LOST IN A STORM
Either the bear was a better traveler than the boys gave the brute
credit for being, or the trail was not as fresh as Bert had supposed.
For though they went on and on, they did not see the black ungainly
form of Bruin looming up before them.
They were traveling through a rather thin part of the forest then,
making good time, for the snow was not so deep here. Occasionally they
thought they had glimpses of the animal they sought, but it always
proved to be nothing but a shadow, or a movement in the bushes, caused
by the passage of some big rabbit.
“There he goes!” suddenly cried George, pointing to the left.
“Yes, that’s him!” eagerly agreed Jack.
Tom and Bert also agreed that they saw something more substantial, this
time, than a shadow. But a moment later the black object, for such it
had been, was lost sight of.
“Come on!” cried Tom, as enthusiastic as any of his chums. “We’ve got
him now.”
They raced forward, until they came to the place where they had seen
the black object, and then they noticed a curious thing. For there were
two sets of marks--human footprints, and the broad-toed tracks of the
bear.
“Look at that!” cried Jack. “Was that a man we saw, or the bear?”
No one could say for certain. But this much was sure. The bear’s tracks
led in one direction, and the man’s in another.
Was the bear chasing the man, or was the man hunting the bear, was
another phase of the question.
“Look here!” said Tom, who had been carefully examining the two sets
of impressions in the snow. “Here’s how I size this up. The bear’s
tracks go in a straight line, or nearly so, as you can easily see. But
the man’s tracks are in the form of a letter V and we are at the angle
right here. The angle comes up right close to the trail of the bear,
too.
“Now I think the man was walking through the woods, approaching the
bear. He didn’t know it until he was almost on the beast and then the
man saw it. Of course he turned away at once and ran back. You can tell
that the footprints that approach the bear’s trail are made more slowly
than the others--going away. In the last case the man was running away
from the bear. But the bear wasn’t afraid, and kept straight on,
paying no attention to the man.”
“That’s good argument,” observed Bert.
“Can you tell us who the man was?” demanded George.
“I’m not detective enough for that,” Tom confessed. “But I don’t
believe the man was a hunter with a gun.”
“Why not?” Jack wanted to know.
“Because if he had a gun, he would have fired at the bear, and we’d
have seen some change in the bear’s trail. Bruin would either have run
at the shot, or attacked the man, provided the bullet didn’t kill at
once. And you can see for yourselves that nothing like that happened.
So I argue that the man had no gun.”
“Then he was Skeel, or one of his two partners,” said George.
“What makes you think that?” asked Bert, curiously.
“Because we never saw either of them with a gun.”
“That doesn’t prove anything,” Tom said. “There are lots of men in
these woods who haven’t guns. It might have been Sam Wilson.”
“Can you tell anything by the footprints?” asked Bert.
“No. The star mark isn’t there, but that’s nothing. Well, whoever he
was he got away, and we didn’t get close enough to make out who he
was.”
“I tell you where you’re wrong in one thing, though, Tom,” spoke Jack.
“How’s that?”
“You said the man came up to the bear and ran away, turning off at an
angle. I don’t believe he saw the bear, because we were watching the
man, and we would have seen the bear if he had seen him, too. For it
was right here we lost sight of the man.”
“Well, maybe I am wrong about that part of it,” admitted Tom, “but at
least the man didn’t cross the bear’s trail. Something turned him back
when he saw the marks of the paws in the snow.”
That seemed reasonable enough.
“Well, let’s follow the dog,” suggested Bert. “He’s after the bear,
anyhow.”
This was so, for the dog had not even paused at the prints of the man’s
feet in the snow. He evidently preferred Bruin for game.
But now it was getting so dark that it was difficult for the boys to
see, even with the whiteness caused by the covering of snow on the
ground.
“I say,” Tom spoke, when they had gone on a little farther. “I think
we’d better turn back. It will be night before we realize it, and we’re
a long way from either camp. It’s a question in my mind whether we
hadn’t better start back for Camp No. 2, and let three wait for a day
or so. It’s going to snow too, soon, if I’m any judge.”
“Why, we’re probably as near to No. 3 as we are to No. 2,” observed
Jack. “Why not keep on? We haven’t been to Camp No. 3 yet, and I want
to see what it’s like.”
“Well, we’ll leave it to a vote,” decided Tom, who never tried to “run”
things where his chums were concerned. “One place is as good as another
to me, but we’ve got to do something--and that pretty soon.”
“We’d better give up the bear, at least for to-night,” spoke Bert, and
there was regret in his voice. “But we can take up the trail to-morrow.”
“Whistle back the dog,” suggested George. “And then we’ll decide what
to do.”
But the dog did not want to come back. They could hear him baying in
the depths of the now dark forest, but whether he was in sight of the
bear, or was giving tongue because the trail was getting fresher, was
impossible to say.
At any rate, the dog did not come back in response to the whistles
shrilly emitted in his direction.
“Well, let him go,” said Bert. “He’ll find his way to one camp or
another, I guess, if he doesn’t go home to Sam. He said the dog often
stayed out in the woods all night, and came back in the morning.”
“All right--let him go,” assented Tom. “And now what shall we do about
ourselves? Here comes the snow!” he cried a moment later, for the white
flakes began falling in a swirl all about them.
“In for a blizzard!” commented Jack.
“Oh, not as bad as that,” murmured Bert.
“Do they have blizzards up here? How long do they last? Does it get
very cold? How much snow----”
“That’ll do, Why!” exclaimed Tom. “We’ve got something else to do
besides answering questions. Now, fellows, what is it to be--Camp No. 3
or Camp No. 2? We’ve got to decide.”
“I say No. 3,” called out Bert.
“Same here,” echoed Jack.
“I’m with you,” was the remark of George.
“Well, I don’t agree with you, but I’ll give in,” assented Tom. “The
majority rules. But I think it would be better to go back to No. 2
Camp.”
“Why?” asked Jack.
“Because we know just where it is, and we know we can be sure of a warm
place, and plenty to eat.”
“Can’t we at No. 3?” asked George.
“Maybe, and then again, maybe not. We certainly will have to hunt
for it, and it’s only a chance that it may have wood and food stored
there.”
“Sam said it had,” observed Bert.
“Yes, I know. But there have been men roaming about these woods that I
wouldn’t trust not to take grub from an unoccupied cabin,” went on Tom.
“However, we’ll take a chance, but I think it’s a mistake.”
They turned about, and headed in as straight a line as they could for
Camp No. 3. They knew the general direction, and had some landmarks to
go by.
The storm grew more and more fierce. The snow was almost as impenetrable
as a fog, and there was a cold, biting wind. It stung the faces of the
boys and made walking difficult. It was constantly growing darker.
“I say!” called Bert, after a bit. He stopped floundering about in a
drift, and went on: “I say, does anyone know where we are?”
“On the road to Ramsen,” suggested Tom.
“I don’t believe we are,” Bert resumed. “I think we’re off the
trail--lost!”
“Lost!” echoed George.
“Yes, lost, and in a blinding snowstorm,” went on Bert.