ON THE WINGS OF THE NIGHT WIND.
“A bear!” shrieked Bumpus, struggling to his knees; “and he shoved me
around like I was a bundle of hay! Did you ever hear of such nerve?”
“Think what he did to me?” cried Step Hen entering through the partly
open door; “I was just pokin’ my nose out, to get a whiff of fresh air,
for I couldn’t hardly breathe in here; when he sent me a flyin’, just
like you’d kick for goal on the gridiron. Guess I covered all of ten
feet, and landed in them bushes out there. Look here! See what I got
off’n the old beast.”
He opened his clenched hand, and exhibited a bunch of long black hairs.
Undoubtedly Step Hen must have involuntarily clutched at the bear as they
came in contact, and had managed to hold on to these tokens of the
collision.
Thad was laughing and shaking all over, so were Eli and Jim; and Allan
joined in. Presently the whole of them began to see the ludicrous side of
the adventure, and even Sebattis was noticed to be grinning. Nobody had
ever known him to emit a genuine laugh.
“And just to think how near we came to having bear steak for breakfast,
instead of that old tough moose meat,” remarked Giraffe.
“Well, that’s all right,” Step Hen took occasion to say; “but if a feller
c’n judge from the way he kicked _me_, that bear was some tough too. My!
I’d sure hate to put on the gloves with him in a bout. I just had time to
turn and look around, when I heard that big bump; then he jumped me, and
out we both went. Mebbe I ain’t glad now I didn’t keep right on going up
that ladder when I started. Just think what a time I’d had up there with
him!”
“Wow, and again I say, wow!” snapped Giraffe. “Things seem to be
happening right thick and fast now, fellers. This sure is the big game
country, all right, and to the good.”
They were all of one opinion with respect to that. To get one night a
lordly moose bull, and by the romantic way of calling, too; and then the
very next to run across a big burly bear, was as fine a piece of good
luck as any of them could wish for.
“Wonder what’s coming along next in line?” remarked Bumpus, nervously, as
he made sure to get close to the fire, and away from the open door.
“Say, you don’t think that old bear’d have the nerve to come back here on
second thoughts, and try to clean out the whole bunch?” Step Hen queried;
“because I’ve seen all I want of him. They say three times and out; but I
reckon it was only once with me; and I went, too.”
“No, I wasn’t thinking of him,” Bumpus declared; “but then there might be
a few elephants or rhinoceroses, or camels, or something else hanging
around these diggings, waiting to get acquainted. I don’t like meetin’ up
with ’em so sudden like. Whiff! bang! and then good-bye! Why, it ain’t
decent to treat a feller that way without bein’ introduced first.”
“And to think that the sly old critter was up there all the time we kept
talkin’ and carryin’ on down here?” said Davy Jones, who had come out of
the affair with only a skinned knee, owing to striking up against some
wood on the floor, when he threw himself wildly to one side at sight of
the descending bear.
“What d’ye think ever started him movin’?” asked Bumpus.
“Smoke do it,” replied Eli. “The ole bear, he lies quiet, not knowin’
what to make o’ us comin’ in here, whar he’s expectin’ to take up his
winter quarters. But purty soon thet smoke it begins to smart his eyes.
Bears don’t like smoke, any more’n any animile does. So gettin’
frightened arter a while, he starts down the ladder, misses his grip, an’
lands in a heap on the floor. If I’d be’n able tuh git hold o’ a gun I’d
a guv him his pill; but I guess it’d be’n dangerous work shootin’ in
here, with so many ’raound.”
“Will we ever run across him again?” remarked Step Hen, as he felt all
over his body, to ascertain how many scratches or bruises had resulted
from the rather hurried way in which he took his recent departure. “I
don’t mind being fired from a cannon,” he continued, as several twinges
of pain told him he had not come through the ordeal entirely unscathed;
“but I draw the line at being made a football by a scared bear. Wonder he
didn’t break every rib I have. As ’tis, I wouldn’t be much s’prised if a
dozen or so were fractured.”
“Well, we’ll make you a strait jacket to-morrow, and keep you in a
plaster cast the rest of the trip,” declared Giraffe; chuckling in rare
good humor, because, for once at least, he had not been caught up in the
little whirl.
