TWO HUNGRY BEARS
The Little Brass God was gone!
George, still lying upon the floor of the cavern, stretched his
legs and arms, to see if he was all there, as he mentally commented.
After a time he arose to his feet, clinging desperately to the wall
because of his weakness, and called to Thede, who, as the reader
knows, had left hours before, in search of the injured lad's chums.
There came only echoes in reply to his shouts.
There was a pile of wood near at hand and, gathering numerous dry
fagots, the boy staggered dizzily toward the heap of ashes in the
center of the cave. It seemed to him that the first thing to do
was to get warm.
He was hungry, too, but warmth was the important thing just then.
A few red coals still remained, and a blaze soon grew under the
boy's careful hands. In a short time there was a roaring fire.
After thawing the chill out of his bones, the boy began looking
around for his friend of the night before. He looked at his watch
and noted that it was eight o'clock. His revolver was gone but his
search-light was still in his pocket.
He remembered in a moment that he had handed his revolver to
Thede before starting to cross the light zone in the center
of the cavern. Whatever had taken place during his hours of
unconsciousness, it was evident that he had not been robbed.
It seemed to the boy, as he stood looking through the opening which
gave a view of the forest to the north, that he had lain on the
hard floor of the cavern for countless aeons. He did not remember
what had caused the wound on his head. He only knew that he had
been seized with a sudden dizziness and had fallen, after hearing
pistol shots.
Standing before the fire with the cheerful light of the blaze on
one side and the dazzling light of the sun on the snow on the other
side, the uncanny incidents of the night before seemed like a dream
to the boy.
He even found himself wondering whether he had actually caught
sight of the Little Brass God, leering down upon the watcher from
the wall.
Then he recollected that Thede had first called his attention to
the ugly image whose evil eyes seemed to take on malevolent
expressions in the light of the dancing flames.
"It must be all true, then," he concluded. "The man by the fire,
the Little Brass God on the shelf, the pistol shots, and then a
blank."
He wondered where Thede had gone, and why he had deserted him.
"That's the strangest part of it all," the lad mused. "I had an
idea that the boy would stand by me if I got into trouble, and here
he runs away, leaving me lying unconscious in the freezing
atmosphere of this desolate old cavern. I didn't think it of him!"
It occurred to George as he studied over the puzzle that Thede
might not have been as innocent and loyal as he had pretended to
be. He might have been merely an instrument in the hands of a
cunning man.
"At any rate," the boy pondered, "we have found the Little Brass
God!"
He had not, of course, secured possession of it, but he had learned
definitely that it was in that part of the country. He wondered as
to the identity of the man who sat watching the fire. The light
had been dim, and it might have been Pierre for all he knew. Or it
might have been an accomplice of the tricky trapper.
"Now, I wonder how I'm going to get back to camp," the boy mused as
he piled on more wood and spread his hands to the cheerful warmth
of the fire. "Judging from the time it took us to get here, it
must be ten or twelve miles back to the camp."
"The boys will think I've deserted them, I guess," he added. "If
they knew how hungry I am just at this minute, they'd send out a
relief expedition!"
While the boy warmed himself before the fire a series of growls
came from the entrance to the cavern, and two black bears looked in
upon him.
"Now I wonder if you're the same disreputable citizens that tried
to make a free lunch counter of me last night?" George mused. "I
presume you're hungry, all right, but I'd rather not be the person
to do the feeding this morning. You look too fierce for me, both
of you."
The smell of blood evidently excited the bears to unusual feats of
courage, for they entered the mouth of the cavern and stood
growling and showing their teeth within a short distance of where
George stood.
Only for the great blaze which now leaped almost to the roof of the
cavern, the boy would have been attacked at once. He glanced at
the rapidly decreasing pile of wood, and wondered what would take
place as soon as the fire had died down. He had no weapon with
which to defend himself.
For at least a quarter of an hour the bears and the lad gazed at
each other through the red light of the fire. The bears were
gradually moving forward, and every time the lad laid a stick of
wood on the blaze they seemed to understand more fully that his
defense was weakening.
George thought he had never seen wood burn away so fast. The blaze
seemed to melt it as boiling water melts ice.
Already the blaze was dropping lower, and the pile of wood was
almost gone. The bears sniffed at the blood stains where the boy
had lain on the floor, and turned fierce eyes on the figure by the
fire.
