A BEAR AND HER CUBS
SLOWLY an hour slipped by. To Dave it seemed an age, and more than once
he peered up and down the rough rocks to see if there was any sign of
friends or enemies. From a distance had come two shots, but after that
all was quiet as a tomb, save for the wind, which still swept through
the forest, and the occasional patter of a few drops of rain.
“Don’t go too far, lad,” said Raymond, by way of caution, after Dave had
climbed out on the rocks for the fourth time. “Those Injuns may be
closer nor you think.”
“I must find out what has become of Henry,” was the half-desperate
answer.
“Yes, yes, I know, but——”
“Do you think any of our party escaped to the boats?”
“It’s not likely they would expose themselves, lad. If they tried to row
away some of the redskins would be sure to see ’em and send a shower of
arrows after ’em.”
“But it is dreadful to think Henry may be killed, or a prisoner!”
“I know that too, lad. Didn’t I lose my brother Dan on the frontier only
four years ago? I did my best to save him, too, but it was no use. I was
taken prisoner, and they had just started to torture me when some of the
Gordon Rangers came up and saved me. That was the fight in which they
killed old Tom Granby and his son Jabez, and carried off Mrs. Williamson
and little Ned Ford.”
“Did the prisoners ever escape?”
“All but little Ned. He was carried westward, and they have never heard
of him since,” answered Raymond, with a sorry shake of his head.
A lump arose in David’s throat and he found great difficulty in
swallowing it. If Henry was dead how would he ever be able to send the
news to Mrs. Morris and the others?
“It will ’most break Aunt Lucy’s heart,” he thought. “And Uncle Joe’s
heart too. With Rodney a cripple they all depended on Henry so much!”
Raymond was about to take a look around, when a curious sound from the
rear of the cave-like opening caused both the backwoodsman and the young
soldier to leap up in fresh alarm.
“What was that?” cried Dave, as he brought up his musket.
“Don’t know,” whispered Raymond. “Lay low! The Injuns may be coming on
us another way.”
Both crouched back into a niche of the wall and waited. Soon the noise
was repeated, and they heard a scratching on the rocks at the back of
the opening.
“Reckon I know what that is,” said Raymond at length.
“What?”
“Bear’s cubs.”
“Do you really think so?” cried Dave. “If that is true, this must be a
bear’s den.”
“More’n likely, lad, and if it is we had better get out.”
“You think the old she bear will be back?”
“To be sure. She won’t leave her cubs over night. She’d be back before
this, only it’s likely the shots made her timid.”
“It’s queer we didn’t hear the cubs before.”
“They have been asleep and just woke up. Hark!”
They listened and heard the scratching on the rocks again. It came
closer, but when Raymond made a noise, it sounded fainter and fainter.
“They won’t touch us, that’s sure,” said Dave. “But the old she bear——”
“Something is coming!” interrupted Raymond. “Reckon it’s her!”
He was right—the mother of the cubs—a black bear of good size, was
coming slowly along at the foot of the rocks. She sniffed the air and
looked from side to side with keen suspicion.
“Hadn’t we better get out without being seen?” whispered the young
soldier. “If we kill her, the Indians will hear the shots.”
“Yes, come on,” replied Raymond.
Side by side they started to leave the entrance to the bear’s den. But
as they stepped out the old she bear uttered a whine, and the cubs in
the cave gave answer. Then the mother bear saw the intruders in the
semi-darkness and let out a growl of savage rage.
“She’s going to fight!” cried Dave.
“She thinks we have hurt her cubs!” returned the backwoodsman.
Raymond was right, and before they could take a dozen steps up the rocks
the black bear was leaping after them, snarling viciously and showing
her long, white teeth.
“We’ll have to shoot—or be chewed up!” gasped Dave, when the bear was
less than fifty feet from him.
He had scarcely uttered the words when Raymond’s rifle rang out. But the
aim of the backwoodsman was poor, and the bullet passed wide of the
beast. The report stopped the bear but a second, then she came on as
furiously as ever.
It was now Dave’s turn to shoot, and he lost no time in blazing away. He
was more fortunate, and the black beast was brought to another halt,
this time with a bullet in her shoulder. But the fight was not yet
knocked out of her, and she tried to limp over the rocks, uttering growl
after growl.
“She won’t give in,” said Raymond, and both started to reload. While
they were doing this the cubs, two in number, appeared at the entrance
to the cave-like opening.
On catching sight of her offspring, the wounded bear paused once again.
She evidently wished to pursue her enemies and at the same time she
wished to make certain that her cubs were really unharmed. Slowly she
limped back to her own.
“Now is our chance!” cried Dave, and over the rocks went the young
soldier and the backwoodsman, scrambling along with all possible speed.
