There were the two cowering boys about a dozen feet off, apparently without any hope of escaping his wrathful appetite. All he had to do was to make his way out on the branches and gather them in.
It will be seen that there was some difficulty in the bear’s path, since his weight would not allow him to advance clear to his victims, unless he used some other limb for his support.
As ill-luck would have it, the very means required was at his command.
Directly beneath Tom and Jim was another branch, broad and strong enough to support two large bears. It was so near the ground that the boys used the limbs immediately above, with a view of making sure they were beyond the reach of the biggest kind of animal on terra firma.
“Here he comes!”
It was Tom who uttered the exclamation, and he spoke the truth, for at that moment bruin began cautiously moving out on the heavy limb just under them.
“It’s a good time to leave,” whispered Jim, who, while the words were in his mouth, let go and dropped to the ground.
Tom was but an instant behind him, imitating him so quickly, indeed, that he struck directly upon his shoulders.
But no harm was done, and they were instantly up and off.
It will be seen from this that the couple adopted substantially the advice of Bob Budd, which contained more wisdom than most of his utterances.
Like their leader, the fugitives heeded the dearly bought lesson, and, instead of taking refuge in a large tree or sapling, they chose one of precisely the right size, each perching himself where he was as far beyond reach as Bob Budd himself.
The lads were given plenty of time in which to take their new departure, since the bear, instead of leaping to the ground as they did, picked his way back to the body of the tree, and slid down that to the earth, tearing off a lot of the bark in his descent.
This required so much time that when he once more stood on solid earth all three of the boys were out of his reach, and could afford to laugh at his anger.
Halting a short distance from the tree, bruin looked at the boys in turn with such an odd expression that they laughed.
Gradually the idea appeared to work itself into the thick brain of the animal that there was nothing to be made by remaining in that particular part of the country, though his reluctance to leave caused no little misgiving on the part of all three of the youths.
If he should decide to stay until the party were compelled to choose between starving to death and coming down, the situation, to say the least, would have its inconveniences.
“There he goes!” exclaimed Jim, a quarter of an hour after this possible complication had been discussed by the youngsters from their different perches.
The bear seemed to have decided that it was useless to hang around the neighborhood, and began moving off in his lumbering fashion. He was attentively watched until he vanished in the dense wood.
“We’re all right now,” called Bob.
“Maybe he is trying to fool us,” suggested Tom; “you had better stay where you are awhile longer.”
“Who’s afraid?” defiantly called back Bob, sliding nimbly down the sapling; “you don’t catch me running from a bear again; all I want is a chance to get hold of my gun and load it—Jewhilakens!”
A roar of laughter broke from Jim and Tom, who at that moment caught sight of the brute coming back at a faster rate than he had departed.
Bob was equally quick in descrying his danger, and the manner in which he shinned up the sapling would have surprised a trained athlete, who could not have surpassed it.
“When is the fraud going to leave?” he growled, looking down on the intruder that had stopped directly under him; “I don’t know whether bears are good waiters, but I hope he won’t try to keep us here more than a week.”
Bruin went snuffing around the spot, clawing the guns curiously, gazing up at each lad in turn, and finally starting off once more.
The boys hoped his departure was for good, but you may be sure they did not discount it. When, however, a half-hour went by without his being seen, all felt there was ground for hope.
It seemed safe to experiment a little, and so Bob once more slid down the sapling, after carefully reconnoitering all the forest in his field of vision. He held himself ready also to climb again the instant the beast reappeared.
The boys were too frightened to attempt any jokes on each other, and when Tom and Jim reported that bruin was not in sight, Bob believed them.
His gun was lying not far off, and he began timidly making his way toward it. Step by step he advanced, glancing in every direction, and ready to dart back the instant he saw or heard anything suspicious.
Finally he stooped over and picked up the weapon. Still the bear was invisible, and Bob hurriedly reloaded his gun, though it cannot be claimed that he felt much more secure than before.
Thus encouraged, Tom and Jim ventured to descend from their respective trees, and they also recovered their weapons without bringing their enemy down upon them.
“It must be he’s gone for good,” said Jim, in a guarded undertone.
“It looks that way,” replied Tom, “and the best thing we can do is to follow suit.”
This was the unanimous sentiment, and it was acted upon without delay.
It cannot be said that a single member of the Piketon Rangers breathed freely until fully a half-mile from the scene of their adventure with the bear.
The slightest noise caused them to start and gaze around with rapidly-beating hearts; they spoke only a few words and they were in undertones, while they paused a half-dozen times in the belief that some stump or dark-colored boulder was the dreaded brute awaiting their approach.
But by the time the half-mile was passed they grew more confident. They spoke in ordinary tones, and did not start at the sound of every rustling leaf.
“That’s the last hunt I ever make up there,” said Jim McGovern, turning about and glaring at the mountainous slope as though it had done him a personal injury.
“I’m with you,” replied Tom Wagstaff; “them as like to have their brains banged out by bucks ten feet high or chawed up by bears as big as an elephant are welcome, but not any for me.”