“Like fun you will,” grumbled Step Hen, getting Bumpus to rub his back
for him, on promise of returning the favor in kind.
“But I think somebody ought to go up and look that loft over,” suggested
Davy Jones. “How do we know but what it’s just full of bears right now.
’Tain’t the nicest thing to think such a load’s goin’ to drop down on
your head any old time. He might upset my coffee when I get to drinkin’,
too.”
So, to quiet the boys, Jim climbed up, taking the little electric torch
along with him. Upon his reporting that all was clear some of the others
also ascended, to see where the bear had been sleeping at the time of
their arrival.
“Now, if there was only a couple of nice jolly little cubs around, we’d
have heaps of fun playing with ’em,” Bumpus suggested, as he too examined
the loft, and saw where the bear had been making a soft sleeping place
out of dead leaves that must have drifted in through a hole at the end of
the roof, but much too small to let the big beast go out that way.
“Cubs! listen to him, would you?” cried Step Hen. “Why, it ain’t the time
of year for cubs; and if it was, I’d like to see _you_ playin’ with any,
while the old missus was alive, and hangin’ around. She’d cub you with a
club, worse’n she did me; and don’t you forget it, Bumpus. Cubs! Well,
what queer things you do see when you haven’t a gun,” and the way he
looked at the fat boy when saying this made Bumpus bristle up
immediately.
“Don’t you call me a _thing_, Step Hen!” he admonished, severely; at
which there was a shout from the other.
“He admits it all, fellers;” Davy Jones exclaimed; “he puts on the shoe
first thing. But then, Bumpus, we know you ain’t up on natural history.
It’s a wonder you didn’t say that was a hippopotamus, or a crocodile,
instead of a bear. You’re bound to know more about these things before
you get back to Cranford again. We’ll let it go at that. How’s that
supper gettin’ on, Giraffe? Anything more I c’n do to help?”
“Anything more?” echoed the cook, disdainfully; “I’d like to know the
first thing you’ve done to help get it. Didn’t he say he felt one of them
fits acomin’ on when we landed here, fellers; and then on top of that,
you got so scared by that old bear dropping down on us, you couldn’t
hardly move. I just see you helpin’, when you c’n crawl out of it. The
only help you’ll give will be when supper’s ready for servin’, and then
it’ll be to make way with the stuff good and hearty. I notice you never
get one of them cramps right then, Davy; oh, no! They’re right handy
things to have in the house, ain’t they. I’m goin’ to borrow a few
sometime, see if I don’t now.”
In good time the supper was pronounced ready, Eli having assisted in its
preparation; for, with nine hungry voyagers to feed, the amount that had
to be prepared made the task no light one.
As usual, they made merry while disposing of the food that had been
gotten ready. Some of the moose was cut up as small as possible, and made
into a palatable stew. Then they had Boston baked beans; and some pretty
fair biscuits, which Eli baked in the little portable oven that was
carried in one of the boats. Of course coffee made a part of the supper.
At home possibly few of these lads ever drank coffee more than once a
day, and at breakfast at that; but here in the woods the meal would seem
rather tame without the warm cup that every one looked for.
“What do you say to stopping here a day or so, boys?” asked Thad. “I’ve
been talking it over with Eli, and he says we couldn’t find a better
place for game. Perhaps, now, one of the rest of you may run across a
moose bigger even than mine; or Bumpus here stands a chance of meeting up
with his friend, the bear, who gave him that handshake in passing.”
“Excuse me,” Bumpus hastened to say; “that doesn’t mean I object to
hanging out at the Hotel Log Cabin as long as the rest of you see fit;
but I don’t hanker after meetin’ up with that rude black pirate again. He
may be a pretty fine kind of a bear, as bears go; but I object to the
breed.”
“Count us all as saying we’ll be glad of a break in the journey, Thad,”
Allan remarked, just then. “Besides, we must be somewhere near where that
Mr. Carson is hunting, right now; and at any time we might run up against
him.”
Step Hen, Giraffe and Davy nodded their heads, as though to intimate that
Allan voiced the sentiments of all when he said that.
“There’s one thing I’ve got in my mind, and it’s this,” Bumpus went on to
remark. “Now’s goin’ to be the time for Allan here to keep his promise to
show me a bee tree. He told me that summer was the time to do it, when
the bees were on the wing, and he could work his little game; but that
he’d try his best to ’commodate me any time, once we got up here in
Maine.”
