THE LUMBER CAMP
Mr. Martin, who had been busy making sure that everything about the
camp was snug and secure for the night, did not at first glimpse the
bears. But he heard what Janet exclaimed and called to her:
“I wouldn’t pretend so hard if I were you, Jan, especially about bears
at night. You might scare Trouble.”
“But, Daddy!” cried Janet, as she ran toward him, “there _are_ bears!
_Real_ ones! And Trouble saw them first.”
“Nonsense!” exclaimed Mr. Martin, emerging from behind the auto, where
he was making sure the tent flaps were fast.
“Yes, here are two bears, Dick!” said his wife. “And they’re coming
right for us! We’d certainly better do something!”
“I’ll do something!” cried Ted, picking up a blazing brand. “I’ll scare
’em with this!”
“No! No! You mustn’t!” objected his mother.
“Bears are afraid of fire!” stated Ted.
“These don’t seem to be,” observed Janet. “They’re coming right for us!”
She had turned, on her way to join her father, and she saw the shaggy
creatures still shuffling along. By this time Mr. Martin had reached
the open place and he had a sight of the bears.
“Bless my stars!” cried the father of the Curlytops. “Who would have
thought to find bears here? But they must be tame bears!”
“I certainly hope so!” exclaimed his wife.
“They must be!” said her husband again. “Wild bears would run at the
sight of us--not come nearer. Some lumberman must have caught these two
when they were small, and he’s tamed them. They aren’t much more yet
than two-year-old cubs. I believe they’re coming to see if they can
find something to eat.”
“Oh, if they’re tame bears maybe they’ll do tricks!” cried Ted.
“Maybe they’ll eat peanuts like nellifunts!” added Trouble.
“Well, you aren’t going to feed these bears peanuts!” decided his
mother, catching the little fellow up in her arms and stepping back
toward the auto with him.
“Oh, look! They’re eating!” suddenly cried Ted, pointing.
Surely enough, the two bears that had been shuffling along in the
peculiar way bears have, had now come to a stop some little distance
away from the campfire and began sniffing along the ground.
Suddenly one of them seemed to find some dainty, for he picked it up.
And an instant later the other, with a sort of squealing growl, tried
to knock whatever it was from the mouth of the first bear.
“They’re quarreling, just like two boys! Oh, they must be tame bears!”
decided Mrs. Martin, for the shaggy chaps seemed to have no interest
except in each other or in what they could find on the ground.
“What is it, Daddy, they’re fighting about?” asked Janet, for now the
two bears were wrestling, standing up on their hind legs, and each
trying to throw the other. Whatever the first bear had found had been
knocked from him by the second bear and had fallen to the ground. Now
they were struggling to see which should have it.
“It’s my snandwich that I dropped,” explained Trouble. “I was over by
there and I dropped a snandwich (he always called them that) and the
bears are eating my snandwich.”
“I guess that’s right!” agreed Mr. Martin.
As the two bears wrestled, more in fun than in anger it seemed, the one
who had knocked the sandwich from the one that first found it, dealt
his companion such a blow as to send him staggering off against a tree.
Then the second bear pounced on Trouble’s lost sandwich and soon ate it.
The first bear seemed to take it all good-naturedly and went sniffing
for more tidbits that might have been tossed away or dropped by the
campers.
“Oh, aren’t they cute!” exclaimed Jan, for by this time it was evident
that the bears would do no harm. They came to eat--not to run the
Curlytops off.
“I’d like to know whose they are,” said Teddy.
“And I hope they don’t stay here all night,” added Mrs. Martin. “I
don’t want to go to sleep, knowing a bear--no matter how friendly he
is--may poke his head in on me at any moment.”
“I’ll see if I can drive them away,” offered Mr. Martin.
“No, don’t do that!” begged his wife, clutching him by the arm. “They
might turn on you and scratch you.”
“I don’t believe they will,” said her husband. “As you say, we don’t
want to go to sleep with bears roaming around loose, even if they are
tame bears.”
“Maybe they’ll go away themselves if we give them enough to eat,”
suggested Janet.
“Huh, that’s just the way to make ’em stay around here!” declared Ted.
“They’ll stay as long as you feed ’em--like a stray dog.”
It was evident that something must be done, for the two bears, having
picked up all the scraps they could find outside the camp, were now
approaching closer. They stood up and sniffed hungrily, moving their
snouts about in a peculiar way. Nor did they appear to be afraid of the
fire, on which Ted piled more wood.
“I wish their keeper would come and take them away,” said Mrs. Martin.
