THE CHASE
When the sudden gust of wind from the open door blew out the light and
left the room in darkness, the great she-bear was not as much
inconvenienced as one might imagine, for the bear is something of a
prowler at night, doing much thieving and hunting when the darkness
screens its deeds, as he has a very good pair of night-eyes.
Being thus left in darkness, the great brute stepped gingerly about,
taking care not to tread upon the two prostrate forms on the floor,
until she came to the cradle. There she stooped and investigated,
passing her tongue caressingly over the little sleeper's face. Then
with her great clumsy paws she drew the blanket in which the baby had
been wrapped about the sleeping child, and taking the loose ends in her
teeth, swung it clear of the cradle and held it as though in a hammock.
Still standing erect, the bear edged carefully to the doorway, but once
on the piazza, where she felt sure that the way was clear, she dropped
on all fours, and started for the woods at a clumsy, shuffling trot.
But clumsy as the gait was, it took her over the ground rapidly, and
she was soon far into the forest.
The heartbroken mother, after being brought back to consciousness,
could only sit and wring her hands and moan, "O John, John, my baby, my
darling, I shall never see it again."
For a few moments the strong young man sat as though stunned by the
suddenness of the blow. His brawny arms were nerveless; the heart had
gone out of him, leaving him helpless as a little child. But presently
his strong manhood asserted itself, and a bright glitter came into his
keen, gray eyes.
"Mary," he said, almost roughly, "stop taking on so and listen to me.
I am going after our child and with God's help I will bring him back."
The realization of the hopelessness of it all nearly choked him, but he
had to say something to quiet the look of misery and terror in his
wife's eyes.
"I want you to stay right here until I come back. I am a strong man
and a good shot and no harm will come to me. No matter how long I am
gone, or how lonely you get, you are not to stir from the house. Do
you hear?"
The young mother looked at him in a dazed manner as though she but half
comprehended, but at last a look of understanding and eagerness came
into her eyes.
"I am going too," she said.
The man had foreseen and feared this and had tried to forestall it.
"No," he said, roughly, "you cannot go. Stay right in this room until
I return."
As he spoke he took down an old double-barreled gun, and drawing the
shot in one barrel, rammed home a Minie ball that just fitted the bore.
This was a rude makeshift for a rifle, but it was the best he could do.
Hastily slipping on his overcoat and cap, and tenderly kissing his
wife, he passed out into the darkness, on his hazardous and almost
hopeless mission. But before taking the trail, he went to the shed and
aroused an old hound who was sleeping upon a door-mat inside.
"Here, Hecla," he called. "Come along. You may be of some help to me
to-night."
Then tying a long piece of rope to the hound's collar, that she might
not follow too fast, he said, "Here, Hecla, good dog," indicating the
beast's track in the snow. "Sic, Si-c-c-c-c."
As the strong bear scent fumed into the old hound's nostrils, the hair
rose upon her neck and she stood uncertain.
"Si-c-c-c-c," repeated the man sternly.
Reluctantly the hound took the trail, the man following close behind.
Across the mowing and into the pasture, and straight for the deep
woods, the track led.
The man groaned as he thought of the hopelessness of his task;--to
follow a full-grown bear into the deep woods at night, and recover
safely from its clutches a little child.
This was his only hope, though, so setting his teeth, and remembering
the pale face of his wife, the terror in her eyes, and his promise to
bring their boy back safely, he kept on swiftly and bravely.
Fifteen minutes brought man and dog to the woods, and without
hesitation they plunged into its depths. It was not so easy going here
as it had been in the open. The rope was always getting tangled in the
underbrush, and a stop every few minutes to unloose it had to be made.
Sometimes the man plunged up to his waist in the snow where it lay deep
in some hollow. Sometimes it was a dead limb lying across his path
that sent him sprawling. Occasionally the underbrush lashed his face
and tore his skin. But these were little things. Somewhere in the
interminable woods a great brute of a bear was perhaps at this very
moment--he dared not finish the thought, he could only groan.
For half an hour they floundered forward, now slipping and sliding, and
now falling, but always up and on again.
At last, when the man was almost winded, and his breath was coming in
quick gasps, a faint, far-off cry floated down to him through the
ghostly aisles of the naked wind-swept forest. At first it was so
faint as to be almost unintelligible, but as they pressed on, it grew
louder and clearer, until the man recognized the pitiful wailing of a
baby.
"Thank God!" he gasped, "my boy is still alive."
By this time the old hound had fairly warmed up to the chase and was
tugging on the rope and whining eagerly.
To let the dog go on now might frighten the bear and thus defeat the
whole undertaking, so the man tied her to a sapling, and, bidding her
keep quiet, crept cautiously forward.
A hundred feet farther on, the cries from the child grew louder. A
moment more and he caught sight of the bear leaning up against a large
beech, holding the baby in her strong arms.
To the agonized father's great surprise the bear's attitude looked
almost maternal; she seemed indeed to be trying in her brute way to
soothe the infant. She caressed its face with her nose, and lapped it
with her long, soft red tongue. If it had been one of her own cubs she
could not have shown more concern.
So much the frantic father noted, while he stood irresolute, uncertain
what to do next. The bear would have been an easy shot by daylight, if
there had been no baby to consider. But there was that little bundle
of humanity, the man's own flesh and blood, and a bullet in order to
pierce the bear's heart must strike within a few inches of the baby's
head. The task that King Gessler set William Tell, was child's play
compared with this. To shoot might mean to kill his own child, and not
to shoot might mean a still more terrible death for the infant.
The child's wails now grew louder and more frequent. The old bear
became uneasy; in another moment she might flee farther into the woods,
or worse than that, might silence the little one with a blow or a
crunch of her powerful jaws.
The desperate man raised his gun. The fitful moonlight shimmered and
danced upon the barrel, and the shadows from the tree-tops alternated
with the dancing moonbeams. He could see the sight but dimly and,
added to all this, was the thought that the gun was not a rifle, with
an accurate bullet, but an old shotgun loaded with a Minie ball.
At first, his arms shook so that he could not hold the gun steady, but
by a mighty effort he nerved himself. For a second the moon favored
him; a moment the sight glinted just in front of the bear's left
shoulder, frightfully close to his child's head, and then he pressed
the trigger.
A bright flame leaped from the muzzle of the old gun; its roar
resounded frightfully through the aisles of the naked woods, and its
last echo was followed by the startled cry of the infant.
Dropping the gun in the snow, the man bounded forward, drawing a long
knife from his belt as he ran. Four or five frantic bounds carried him
to the foot of the beech, where the bear had stood when he fired.
There in the snow lay the enormous black form, and close beside it in a
snowdrift, still nicely wrapped in its blanket, was the child,
apparently without a scratch upon it.