“I feel sort of that way myself,” assented Bob; “it’s the first time I’ve tried it since I was a tot of a boy, but I’ve had enough to last me for the next three hundred and eighty-five years. I hope Uncle Jim won’t ask too many questions about Hero, because he thought a good deal of that hound.”
“He needn’t ever know that he departed this life through a mysterious dispensation of Providence,” replied Jim; “all that it is necessary to learn—and I don’t know that there’s any need of that—is that Hero went off on an exploring expedition and hasn’t yet returned. The particulars of his shipwreck are unobtainable, as is often the case with other explorers.”
“Oh! I can manage it, I’ve no doubt, for I was never yet caught in a scrape that I couldn’t get out of,” was the cheerful response of Bob Budd.
The day was well gone when the three reached their tent at the base of Mount Barclay, and they were glad enough to get back again.
During their absence Aunt Ruth had sent one of the hired men, as was her custom, with a liberal supply of delicacies, which were disposed of in the usual vigorous style of the three, who were honest when they agreed that they had had enough hunting of bears and deer to last them a lifetime.
“If we could only manage the thing without so much work,” said Bob,“we might find some fun in it; but we had to climb up that mountain, which is three times as high as I supposed, and when the danger came, why we hadn’t our usual strength.”
“I think we did pretty well,” replied Tom Wagstaff, “but all the same I don’t believe it would read very well in print.”
“Who’s going to put it in print?” asked Bob; “we know too much to tell any one about it, or, if we did, we would get it in a shape that would do us proud.”
“Well, being as we have had all we
want of hunting, the next thing will be—what?”
“Doing nothing,” replied Wagstaff.
“We can do the next thing to that, which is just as good.”
“What’s that?” asked Bob.
“Fish; stretch out along-shore in the shade, where there’s no danger of rolling in, or go out in a boat and wait for the fish to bite, not caring much whether they do or not. The best thing about fishing is that you never have to tire yourself—”
“Hark!”
At that moment the three heard a prodigious roar, rapidly increasing in volume, until the air seemed to be filled with one continuous reverberating peal of thunder.
“Heaven save us!” exclaimed Bob Budd; “the dam has burst!”
“And it is coming down on us and we can’t get out of its path!” added white-faced Wagstaff.
He spoke the truth!
CHAPTER XXVII
A RACE FOR LIFE
Those who have been so unfortunate as to be placed in the path of an overwhelming flood, which after slowly gathering for weeks and months finally bursts all barriers, need not be told that the awful roar caused by the resistless sweep can never be mistaken for anything else.
The mill-dam, to which we have made more than one reference, had not been erected, like that at Johnstown, to afford fishing grounds for those who were fond of the sport, but was reared fully twenty years before to provide water-power for a company of capitalists, who proposed erecting a series of mills and manufactories in the valley below. They progressed as far in their enterprise as the formation of a substantial dam when the company collapsed, and that was the end of their scheme.
The dam remained, with its enormous reservoir of water, which, in summer, furnished excellent fishing and, in the winter, fine skating; but during all that time the valuable store of power remained idle.
The sudden breakage of the dam, without apparent cause, was unaccompanied by the appalling features which marked the great disaster in Pennsylvania a short time since. The town of Piketon was not in the course of the flood, nor were there any dwelling-houses exposed to the peril with the exception of the home of a single humble laborer.
The water became a terrific peril for a brief while, but such masses speedily exhaust themselves, though it was fortunate indeed that the topography of the country was so favorable that the uncontrollable fury was confined in so narrow a space.
But the camp of the Piketon Rangers lay exactly in the course of the flood. Bob Budd and his friends had pitched their tent there because the spot was an inviting one in every respect, and no one had ever dreamed of danger from the breaking of the reservoir above.
It was night when that fearful roar interrupted the conversation of the Rangers. The young men were silent on the instant, and stared with bated breath in each other’s faces.
“Great Heaven!” exclaimed Bob Budd, rising partly from his seat, “the dam has burst!”
“And I can’t swim a stroke!” gasped the terrified Wagstaff.
“Nor me either!” added McGovern; “I guess the end has come, boys.”
“I can swim,” replied Bob, trembling from head to foot, “but that won’t help me at such a time as this.”
“Are we going to stay here and be drowned?” demanded Jim, rousing himself; “we might as well go down fighting; every one for himself!”
As he uttered this exclamation he dashed through the tent and among the trees outside, where the rays of the moon could not penetrate, and it was dark as Egypt.
A strong wind seemed to be blowing, though a few minutes before the air was as still as at the close of a sultry summer afternoon. The wind was cool. It was caused by the rush of waters through the dense forest.
It was evident to McGovern and the rest that there was but one possible means of escape—possibly two—and he attempted that which first occurred to him: that was by dashing at right angles to the course of the torrent. If he could reach ground higher than the surface of the water, as it came careering through the wood, he would be safe; but he and his companions knew when the awful roar broke upon them that the waters were close, while it was a long run to the elevated country on either side.