The route was a rough one, and more than once they had their hands and
faces scratched and their uniforms torn.
“Those shots will put the Indians on the watch,” said Raymond, as they
pushed along.
“Perhaps they will bring some of our friends to the vicinity,” returned
Dave. “If Henry——Oh!”
Dave’s speech ended in a cry of pain. He had slipped on the rocks and
his left leg had received a severe wrench at the knee. He tried to rise
and then fell back with a groan of agony.
“What’s the matter, lad?”
“I’ve twisted my knee.”
“Can’t you get up?”
“I’ll try it. Oh!”
Dave stood up on the limb that was uninjured and tried to take a step.
But the pain was too great and he was forced to sit down on a rock.
“That’s too bad, certainly,” said Raymond sympathetically. “If you can’t
walk, I really don’t know what we are to do.”
“Perhaps you had better go on alone.”
“No, I shan’t leave you, Dave—it wouldn’t be human.”
“Yes, but—but we left Henry,” said the young soldier bluntly.
“That was in the midst of a fight and a different thing altogether. If
you can’t walk, can you climb yonder tree, do you think?”
“Perhaps, with your help.”
“Then let us both get up. The bear can’t climb with a wounded leg, and
if she does I can give her a shot right in the head when she comes up,”
went on the backwoodsman.
He picked the youth up in his arms and walked over to the tree he had
pointed out. The darkness of night had now settled down, and it was with
difficulty that they made their way among the lower limbs. Dave wanted
to shriek with pain, but gritted his teeth and kept silent.
It was a lonely and never-to-be-forgotten night. In an hour or two the
wind went down and it began to rain steadily. Dave did not feel like
stirring, and all he could do was to rub the cords of his limb that had
become so sadly twisted. Raymond remained on guard, but neither the bear
nor anything else came to disturb them.
At daybreak it was still raining, but the clouds showed signs of
breaking away, and before nine o’clock the hot midsummer sun shone as
brightly as ever.
“We are in a bad plight, no two ways about it,” said the backwoodsman.
“What is best to do I must say I don’t know.”
“I don’t believe I can walk very far yet,” answered Dave despondently.
“My knee feels as stiff as if it was in a vise.”
“Perhaps I had better scout around a little, leaving you here. It is
barely possible I may run across some of the others and find out what
became of your cousin.”
“Then go, by all means!” cried Dave. “You cannot do me a greater favor
than to find Henry.”
“But you must lay low, lad. The Injuns may be closer nor you think.”
“I will keep quiet. But I’d like to have a drink before you go,”
answered the young soldier.
Some water was obtained, and he gulped it down eagerly, and bathed his
sprained knee with what remained. Then cautioning him once more, Raymond
left him, the backwoodsman setting off in the direction of the lake
front.
If the night had seemed lonely, the time now was doubly so to Dave, who
could do nothing but nurse his bruise and keep a lookout for a possible
enemy. His thoughts traveled constantly to his cousin, and he wondered
if Raymond would bring in any news of Henry.
“He ought to learn something,” he told himself over and over. “I am sure
I could if I was in his place.”
Nine o’clock came and then ten o’clock, and still the silence of the
forest remained unbroken save for the occasional song of some distant
bird, and the buzzing of bees around an adjacent bee-tree. The nearness
of this bee-tree put Dave in mind of that discovered by his uncle and
himself while on their trip to Annapolis some years before. What great
changes had occurred since that time!
“This war has been an awful thing, and I shall be glad when it is at an
end,” he thought. “But unless we win, there will be trouble with the
Indians and the French for years and years to come.”
It was almost noon when he heard a faint sound in the woods to the north
of the tree. Instantly he caught up his musket, which had been resting
in a crotch close at hand.
Slowly the sound came closer, and he could hear the labored breathing of
some man or animal. He leaned as far down as possible to catch a glimpse
of the newcomer.
“Shamer!” he murmured.
He called the soldier’s name softly, and Shamer paused in wonderment.
“Who is calling me?” he panted.
“I am, Dave Morris, Shamer. I am up in the tree. Are you alone?”
“Yes, and I can hardly walk,” groaned the soldier. “A bullet struck me
in the calf of the leg. Any Indians around here?”
“I haven’t seen any. My knee is hurt. Raymond was with me, but he has
gone down to the shore to take a look around. Do you know anything of my
cousin Henry and the others?”
“Gilfoy is dead.”
“Yes, Raymond said they had killed him. And the others?”
“The Indians captured both Silvers and Henry and carried them off,” was
Shamer’s answer, which caused Dave’s heart to sink like a lump of lead
in his bosom.
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