Then, as if in answer to her wish, a man came running out of the
forest--a lumberman, he seemed, with big boots on--and in his hands he
carried chains that rattled and clanked. At the sound of the rattling
chains the bears turned, like boys caught in a jam closet, and,
dropping to all fours, would have run into the woods, except that the
man shouted:
“No, you don’t, Jim! Come back here, Jack, you little rascal! Come
here, I say!”
The bears paused, and then, as the man ran toward them and again
shouted, they turned about and walked slowly back to him. In an instant
he had snapped one end of the chains he carried into collars they wore
about their necks.
“Hope my pets didn’t scare you folks,” said the man, as he playfully
pulled the little short ears of his shaggy charges. “Jim and Jack are
as gentle as lambs, but you’ve got to know how to treat ’em. Hope they
didn’t frighten you.”
“They didn’t--exactly,” said Mr. Martin. “We were a bit surprised, at
first, but the bears seemed to be content to pick up scraps about the
place.”
“That’s what they love--picking up scraps of food,” said the lumberman.
“Are they your pets?” asked Janet.
“Yes, little girl. I’ve had ’em ever since they were little bits of
cubs. Some one shot the old bear and I found these two, like puppies,
whimpering on their dead mother. I brought them to my camp, raised them
on a bottle until they were old enough to eat, and I’ve kept ’em ever
since. This evening they got away, as they often do, and wandered off,
so I had to take after ’em.”
“Are you camping around here?” asked Mr. Martin.
“Yes, in a way,” was the answer. “I’m not camping for fun, as you folks
are. It’s business with me. I’m manager of a lumber camp over in the
woods.”
“Oh, yours is the camp we have been looking for!” exclaimed Mrs. Martin.
“You’ve been looking for me?” echoed the man, who gave his name as Pat
Teeter.
“We met some lumbermen on a raft going down the river,” explained Mr.
Martin, telling about the dog who bit the auto tire. “They said you
might let us inspect your camp.”
“Sure, I will. We’ll be glad to have you visit us!” declared Mr.
Teeter. “There aren’t many men in camp now, and they’ll be glad of
company. We’re over in the woods about three miles from here.”
“I’m afraid that’s rather too far to go to-night,” objected Mrs.
Martin. “And we have things all ready here.”
“Then come over the first thing in the morning,” urged Mr. Teeter.
“I’ll go back now, with my runaway bears. We’ll expect you in the
morning.”
“Will your bears do tricks?” asked Ted, as the shaggy creatures on the
ends of the chains prepared to follow their keeper.
“Oh, yes. I’ll show you to-morrow,” was the answer. “Come over to
breakfast, if you like.”
“Thank you, but I think it will be best to come over directly after
breakfast,” answered Mrs. Martin.
Mr. Teeter disappeared in the woods with his two tame bears, and the
Curlytops were quite delighted, talking of the fun they would have in
the lumber camp the next day.
“I only hope those bears don’t get loose again in the night and poke
their noses in our tent as Ted’s cow did,” said Mrs. Martin, as they
made ready for bed.
“I don’t believe they will,” said her husband. “Mr. Teeter will be
sure to chain them up well.”
“If a bear comes I would like to ride on his back!” stated Trouble.
“Once I did ride on a nellifunt’s back. But I would like a bear ride,
too.”
“Well, maybe you’ll get it!” laughed Janet, as she cuddled him in her
arms.
In spite of what her husband had said about the bears being well
secured, Mrs. Martin, several times in the night, awakened, thinking
she heard the shaggy cubs shuffling along through the forest.
But nothing like this occurred, and morning came without anything
having happened in the night. Breakfast was served and eaten, the
things straightened up and put back in place, and off to the lumber
camp started the Curlytops.
“There it is!” cried Ted, a little later, as they drove along the river
road. He pointed to a cluster of log cabins in the woods, cabins set
down in the midst of a clearing.
“Yes, I guess this is the lumber camp all right,” assented his father.
“I see the two bears!” added Janet, pointing to the cubs, chained at
the rear of one of the log cabins.
“Well, this will give us a new set of adventures--stopping in a lumber
camp,” said Mr. Martin, as he guided the car over the not very smooth
road that led up to the cluster of cabins.
At that moment, from down the road in the other direction, came some
strange yells, shouts and cries:
“Yip! Yip! Yippie!” was yelled, and then followed more strange noises.
“What do you imagine that can be?” asked Mrs. Martin, wonderingly,
of her husband, while several dogs in the lumber camp began to bark
excitedly.