But if anything of the kind was to be attempted there was not a moment to spare. One second might settle the question of life and death.
“Maybe I can make it!” was the thought that thrilled McGovern as he began fighting his way through the wood, stumbling over bushes, bumping against trunks, and picking his way as best he could; “it isn’t very far to the high ground, but I have to go so blamed slow—great thunder! my head’s sawed off!”
At that moment a stubby limb caught under the chin of the frantic fugitive and almost lifted him off his feet. He quickly freed himself and dashed wildly on again with feelings that must have resembled those of the multitude fleeing from before the sweep of the overwhelming lava.
A vine enclosed the ankle of the fugitive and he fell headlong; he was instantly up again and collided with a tree, which he did not detect soon enough in the gloom; at any other time McGovern would have taken his own time in rising and vented his feelings, but he did not do so now; his single thought was one wild, desperate hope that he might escape.
He never exerted himself so before, for, despite the stirring experiences through which he had passed in his short life, he had never encountered anything like this.
Those who have hovered on the verge of death have made known that in the few seconds when life was passing, the whole record of their former lives has swept like a panorama before them. The events of months and years have clustered in those few fearful moments.
Jim McGovern’s experience was somewhat similar. There were mighty few seconds at his command, while struggling with the whole energy of his nature to reach the rising ground beyond reach of the flood; but in some respects that brief interval of time was as so many years to him.
How well it will be if, when we reach that supreme moment which must come to all of us, the hasty retrospect brings us pleasure and hope rather than remorse and despair!
There was nothing of this nature in the review that surged through the brain of the miserable fellow. Broken promises, disobedience to parents, wrangling, thievery, drinking—these were the scarlet tints of the picture which memory painted for him in vivid colors.
“If you’ll only save me,” he gasped, addressing the sole One who could rescue him, “I will stop the bad things I’ve been doing all my life, and do my best to live right always.”
Would he never pass the boundary of this narrow valley? It had always seemed straight to him before, but now its width was expanded not to yards and rods, but to miles. And never were the trees so close together or the bushes, vines, and undergrowth so dense, or his own wind so short, or his muscles so weak.
Suddenly something cold was felt against his ankle.
He knew what it was—it was water!
The fringe of the flood had reached him. Where the bursting away was so instantaneous and the released volume was so enormous, the flow could not be like that of an ordinary torrent, which rises rapidly because of the swiftly-increasing mass behind it. The awful rush at Johnstown resembled the oncoming of a tidal wave or wall of water, so high, so prodigious, so resistless that nothing less than the side of a granite mountain could check it.
It would have been the same in the case we are describing, though of course to a less degree, but for the interposing wood, which, beginning at the very base of the dam, continued the entire length of the valley, which was several miles in extent.
Some of these trees were uprooted as if by a cyclone, others were bent and partly turned over, while the sturdiest, which did not stand near the middle of the path, held their own, like giants resisting death tugging at their vitals.
The woods also acted as a brake, so to speak, on the velocity of the terrific rush of waters. The flow could not be stopped nor turned aside, but it was hindered somewhat, and, as it came down the hollow, was twisted and driven into all
manner of eddies, whirlpools, and currents, in which the most powerful swimmer was as helpless as an infant.
“It’s no use!” panted McGovern, when he felt the cold current rising about his ankles like the coiling of a water-snake; “I must die, and with all my sins on my head! Heaven have mercy! do not desert me now when a little farther and I will be saved!”
Never was a more agonized appeal made to his Creator than that by the despairing McGovern.
CHAPTER XXVIII
A CRY FROM THE DARKNESS
Within a few seconds after McGovern felt the water about his ankles it touched his knees. He was still able to make progress, and with the same despairing desperation as before, struggled onward.
At the next step he went to his waist, and fell with a splash.
“I’m drowning!” he gasped; but fortunately for him he had plunged into a small hollow, out of which he was swept the next moment, and, with no effort on his part, flung upon his feet.
The roar was overpowering. It seemed as if he were in the appalling swirl of Niagara, with the raging waters all around him clamoring for his life. He grasped a limb which brushed his face, and the next step showed that he had struck higher ground.
But the torrent was ascending faster than he. It was gaining in spite of all he could do, but hope was not yet dead. Another step and the water was below his waist, and he was able to make progress with the help of his hands. When he lifted one foot it was swept to one side, and only by throwing his full weight upon it was he able to sustain himself.
He had now reached a point where the trees were not so near together. While this enabled him to see something of his surroundings, it gave the sweeping volume greater power, and he was in despair again.
But the dim light of the moon showed that at that moment the boundary of the current was only a few paces beyond him. Could he pass that intervening distance before it further expanded he would be safe.
Rousing his flagging energies he fought on, cheered by the view of a figure on the margin, which had evidently caught sight of him.
“A little farther and you will be all right!” shouted the stranger, stepping into the torrent and extending his hand.
The Edward S. Ellis Megapack Page 178