“And so I will,” replied the other, smiling at the earnestness with which
Bumpus kept talking on that one subject. “Perhaps Jim, or Eli here, will
help me find a tree. If the bees are hived up for winter, then the only
way we can do it is to listen when the noonday sun is shining. Sometimes,
before the weather gets too cold, the young bees come out of their hole,
and buzz around, trying their wings. I’ve found a hive in the dead top of
a tree that way.”
“And got a lovely stock of juicy honeycomb too, I guess?” said Giraffe,
making a face to indicate that the subject certainly appealed to him from
the standpoint of a sweet luxury, if from nothing else.
“Sure we did; and a lovely lot of stings thrown in,” chuckled Allan.
“Well, they say bee stings are good for rheumatism, and I’ve sometimes
thought I was getting a touch of that in my legs,” Davy Jones observed,
thoughtfully.
“There wasn’t much rheumatism about you when that bear dropped down on
us,” said Giraffe, scornfully. “The way you scooted out of the way would
have made the best short distance sprinter turn green with envy.
Rheumatism! Wow! that goes in line with cramps, I guess, now.”
“What’ll we put all the honey in?” asked Bumpus, just as though he
counted the finding of the bee tree an accomplished thing, because Allan
had agreed to do what he could to find one.
“I’ll hold all I can,” retorted Giraffe, complacently; “but then you
mustn’t expect me to keep on loading up, till I bust. I c’n stretch
sometimes; but even that’s no sign I’m made of injy rubber, is it?”
“Well, we won’t cook our rabbit till we’ve got him,” said Allan.
“Sometimes most of the honey in a bee tree is old, and candied. The new
stuff is what counts. The other is dark colored and sickening sweet. But
wait and see, if so be we’re lucky enough to strike one.”
After supper was over they enjoyed sitting there before the fire, and
listening to Eli tell stories about the old cabin; which, according to
his accounts, must have seen many queer happenings at least equal to the
one surprise to which they had been treated, on their first acquaintance
with it on this night.
Thad, being given a fair amount of imagination, found it easy to shut his
eyes, and believe he could see the old trapper who once lived here, as
Eli described him. Years upon years he had come and gone, as the winters
passed, always taking toll of the woods’ folks; yet never trying to make
such a deep inroad on their numbers but that there were plenty left for
breeding purposes. The wise old trapper looked forward to another year.
Finally he had lost his life among the wild loggers of a Maine river;
being unfortunate enough to get caught in a jam that he was trying to
break.
When some of the boys, tired from the work of the day, and lack of rest
on the preceding night, stretched out their blankets, and disputed about
where each should settle down later on. Thad and Eli stepped out to see
what the night promised for the coming day. If it looked like snow they
would find good tracking weather; though for one Thad hoped this would
still keep off some little while, and allow them to do some hunting
before winter closed on them.
The stars were shining brightly in the dark heavens. The young moon had
sunk to rest; but every night now they might expect it to grow in size,
until in a week considerable light would come from this source. And there
is nothing more enjoyable when in the depths of the wilderness, than a
round, clear moon.
As the two stood there, speaking of these things, there came stealing on
the night air a strange sound that, although rising from a considerable
distance away from the cabin, still struck Thad as very weird, and also
blood-curdling. He had heard watch dogs bay to the moon; but this was
something far more thrilling.
“That’s no wildcat; and I don’t think it can be a panther, a bear or any
animal I’ve ever struck in the woods. What do you make out of it, Eli?”
he asked, turning to the old guide, whom he had heard emit a whistle, as
of astonishment, at the time that queer howl was heard.
“It’s be’n many a year now, Thad, since ever I heerd the like o’ thet
howl,” the Maine guide observed. “Time was when they uster be here in
plenty; but the bounty paid by the state, it just ’bout cleaned the hull
lot out; er else they thort as how ’twar safer up yonder, acrost the line
in Canada.”
“What’s that?” exclaimed Thad; “do you mean to tell me that was a wolf?”
“A real wolf, an’ nothin’ else,” answered Eli; “an’ let me tell ye, it do
bring back the old days, fur me to listen to thet howl. This is like
livin’ again.”