“Drop down! Drop down stream!” Case yelled, excitedly, as Alex, Captain
Joe, and the baby bear swept by on the current. “If they get out of
sight they’ll drown!”
“What’s keeping them in view got to do with it?” shouted Gran “They will
drown anyway if we don’t hurry and get them out. Let me go in after
them. I’m a good swimmer, really I am. Let me go in and get Alex and
Captain Joe can save himself. See there! Alex is going under. Let go of
me!”
The loyal youngster would indeed have leaped into the river if Clay had
not caught him. Case was equally unreasonable, and wanted to send the
_Rambler_ straight over the struggling figures. Clay caught up the long
rope which he had prepared to attach to Captain Joe and tied it about
his waist. Then he took another rope and wound it about his neck and
shoulders. Case and Gran looked on in wonder and impatience.
“Now,” Clay explained, “I’m going to swing the boat in a wide circle and
meet that precious trio as we pass up the stream. When we get almost to
them, you, Case, take the helm, and you, Gran, catch on the ends of
these lines. Do you both understand, now—are you ready?”
The boat had swung around while the boy was explaining, and Alex the
bear cub, and Captain Joe were clearly revealed, just ahead, in the
glare of the strong searchlight. The cub, forgetting all fear of the
canine in the greater danger it was in, had climbed half way up on the
dog’s back, and the dog was swimming for dear life. Alex had caught an
oar as the boat swept away, and was calmly floating, well sustained by
the wood.
“S-a-a-y,” cried Case, almost choking with laughter when he saw that
Alex was in no immediate danger. “Can you people down there keep that
pose while I take a picture of you? That’s great! G-r-e-a-t!”
Clay now saw that there was no pressing necessity for him to take a cold
bath just then, as Alex would be able to catch the line if it could be
trailed near enough to him. Later, he thought, some one might have to go
in in order to rescue Captain Joe, who was paddling along like a major,
with no expressed objections to the load of bear cub he was carrying on
his back. Case explained to the others that the only reason the dog did
not protest was because he was afraid he would get his mouth full of
water if he engaged in any conversation regarding the riparian rights of
the bear. Gran alone looked grave in the emergency.
Presently the line was thrown and Alex seized it deftly and proceeded
hand-over-hand to the side of the boat. Captain Joe made greater
efforts, trying to keep to his side, but the current was too strong.
Clay dropped the _Rambler_ down as the dog fell away, and Alex instead
of mounting to the deck of the boat, caught the dog by the collar and
held on to him.
The cub bear did not take so kindly to this, for he snapped at the boy’s
hand, and Alex gave him a slight tap on the nose in return.
Case dropped his extra line to Alex with instructions to tie it to
Captain Joe’s collar. This was done, not without difficulty, for the dog
did not understand what was going on, and the bear cub made it his
business to attack the boy, so all three went under water more than once
before the feat was accomplished. Then Clay drew on the line and Captain
Joe went up serenely with the bear still on his back. The lads on the
deck were shouting with laughter, for the dog was now complaining at
carrying the cub.
In a moment Alex grabbed the cub, tucked it, in spite of protests, under
one arm, and was assisted, spluttering and dripping, to the deck of the
bear and all. Captain Joe, on his arrival on deck, at once shook water
over Clay and then gave his attention to the cub, but the boys drove him
off and hustled the baby bear into a warm corner by the heater.
Alex shivering with cold, soon followed, and the dog, making peace with
the bear for the sake of warmth, sat down in front of the stove and
regarded the preparations for supper with anxious eyes.
Then Gran made more hot coffee, and put on more cakes, and opened a can
of baked beans, and boiled potatoes, and soon a wonderful supper was on
the little table. The bear cub sniffed at the food, but curled up on his
rug again. He had probably been lost from his mother a long time, and
had been in the water before Alex came to him, and was worn out, still
he kept a keen eye on the dog.
“How did you come to get him, Alex?” asked Clay. “Nice bear, eh?”
“He was on the ledge, soaking wet, when the boat struck it,” was the
reply, “and the impact threw me plumb on top of him. Then Captain Joe
took a hand, or paw, rather, in the mess and he became a prisoner of
war. You just bet he’s a nice bear!”
