bob Budd bringing up the rear.
“I don’t believe there’s half so much fun in hunting as a good many people fancy,” was the sage observation of young Wagstaff, who found it so much easier to walk down than up the path, that he felt inclined to discuss their recent experience.
“Well, for those that like that kind of sport, why, that’s the kind of sport they like. As for me, I’d rather stretch out in the camp and take things easy.”
This picture was so fascinating to the others that they hastened their footsteps so as to reach their headquarters with the least possible delay.
“I can’t help feeling grateful for one thing,” remarked Bob, from the rear of the procession.
“What’s that?” asked Tom.
“That Jim shot poor Hero instead of me. I can’t understand how I escaped, for we weren’t more than twenty feet apart, and Jim was fully as far as that from the buck when he took such careful aim.”
“My aim was all right,” replied Jim, “but after the charge left the gun the hound and the buck changed places. If they hadn’t moved the game would have caught it.”
Since, as I have explained, large game was exceedingly rare in that section of the country, and since, also, the Piketown Rangers had been unusually favored in scaring up a fine buck on such short notice, it would seem they had no reason to believe there was any probability of encountering any more quadrupeds larger than a rabbit.
All the same, however, each member of the party should have seen to it that his gun was loaded before moving from the scene of the flurry with the buck. Such is the rule among hunters, and you will admit that it is a good one.
Nevertheless, all were trudging down the mountain-side with empty weapons and with never a thought of preparation for meeting any more game.
Had the buck suddenly made his appearance nothing would have remained for them but to take to their heels; but inasmuch as they would have done that if their guns were ready, I don’t see that it made so much difference after all.
A short distance farther the trio reached a tiny stream of icy cold and clear water, which bubbled from the rocks only a short distance away on their left.
Naturally they were athirst again, and, since all their flasks had been exhausted long before, they were driven to the necessity of slaking their thirst with the aqua pura.
This was done in the original fashion with which I am quite sure all my boy readers are familiar. Lying on their faces they touched their lips to the sparkling fluid, and each drank his fill.
“Ahem!” sighed Jim McGovern, drawing the back of his hand across his mouth, “that aint so bad when you can’t get anything better.”
“Yes,” assented Bob, “when a fellow is dying with thirst he can make out very well on that stuff, but it’s mighty thin.”
“I would hate to be obliged to stick to it,” added Tom.
And yet every one of that precious party knew in his own heart that the ingenuity of man cannot compound a nectar to be compared in soulful, refreshing deliciousness with the tasteless, colorless, odorless drink of nature.
Stick to that, boys, and never touch a drop of the enemy which, put in the mouth, steals away the brains and wrecks not only the body but the immortal soul.
“I think I can go a little more of that,” said Jim, kneeling down again and helping himself as before; “I shouldn’t wonder now that if there was a tax put on water the same as on whiskey a good deal more of it would be drunk.”
Tom Wagstaff was standing a few feet farther up the streamlet, carefully scrutinizing the ground.
“What are you looking at?” asked Bob Budd.
“Aint those dents the tracks of some wild animal?” he asked, pointing to the damp, yielding earth on the other side.
Jim and Bob stepped beside him and scrutinized the marks that so interested their companion.
“By jingo!” exclaimed Jim, “they are the tracks of something, and if they were made by a man, then he’s got the queerest feet I ever seen on anybody.”
Bob stepped across the brook and stooped down that he might examine the impressions more closely.
“What do you s’pose?” he asked, looking up in the faces of his companions with a scared expression.
“We s’pose we don’t know what made the tracks.”
“But guess,” insisted Bob, with provoking deliberation.
“An elephant?”
“No.”
“A hippopotamus?”
“Nothing of the kind.”
“How can we guess?” asked Jim, impatiently; “if you know anything about it let us know, and if you don’t know, say so.”
“Those tracks were made by a big black bear!”
CHAPTER XXV
UP A TREE
“Gracious!” gasped Tom Wagstaff, “let’s run!”
“I agree with Tom,” added Jim, glancing furtively around, as though he expected to see the dreadful beast rush out of the woods after them.
“You’re a fine set of hunters, aint you?” sneered Bob; “after coming out to hunt game you want to run when you strike the trail of the very creature you’re looking for.”
“I aint looking for bears,” said Tom, “I haven’t lost any.”
“And besides,” added Jim, “there isn’t any fallen tree here where we can crawl under to get out of the way.”
“But there’s plenty of trees which you can climb—there he comes now!”
Tom and Jim each glanced affrightedly around, not knowing which way to run to escape the dreaded brute.
But it was a joke of Bob’s, and he made the woods ring with his laughter, while, as may be supposed, the others were in no amiable mood.
“I don’t see any fun in that sort of thing,” growled Tom.
“You may do like the boy in the fable, who shouted ‘Wolf!’ once too often,” added Jim, ashamed of his weakness.
