"Oh, yes! Oh, indeed yes! But perhaps you will tell us where we have the
best chance of encountering bears?"
"I'll do better than that. I'll show you."
"That's good of you. Would you care to start at daylight?"
"I'll be here."
"We'll be ready."
* * * * *
On arriving at the camp a half hour before daylight the next morning,
Ted saw that it was not burned down and that his young guests had made
no obvious blunders. Rather, with breakfast eaten and the dishes stacked
away, they seemed to be doing pretty well for themselves. But, even
though they knew what to do around a camp, the fact remained that none
of them had ever hunted big game.
Ted exchanged greetings and looked out of the window. Renting hunting
camps might be a nice way to earn a living, but there must be easier
ones! The very fact that he'd rented his camp to them implied an
obligation. Six hunters who knew exactly what to do had little enough
chance of getting a bear. These youngsters had one in a thousand. But if
there was any way to do it, Ted still had to offer them their money's
worth and he considered himself responsible for them. Sending them into
the Mahela alone probably, and at the least, meant that they would get
lost.
"Ready?" he asked.
"Let's go!" Alex Jackson said happily.
Ted led the six into the lightening morning. Since there was no snow, it
was futile even to think of tracking a bear. Without any experience,
these youngsters had no hope whatever of staging a successful drive, or
putting four of their number in favorable shooting positions while the
rest beat through the forest and tried to drive a bear past them. Only
Alex Jackson and his brother were armed with rifles, therefore they were
the only two who had even a slight chance of getting a bear, should one
be sighted at long range. But the possibilities of even seeing a bear
were so slim anyway that Ted had not wanted Alex to buy rifles for the
other four.
There was just one faint hope.... This was the season of the Great
Harvest. Frost had opened the pods on the beech trees and beech nuts had
fallen like rain into the forest litter below. Tiny things, they were in
vast quantity. Deer, bears, squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, foxes,
practically every creature in the Mahela was spending almost full time
filling itself with beech nuts or storing them away. Winter, that would
bring hunger and lean bellies, was just ahead and well the wild things
knew it.
If Ted posted his crew at favorable places among the beech trees and if
they sat absolutely quiet, one or more of them might at least see a
bear. Very definitely there was not much of a chance, but there was none
at all if they did anything else.
Al had told of a lot of bears in Carter Valley and Ted took his hunters
there. He left them in various strategic places where scraped and pawed
leaves told their own story of being turned aside so that hungry
creatures might partake of the beech nuts hidden beneath. Lacking snow,
there was no foolproof way to tell just what had been scraping or
pawing, but something had and it might be bears.
After the rest had been posted, Ted took Alex Jackson out to the rim of
Carter Valley. The slope pitched sharply downwards and rose just as
sharply on the other side, but here the valley was shallow, with perhaps
a hundred yards to its floor. It was possibly another hundred yards from
rim to rim, and the opposite rim was almost treeless. About a half mile
away across the treeless slope was a crumbling slag pile. Years ago a
vein of coal had been discovered here and mined as long as it paid off.
But it had ceased to pay and had been abandoned long before Ted was
born. Only the tunnel and the slag pile were left.
The opposite slope was covered with beech brush that would be jungle
thick to anyone within it. But from this vantage point, eyes could
penetrate the brush. Any bear going up or down the valley, and one might
do just that, would certainly travel through the beech brush and any
hunter posted here would surely have some good shooting. Ted turned to
Alex Jackson.
"You stay here."
"Here?"
"Yes. Move as little as possible and make no noise. Watch the beech
brush across there. Sooner or later a bear's going through it. I'll pick
you up tonight."
"Right-o."
That night, the bear hunters were still reasonably happy. All had seen
squirrels and feeding grouse. Four had seen deer and three had watched
turkeys feeding. Paul Jackson had thought he'd seen a bear, but it
turned out to be a black squirrel running on the opposite side of a
fallen tree, with only its bobbing back appearing now and then.
For the next few days, the sextette stayed quite happy. Then deer,
squirrels and turkeys began to pall. They were proud bear hunters, and
so far they hadn't seen even a bear's track. The last day,
disappointment was in full reign. They'd not only told their friends
they were going to get a bear but, Ted suspected, Alex Jackson had done
considerable talking about the way bears charged hunters.
Nevertheless, they all followed Ted back into Carter Valley and the five
younger hunters took the places assigned them. It was the best way.
They'd occupied these same stands for six days without seeing any bears,
but sooner or later the law of averages would send one along.
With Alex Jackson in tow, Ted started back toward the valley's rim. Alex
Jackson touched his arm.
"I say, would you mind if I just wandered about on my own?"
"Not if that's the way you want it."
Alex Jackson had arrived so full of dreams and spirit and now he seemed
so despondent. "I won't get lost--and I may find something," he said
quietly.
"Good luck," Ted replied gently.
Ted wandered gloomily out to the rim of the valley and sat down in the
place Alex Jackson had been occupying. Not every hunter can leave the
woods with a full bag of game, but Ted felt that, somehow, he had failed
this eager young group. His guests might at least have _seen_ a bear.
Carrying no rifle--he was the guide--and with nothing special to do,
Ted basked in the warm sunshine.
An hour later, his eye was caught by motion down the valley. Coming out
of the semi-doze into which he had fallen, he looked sharply at it and
gasped. A bear, not a monstrous creature but no cub--it weighed perhaps
250 pounds--was coming through the beech brush. It was about two hundred
yards down the valley and halfway up the other slope, and it was not in
the slightest hurry. It stopped to sniff at some interesting thing it
discovered and turned to retrace its steps a few yards. Then it came on.
Ted groaned inwardly. A rifleman posted here could have an easy
shot--and Alex Jackson had sat here idly for six days! The bear came on
for another sixty yards, lay down beside a huge boulder and prepared
itself for a nap.
Ted crawled away. Bears have a remarkable sense of scent and good
hearing, but very weak eyes. This one couldn't see him. If it smelled
him, it certainly would not be where it was. If he was very careful, it
might not hear him. As soon as Ted thought he was far enough from the
valley's rim, he rose and ran back to where he'd left Paul Jackson.
That alert youngster heard him coming and had his rifle ready, but its
muzzle was pointed at the ground. Paul Jackson lacked experience, but
not sense. He wasn't going to shoot at anything until he knew what was
in front of his rifle.