THE DANCING BEAR.
“But it is a bear all right, isn’t it?” Billy was saying with evident
satisfaction, “and you’ll have to take back all you said about my being
so scared ’cause I saw a whole lot of things that never could happen,
Arthur. Mebbe there aren’t any wild bears a-roamin’ around these parts
any more, but I did see a hairy monster, didn’t I? And when I told you
he reared up on his hind legs and made like he wanted to dance with me,
I wasn’t yarning, you see. Huh! next time you won’t be so ready to make
out I’m a fakir. Magnifying a stump into a live beast! Whew! look at him
stretching right now, will you? What are you meaning to do, Hugh?”
The patrol leader had started toward the imprisoned bear, causing Billy
to ask this last question.
“Why, I wonder where his master can be?” Hugh Hardin readily observed,
his curiosity aroused afresh.
“Oh! taking a good long sleep somewhere in the bushes around most
likely,” Billy remarked unconcernedly. “You know the breed all right,
fellows. They’re as cruel a bunch as you’d find anywhere. I reckon this
poor thing’s got heaps and heaps of big welts under his hair from being
whipped when he wouldn’t feel like dancing, his pole held in his
forepaws. I’ve watched ’em do it.”
All of them now approached the bear more closely. The animal did not
seem to be of the common black American variety, but had a sort of
cinnamon hue.
“I think they bring them over from Russia, down along some part of the
Caucasus or Ural Mountains,” Hugh was saying as the shaggy beast, still
standing erect on its haunches, started to make those queer whining
sounds again.
“What d’ye reckon the old thing means by that, Hugh?” asked Arthur.
“And look at the way he keeps working his mouth, will you?” added Billy.
“Tell you what, I think he must be hungry! He smells that fine loaf of
bread you’ve got under your arm, Chief. Better give it to the poor
beggar. Look at him putting out his tongue, and slathering his lips.
He’s sure begging for something.”
“I think I know what he wants most of all,” said Hugh. “You can see from
the way the ground’s torn up around that he must have been tied here all
night.”
“Whew! that would be tough on the poor thing, wouldn’t it?” declared
Billy, who had a tender heart and could not bear to see any beast or
bird suffer when it lay in his power to change things for the better.
“He wants a drink of water the worst kind, boys,” continued the patrol
leader.
“And I know of a fine little spring not five minutes’ walk away from
here, too. I’ve often stepped over there when working at my wireless to
get a cold drink,” Arthur hastened to remark.
“You’re elected then unanimously, seeing that you’re the only one that
knows where the water tank lies,” Billy told him.
“Elected to what?” demanded the other scout.
“Why to lead the poor old bear to his drink,” Billy went on to say,
without betraying the least sign of humor in his round face. “Step right
up and unfasten that greasy rope, Arthur, while I stand by this tree
ready to climb, if so be he breaks away and comes my way. He keeps on
looking at me like he thought I was good enough to eat. That’s the
trouble with being nice and plump. But what ails you, Chum Arthur? I
don’t see you jumping forward to pat our hairy brother and tell him his
troubles are all over, since you’ve come along.”
“Hugh! what are we going to do about it?” Arthur asked, turning from his
tormentor toward the scout master.
“If you lead the way, I’ll go along with you to that spring,” replied
the other quietly. “We might fill our hats and perhaps that’ll be
enough. I never saw a bear drink water, but in hot summer weather I
should think they’d want it as well as any other animal. Come along,
Arthur.”
Billy seemed in doubt whether to offer to accompany his comrades or
remain there. He did not altogether like the idea of finding himself
left alone with the bear. The rope looked thin and worn, and might
break. So as soon as the others had departed, and he could hear their
voices growing fainter as they hurried on toward Arthur’s pet spring,
Billy proceeded to climb the tree against which he had been leaning.
“Gives a fellow a better outlook, for one thing,” he told himself, as he
straddled the lower limb, “and then in case the sly old rascal did break
loose, why I’d have a halfway chance to kick at him, and keep him down
below till they came back and Hugh tied him up again. Scouts should be
cautious as well as brave; that’s always been my motto. There, Hugh went
and left that loaf of bread when he took Arthur with him to get the
water. See that bear sniffing as hard as anything, would you? One thing
sure, if he did break loose he’d start in to gobble that bread, and let
me alone.”
Listening he could hear the other two talking some little distance away.
It was from this that Billy judged they had arrived at the spring, and
were proceeding to fill their campaign hats. Although this idea of
Hugh’s might seem a little strange on the face of it, there was really
nothing uncommon about his desire to relieve the sufferings of the
thirsty animal. Scouts are taught to do just these helpful things
whenever the opportunity comes along; and many a fellow has found a
chance to turn his reversed medal over for the day by an act of mercy
toward dumb beasts,—horses, cows, or even dogs in pain or trouble of any
sort.
Given time, Billy might have thought to the same end himself, but his
brain did not work as rapidly as that of some of the other boys, and as
a rule he made slow progress.
He sat there, keeping a wary eye on the performing bear and guessing at
the progress of his chums by catching the sound of their voices coming
louder and louder with every half minute.