The next instant Tom Wagstaff shouted: “There he comes and no mistake!”
Tom and Jim were standing on one side of the streamlet, facing Bob on the other side, so that his back was turned toward the point at which they were gazing.
The expression on the countenance of the couple was that of extreme alarm, though such a brief time had elapsed since Bob had given them a scare that they had not yet recovered from it.
“You’re right!” Jim added, instantly, as he and Tom wheeled and dashed off at the top of their speed through the woods.
Bob was determined they should not fool him. He laughed again in his hearty fashion, throwing back and shaking his head.
“You can’t come that, boys!” he called, “it’s too soon after my little joke on you.”
“But, Bob, we aint joking,” shouted back Jim, looking over his shoulder, but still running; “the bear is coming as sure as you are born.”
“You can’t fool me.”
Bob had not the remotest suspicion that his friends were in earnest, but the sight of them climbing the same tree led him to think they were pushing their poor joke with a great deal of vigor.
At this same moment he heard a crashing and trampling among the bushes behind him, and, checking the words on his lips, turned his head.
The bear was coming!
An enormous fellow of the ordinary black species had been descried by Tom and Jim when less than a hundred yards away, and he was advancing straight toward the spot where the three were standing.
They were in dead earnest, therefore, when they f
led, calling to Bob the frightful news.
Had not Bob just played a joke on them he would not have doubted their sincerity, so that in one sense his peril was a punishment for his own misdoing.
It need not be said that the laughter on Bob Budd’s lips froze, and he made a break after his companions, who had so much the start of him.
“Gracious!” he muttered, “I didn’t think they were in earnest; I’m a goner this time sure.”
Nevertheless he had no thought of sitting down and waiting to be devoured by bruin, who lumbered along in his awkward fashion, rapidly drawing near him.
Bob’s hat went off, his gun was flung from his hand, and with one bound he landed far beyond the edge of the streamlet and made after his friends, throwing terrified glances over his shoulder at the brute, which took up the pursuit as though it was the most enjoyable sport he had had in a long time.
Once more the exasperating vines got in the way, and the panic-stricken fugitive fell sprawling on his hands and knees, bounding instantly to his feet and making for the tree where his friends had secured refuge.
By this time the bear was almost upon him, so close indeed that he reached out one of his paws to seize his victim.
No words can picture the terror of Bob Budd when he felt the long nails scratching down his back and actually tearing his coat, but bruin was a few inches too short, and the youth made such good time that he struck the tree a number of paces in advance of his pursuer.
The fugitive, however, did not stop, for before he could climb the brief distance necessary to reach the limbs, the beast would have had him at his mercy. He therefore continued his flight, yelling in such a delirium of fright that he really did not know what words escaped him.
“Why don’t you come down?” he called to his friends, “and give me a chance? Let him chase you awhile.”
It is unnecessary to state that neither Tom nor Jim accepted the urgent invitation of their imperiled comrade.
“Run hard, Bob, and show him what you can do!” called back Tom, who really thought it was all over with their leader.
This shout accomplished more than was expected. The noise led the bear to look up the tree, where he observed the two boys perched but a short distance above him. He seemed all at once to lose interest in the fugitive, who continued his flight some distance farther, when, finding his enemy was not at his heels, he sprang for a sapling, up which he went like a monkey.
The trouble with Bob, however, was that he climbed too high. It was a small hickory, not much thicker than his arm. This kind of wood, as you are aware, is very elastic, and the first thing the lad knew was that the upper part, to which he was clinging, bent so far over that it curved like a bow, and before it stopped he had sank to within six or eight feet of the ground.
Had the bear continued his pursuit, Bob would have been in an unfortunate predicament; but, casting a glance behind him, he noticed the beast had stopped under the tree supporting Tom and Jim.
Two courses were open to him, either of which would have secured his safety.
He had time enough to drop from the sapling and take to a larger one, up which he could have climbed and been beyond harm; or he could have slid a little farther down the hickory, so as to allow it to right itself, and he still would have been safe, for a bear is unable to climb a tree so slight in diameter that his paws meet around it.
But Bob was too terrified to do either. He simply held fast, and did the worst thing possible: he continued to shout for his companions to come to his help.
By this means he once more attracted the notice of bruin to himself, whereas, if he had held his peace, he would have given the whole of his attention to the two boys in the larger tree.
The bear had reared on his haunches, seemingly with the intention of striving to reach the lads, when he turned his head and took a look at the one in the sapling.
Stupid as is bruin by nature, he saw that it would be easier for him to reach the single fugitive than the others, and he proceeded to do so.
You need not be told that Tom and Jim, like Bob, had thrown away their guns again in their frenzied flight, through fear that they would retard their efforts to get beyond his reach.
Poor Bob, when he found himself once more the object of the animal’s undivided attention, felt as though he might as well let go and be devoured at once. All the same, though, he hung fast and continued his cries, which, had there been time, would have brought help from the distance of a mile.