“If you keep him, and we remain around here long, we’ll be apt to
receive a call from his mother,” Clay predicted. “What are you thinking
of doing with him? He’d make quite a nice meal! Bear meat’s fine!”
“Eat him!” cried Alex now clad in dry clothing, “I’d as soon eat Captain
Joe! What am I going to do with him? I’m going to keep him, and train
him up in the way good bears should go. He’s a pipin!”
“That’s pretty near slang,” Case remarked, “and the boy that uses slang
washes dishes. That was the rule during the Amazon trip, and we have
adopted it for this excursion,” he explained to Gran.
“Don’t talk to me about washing anything!” Alex cried, with a shiver. “I
never want to see water again. My, but it was cold in there.”
He paused and looked at the bear reflectively a moment and then arose
and felt him over, his advances being received with great discourtesy by
the bear, who had received the impression, it appeared, that he was to
be manhandled but not invited to supper.
“Let him alone, kid,” advised Clay. “You’ll get a bite that will make
you sit up and take notice that he has something more than white milk
teeth if you don’t. Where are you going to store this menagerie?”
“Why, he can just run around here like Captain Joe does,” was the reply.
“I was looking him over to see if the dog wounded him, but he appears to
be all right. Good dog, that! He knew that I wanted to add this teddy
bear to my collection. I’m going to give him to Captain Joe, the sailor
man, not the dog, when I get back to Chicago. He’ll like him for his own
sweet sake. Now, what do bears eat? Who knows?”
“Honey!” chuckled Case. “They rob beehives, I had a picture of one
tipping over a hive in my school reader. Why don’t you call him honey?”
“No, sir; Teddy is his name,” replied Alex. “Come, now, you fellows,
tell me what to feed him. Will he eat fish, do you think?”
“The Lincoln park bears eat fish,” Gran answered. “I’ve seen ’em.”
“They are polar bears,” Case explained. “The other bears eat bread and
nuts and acorns. I’ve seen the black bears dip their bread in the pool
and eat it in that way. Feed him pancakes, just for fun.”
So Alex seized a pancake from the table and held it under the nose of
the bear. The cub seemed to take more pleasure in the “just for fun”
experiment than the boy did, for he seized the cake and a good share of
the hand that held it out to him.
Alex yelled for him to let go and gave him a cuff on the nose. The skin
was not broken on his fingers, but the bear’s teeth had made
indentations which were a trifle sore. Teddy devoured the pancake
greedily and looked about for more. The boys threw him pieces, and he
soon became so tame that he would put his paw on their laps and ask for
food.
For a few days Captain Joe seemed to resent the intrusion of this new
pet, but Alex so Case declared, explained to the dog that he, himself,
had saved the cub’s life by riding him on his back, and after that there
was peace between the two.
Teddy did indeed like honey, and everything sweet, for more than once he
emptied the sugar bowl, and the very next forenoon he consumed half a
pumpkin pie which Gran was saving for dinner. The cook rebuked him for
this with a club, and Teddy was more careful after that.
Contrary to expectations, the mother did not make her appearance, and
Teddy sailed away the next morning without a formal farewell—and seemed
pleased with his new quarters and his new friends. Before many days he
became a great pet with all the boys, though he always made unusual
protestations of firm friendship to whoever was doing the cooking!
The next morning Alex none the worse for his wetting, was astir long
before the other boys were awake. He had determined, during the night,
to make restitution for the rowboat he had lost.
“There’s plenty of cedar trees up here,” he thought, “and if I can find
a fallen one just the right size, I can make a canoe that will take the
place of the rowboat. Of course,” he mused, “it wasn’t exactly my fault
that the boat was lost. The rope broke when Captain Joe made a jump and
landed in the prow. Still, if I hadn’t been foolish with Teddy, the boat
never would have broken away from me.”
Where the great canyons came down to the water’s edge, cutting the
precipitous side of the mountains into ridges, there were plenty of
cedar trees, and the boy, after softly lifting the anchor and turning
the _Rambler_ down stream, watched long for a fallen tree of the size he
wanted.
It was doubtful if he could bring the boat close up to the shore, for
sometimes the land sloped gradually down, and sometimes there were
hidden rocks which had tumbled from the mountain side, but he decided to
try to do so as soon as he came to a suitable place, a place where there
were great trees growing close to the water’s edge.