George estimated that his wood might last ten minutes longer. Then
there would be a rush, a crunching of bones and all would be over.
A rifle shot sounded from the outside, and one of the bears dropped
to the rocky floor, struggled spasmodically for a moment, and then
straightened out and lay still. The next instant another shot,
equally accurate, came and the second bear was dead in a moment.
The boy waited eagerly for the appearance of the man who had done
the shooting. He had no idea who the man might be, and was not
quite certain that the fellow had not taken from him one danger
only to place him in another. Still, he looked eagerly forward to
his appearance.
When the man appeared, a smoking double-barreled rifle in his hand,
George saw a tall, ungainly figure with long legs, a long, slim
body, very high cheek bones, and rather stern and uncompromising
blue eyes.
The newcomer was dressed in the leather jacket usually worn by
trappers in that district, leather leggins, moccasins, and fur cap.
A belt of red leather, probably colored and tanned by some Indian
process, was drawn tightly about his waist. There were gold rings
in his ears which swung an inch down on his brown cheeks.
"Hello, sonny!" the man said, advancing into the cavern, standing
the butt of his rifle on the rock, and leaning on the barrel.
"Say," the boy almost shouted, springing forward and extending his
hand, "that's about the best shooting I've seen in a year!"
"The place to hit a bear," the new-comer replied, "is in the neck,
right about where the spinal cord starts to crawl under the skull."
"It's a good thing you came along just as you did," George stated.
"I can't begin to tell you how grateful I am, and so you'll have to
take that for granted. You saved my life!"
"I'm Antoine," the other said, in a moment, after a casual survey
of the boy. "I'm a hunter and trapper. I saw the bears looking
in, and knew from the smoke coining out that there was a human
being in here, too. Knowing that bears and humans don't mix
remarkably well, I came in, too. That's all there is to it!"
"I guess they would have mixed with me all right in about a
minute," George said with a smile. "I had about abandoned hope!"
"How'd you get here?" asked Antoine.
George related the story of the adventures of the previous night,
omitting, however, any mention of the Little Brass God. While he
talked, there came to his mind an indistinct impression that the
face of the man he had seen sitting by the fire was the face of the
man who now stood before him.
He put the thought away instantly, for he did not believe that the
person who had left him on the floor of the cavern to die of cold
and exposure, or to be devoured by wild beasts, could be the same
who had so opportunely rescued him from death.
"You must be hungry, I take it," Antoine said, after the boy bad
concluded his recital. "Boys usually are hungry."
"You bet I'm hungry!" George replied.
Antoine glanced smilingly about at the two bears lying on the floor.
"Can you cook bear steak?" he asked.
"Can I?" repeated George.
Antoine pointed to the Boy Scout medals on the lad's coat sleeve.
"You have the Stalker and Pioneer medals," he said. "You ought to
know something about forestry."
"How do you know what they are?" smiled George.
"Oh," was the hesitating reply, "I know quite a lot about Boy Scout
work and training. Fine lot of fellows, those Boy Scouts!"
"Right you are!" declared George.
Antoine now drew forth a hunting knife which seemed to be as keen
as a razor and began removing the skins from the dead animals. He
worked swiftly and skillfully, and in a short time the making of
two fine black bear rugs were laying in the sun outside.
"Now," the man said, "you get busy with that steak over the coals,
and I'll tote in more wood. You don't seem quite up to carrying
heavy loads yet. That must be a bad wound."
"I think I must have lost considerable blood," George answered.
After the steak was nicely broiled, Antoine brought water from a
nearby stream, and the boy's head was carefully and rather
skillfully attended to.
"And now," said Antoine, "we'll go to my own home, which isn't far
away."
Without a word the boy followed the hunter through the deep snow
which lay on the slope until they came to an opening in the rock.
Entering, the boy found a very comfortable cavern, almost
completely lined with fur. There was a chimney-like crevice in the
ceiling which permitted the escape of smoke and foul air. Both
inside and outside the entrance were great stones by which the
place might be sealed up from either side.
"Quite a cozy nest!" George ventured, and Antoine nodded.
"We'll celebrate your arrival with a cup of good strong tea," he
said.
The tea was brewed and drank. Then the trapper's face began to
assume grotesque forms. The boy's head swam dizzily. He caught a
cynical smile in Antoine's eyes and dropped back into a drugged and
dreamless sleep!