He was clinging to the sapling with both hands, and his two feet, that were wrapped about the small trunk, only a short distance below his shoulders. This caused the centre of his body to hang down like the lower point of a horseshoe, the curve being sharper than that of the bowed hickory.
Halting directly under the howling lad, the bear reared on his haunches, reached upward with one paw and struck Bob a sharp blow. It caused him no material damage, but set the body to swaying back and forth. At the same time the hickory nodded, letting the lad sink a few inches and then rising with a regular, swinging motion.
This would have ceased in a moment of itself, but for the action of the bear, who, every time the body came within easy reach, hit it a sharp tap with his paw, causing it to swing back and forth in a sort of rhythmic accord with the dipping of the sapling.
It is said that some, and indeed all, animals possess a certain waggery of disposition which shows itself on rare occasions. The bear inflicted no injury on Bob, but the scraping of those long, sharp claws did considerable damage to his trousers, while keeping his fears at the boiling point.
It certainly was a grotesque scene.
There sat bruin, with his right paw raised, regularly tapping Bob, while the latter, with his hands and feet close together, and his body doubled up like a jack-knife, swung up and down with a steady motion, in response to the impetus given by the brute.
Of course the latter was silent, though if he had possessed the capacity to laugh, there can be no doubt that he would have done so, for, aside from the ever-present peril threatening the fellow, a more amusing sight cannot be imagined.
Even Tom and Jim, when they saw their companion was suffering no harm, broke into mirth, which grated on the nerves of the victim of a most unprecedented combination of circumstances.
But sooner than Jim or Tom suspected the moment came when the laugh was “on the other side of the mouth.”
CHAPTER XXVI
HUNTING THE HUNTERS
Bob Budd played the part of pendulum to the bear for perhaps ten minutes or less, during which he kept up his outcries, and Tom and Jim laughed till they were in danger of falling from their perch in the tree.
“If Bob had only known what was coming,” said Tom, “he could have had his trousers lined with sheet iron, and then he might have joined in the laugh too.”
“Why don’t he give the bear a kick with his foot and knock him over? He ought to have knowed enough to climb a big tree like us.”
“Helloa! what’s up now?”
Without any apparent reason bruin at this moment dropped down on all fours, and, leaving Bob Budd to himself, lumbered over under the refuge of the other two fugitives.
They felt no special fear, for it seemed impossible that the animal could do them harm.
Bob’s experience was not lost upon him. He realized the mistake he made when he took refuge in the sapling, and he now repaired it before the opportunity passed.
Letting go, he dropped lightly on his feet and ran for another tree double the size of the hickory, up which he hurriedly climbed to where the limbs put out a dozen feet above the ground.
Here, as he flung one leg over the strong support, he felt that at last he was safe against a regiment of bears.
Meanwhile, bruin was giving attention to Messrs. James McGovern and Thomas Wagstaff.
He first walked deliberately around the tree several times, as if searching for some vulnerable point, occasionally looking up at the grinning youngsters and snuffing like o
ne impatient to secure his dinner.
“I wonder what he means by that,” said Jim, with a vague feeling of alarm.
“He wants us to see what a big fellow he is.”
“He is a bouncer and no mistake,” was the truthful comment of Jim.
“I wouldn’t care if he was ten times as large—good gracious! look at that!”
Well might the boys start in alarm, for at that moment the brute began climbing the tree!
They had lost sight of the fact, if indeed they ever knew it, that the black bear is a famous climber when the trunks are big enough to be grasped without his paws interfering.
While Tom and Jim were congratulating themselves on being safe beyond all possible harm, they discovered they were not safe at all.
Bruin was on the point of ascending to their perch, when he was tempted aside by the shouting of Bob Budd in the sapling, and he went off to have some sport with him.
Why the brute should have left Bob at the time he had him within reach it would be hard to say. It may have been he concluded that the single lad had afforded him enough entertainment, and the moment had come for the other two to take a hand.
The consternation of Tom and Jim may be imagined when they saw those massive paws embrace the shaggy bark, which began to crumble beneath the vigorous clawing of the nails, while the huge black body slowly but steadily ascended toward the limbs, where the white-faced youngsters watched his terrifying action.
Bob’s turn had come to laugh, and he called out:
“Wait till he gets up among the branches, then drop and run for a tree that is too small for him to climb.”
This was good advice perhaps, though it occurred to the boys, for whom it was intended, that if they allowed their foe to approach that near it would be too late for them to flee.
Bruin had not very far to ascend when his huge, pig-like head was thrust among the limbs, and he slowly drew his ponderous body after him.
He was now close to the fugitives, one of whom was perched above the other, and both as far out on the branches as they could get without breaking them.
The big, shaggy form being fairly among the limbs, at the point where they put out from the tree, bruin paused a minute, like a general surveying the battle plain before him.
The Edward S. Ellis Megapack Page 177