A dozen miles down stream from the spot where the night had been passed,
the boy saw that the current, setting against the shore, had cut a cove
into a bluff. Certain that the water would be deep at the edge of the
drop, he worked the _Rambler_ in and was soon overjoyed to see that he
could stretch a plank from the railing to a ledge which, being followed
to the north, would lead to a canyon of some size, the bottom and
sloping sides of which were lined with magnificent cedar trees.
He cast anchor and laid out the plank. Then he turned about to see if
any of his chums were awake, but all were sleeping except Captain Joe,
who lay with his chin on his paws regarding Teddy, still asleep. Captain
Joe seemed to Alex to be asking the bear why he had presumed to use him
for a ferry boat on the previous evening, and the boy laughed heartily
at thought of the scene under the flashlight.
He beckoned to the dog, threw a rope around Teddy’s neck and fastened it
to the railing, thus making sure that he would not escape, and, followed
by the dog, stepped over the plank to the ledge, from which he passed to
the bottom of the canyon. The morning was sharp with frost, but the
atmosphere was clear as crystal. It was like looking into a calm sea of
blue, transparent glass to look up at the sky bending over the valley of
the Columbia. The breath of the cedars was sweet to the nostrils of the
boy, and the songs of the birds were pleasant things to hear.
“This beats Clark street!” Alex thought, moving about in the canyon in
quest of a fallen cedar tree of a size suitable for canoe-making.
A green tree would take too long to fashion into a boat, and one too
long on the ground would rot too soon, so he hunted for a long time
before he came upon just what he sought.
An hour later, when Clay, missing the boy and the dog, followed the
plank to the ledge and then a column of smoke to the interior of the
canyon, he found Alex sitting on a log watching a serpent of flame
running along the upper surface of a fallen cedar tree. The boy had made
a trench along the top of the log and poured kerosene into it. Then he
had set fire to the oil, and the tree trunk was gradually burning out in
the middle. A pail of water sat on the ground near the boy, and as Clay
watched he saw him arise and wet the edges of the trench, so that only
the center of the log would burn. The flames, reinforced now by dry
limbs gathered from the thicket, were already deep down into the heart
of the long log. Clay’s approach was announced by the dog, and Alex
looked up with a curious look of perplexity on his freckled face.
“What are you doing, kid?” Clay asked, looking about.
“Can’t you see,” replied the boy, shrugging his shoulders, “that I’m
putting the roof on this new ten-story building? What do you think I’m
doing? Even Captain Joe knows that, don’t you, doggie?”
The dog said he did, in his own way, and Clay sat down by the side of
the log.
“Somehow,” he said, “it is perfectly natural for people to ask foolish
questions. I knew that you were making a canoe, Indian fashion, yet I
asked that question. Why didn’t you let me help you? You’ll have a long
job if you wait for that whole log to bum out, and you’ll have a long
canoe, too.”
“When it burns out about twenty feet,” Alex replied, “we’ll saw it off
at both ends, sharpen it up, dig out the charred wood, and have a canoe
that will serve the purpose of the boat I lost. Don’t you think so?”
“Of course,” replied Clay, “but you needn’t think you’re going to have
all the credit of making this canoe. I’m going to stay right here and
keep the fires going while you go to breakfast. The boys are wondering
where you are, and Teddy looks as if he had lost his best friend.”
“All right,” Alex replied. “I think a little breakfast would come in
handy just now. I’ll leave Captain Joe to protect you.”
“That will be nice!” laughed Clay. “Captain Joe can do it, you may be
sure. When you return, bring the big saw and some knives with you. I
guess the chopping knife will be about right to dig the charred wood out
with. You needn’t hurry, for this fire must burn a long time.”
Alex started away, but turned back with a thoughtful look on his face.
Clay smiled, for he thought he knew what was in the mind of the boy.
“Say,” Alex said, almost in a whisper, “you haven’t come across the
films yet, have you? I’d just like to know where they went to.”
“There never were any films,” grinned Clay. “You know the bargain. Now,
run along to the boat and get your breakfast. No films, remember!”
Alex hastened away and Clay sat for a long time watching the flames
eating into the log, then the dog sprang up with a bristling back and
gave warning of some one or something creeping through the trees.