Then Billy breathed more freely when he saw their figures flitting
carefully among the trees near by, so as not to spill more of the water
than could be helped.
“Good for you, boys!” he called out as he hastened to slip down from his
elevated perch, but not soon enough to escape the sharp eyes of Arthur,
who immediately took him to task for deserting the solid earth.
“Wise old Billy, ain’t it?” he remarked, jeeringly. “He wasn’t going to
take any chances of being nibbled at by the tame bear, was he? Climbed a
tree, didn’t you, son? Just as if bears couldn’t shin up a trunk like
hot cakes! You’re a bright one, I must say, Billy.”
“That’s all right and I am not ashamed to admit it, either,” asserted
the other stoutly. “A scout should never be rash, the rules say. Why
should I take unnecessary chances, when I knew that bear had his eye on
me, and thought I’d make a good lunch? If he’d been tackling you,
Arthur, I’d show you what I’d do if I had to grab him from the back, and
wrestle with him like his master does; only he hasn’t his muzzle on
right now, and that’d be bad. Does he drink, Hugh?”
While the others were indulging in this little exchange of sentiments,
the scout master had advanced toward the tied bear holding out his hat
water-pail. The animal eagerly thrust his snout into the cool liquid and
seemed to be drinking after a fashion, which told that Hugh had been
right when he said the beast must have been fastened here for some time.
“He wasn’t there when I came down from the top of the hill yesterday
morning, I give you my word for that, Chief,” Arthur announced, as he
stood ready to hand his hat of water over to the other, should the first
supply prove insufficient to satisfy the poor beast. “You can see for
yourself that it would be impossible for me to have passed on this trail
and missed running across him.”
“But what d’ye reckon has become of his master, and how are we goin’ to
get the dancing bear back to town, when he don’t know us? That’s what
I’d like to know,” Billy demanded apprehensively, not as yet daring to
come within five feet of the sleek monster.
“I’m bothered to know what it all means,” Hugh told them. “When he
fastened the bear here, the man must have had some notion in his head
but he’s been kept from coming back again.”
“Would he want to abandon the poor thing just because it wasn’t paying
him to tote the bear along?” asked Arthur.
“I wouldn’t think that could be,” said Hugh. “As far as I know, these
men who own trained bears always make a good deal of money and they
spend mighty little. Besides, such an animal would be worth fifty or a
hundred dollars for exhibition purposes, I’d think. No, there’s some
other reason for it. I’ve got half a notion to try to find the man’s
track leading away from here, and see which way he did go. What if he
fell down some little precipice—there are such things around these
hills—and broke his leg? Why, he might lie there and die for all
anybody’d hear him call, up in this lonely region.”
Both of the other scouts were more or less worked up by what the patrol
leader had just said. It was not very difficult for them to picture a
variety of serious perils along the lines suggested by Hugh; they rather
liked the idea of picking up the departing trail of the foreigner just
to see if they would be equal to the task of discovering him, perhaps
asleep, near by.
“But I don’t see how anybody could sleep through all that noise Billy
here put up,” Arthur chose to remark, “when he came rushing down the
hill with his hair standing on end, and his eyes looking as if they
would drop out of his head.”
“Oh! hold on, there, go easy with a fellow, can’t you?” urged Billy
reproachfully. “Of course I own up I was some scared, but it wasn’t as
bad as all that, and you know it, Arthur. Guess anybody’d have had some
shock to run across that thing all of a sudden and believe it to be a
wild bear.”
“Why, before we’re done with it,” boasted Arthur, “you may see me riding
on the old fellow’s broad back like as not. They’re really as tame and
docile as kittens, I was told; that is, after they get to know you, and
you’ve fed ’em a few times so they’ll look on you as a friend. There, he
acts as though he’d had all the water he wanted, Hugh. Just throw out
the rest, and I’ll put on my wet hat, which ought to feel nice and cool
after all that soaking.”
Hugh was already commencing to cast around in search of tracks that
would be of a far different type from their own,—prints made by
broad-soled hob-nailed shoes, such as these Russian immigrants wear.
This made it look as though he had been quite in earnest when he made
that assertion about feeling in the humor to try and follow the trail
the bear’s master had left when he departed on his unknown errand.
Billy happened to think of that loaf of bread which the patrol leader
had laid down when arriving on the scene. Some spirit of mischief caused
the boy to step over, and picking the package up advance toward the tied
bear, holding it out to see what the animal would do.
He found out, and in a big hurry too, after a fashion he had evidently
not suspected would come to pass. The animal sniffed harder than ever as
he caught the tantalizing odor of the freshly baked bread. If it had
held a good scent for the boy who had stuffed himself at breakfast only
an hour or two ago, fancy how it excited the bear, which must have been
very hungry indeed.
Before Billy could realize how all those frantic pullings might result,
he heard the worn rope give a sudden sharp snap where it had gone around
the tree. Then he saw that the eager bear was now loose, and advancing
quickly toward him, growling and whining with eagerness, and impatient
to break his long fast!