THE TRACKING GAME.
“Hugh, oh! Hugh! he’s loose!”
These boys of the Wolf Patrol had become so accustomed to depending on
their energetic leader when trouble threatened that this cry pealed from
the lips of Billy Worth as naturally as he would eat his supper, given
half a chance.
The sight of that bear standing on his two hind legs and advancing
eagerly toward him gave Billy the shock of his life. He realized that
being without any kind of weapon, he was powerless to resist should the
hungry animal seize hold of him, and commence breaking his fast. Billy
did not know, or at least failed to remember then under such tremendous
excitement, that bears, at least of this species, are more addicted to a
diet of roots, berries, and cereals when they can get them, than flesh.
He dropped the loaf of bread, though the act was more the result of his
fright than any idea of coaxing the beast to turn his attention
elsewhere, and let him, Billy, alone.
Arthur was close by, but as incapable of assisting his chum as Billy was
of helping himself; it seemed as though Arthur must have been paralyzed
by the sight of that tall monster pushing directly at the other scout.
Arthur remained standing there with open mouth and staring eyes, never
so much as lifting a hand.
When the bear began to sniff eagerly, and then dropped suddenly on all
fours, as though meaning to hunt for the loaf which had fallen, Billy
experienced a feeling of intense relief.
He was actually able to get some momentum, for up to then, while
desirous of beating a retreat he had seemed frozen to the ground; he
could remember passing through a similar experience when suffering from
a species of nightmare.
So Billy fell back several paces, all the while observing the actions of
the educated bear as though fascinated.
It would seem that the animal must have been given a loaf of bread tied
up in paper many times in the past. Perhaps that was his customary daily
allowance. He started to tear the covering away, undoubtedly fully aware
of the necessity for doing this before he could get at the contents. And
Billy thought he showed almost human intelligence about it, too; in
fact, he afterward declared his positive belief that Bruin had
deliberately untied the string with his teeth and claws.
At any rate, whether that was true or only imagination on the part of
the staring boy, the bear was munching eagerly at the bread by the time
Hugh arrived on the spot, which proved how quickly all this had been
accomplished.
“What’s happening, Billy?” asked the patrol leader, though of course he
could see that the bear was busily engaged with something just then.
“He’s hooked your lovely bread, that’s what, Hugh!” gasped the other,
pointing.
“Oh! well, let it go at that,” replied Hugh, with a short laugh. “Seems
like a pity to waste Mrs. Benton’s prime bread on such a beast; but
since he’s nearly starved, and has got his teeth in the loaf, there’s no
stopping him now. But how did it happen _you_ had the bread in your
hands, Billy?”
“It was all my fault, I guess, Hugh,” answered the now contrite Billy.
“I just thought I’d see how he acted when he got a whiff of that new
bread, and would you believe me, he just leaned so hard on his rope that
it snapped where it was fastened around the tree. Whoo! if I hadn’t had
the good sense to drop the bread I reckon he’d have bitten a hunk out of
my leg!”
“But he’s free now, Hugh,” spoke up Arthur. “What can we do about it?”
“While he’s so busy with the bread I’ll try and see if I can get hold of
that rope and fix him again,” remarked the patrol leader, not believing
it would prove a very difficult task.
“Be careful, Hugh. He’s got wicked-looking teeth! I can see ’em!” Billy
warned his chum anxiously.
“And his claws haven’t been trimmed this long while, seems like,” added
Arthur.
“I’ll look out, make your minds easy on that question,” Hugh told them.
“Both of you stand where you are, and keep moving your arms so as to
sort of hold his attention. I think I can see how the job is going to be
done.”
“A good idea, sure it is!” Billy declared and immediately began to swing
both of his arms as though they were parts of some windmill with a
twenty-mile-an-hour gale blowing.
“Easy now, not quite so hard, Billy!” Hugh admonished as he started to
pass to the rear of the munching brute, where he had discovered the
broken end of the rope lying on the ground.
The others continued to move their arms and talk as they watched Hugh
work. In the first place he bent down and secured the rope. He found
that by advancing closer to the bear he would be able to pass it around
a stout little sapling and knot the end securely. What if the munching
beast did growl more or less as he became conscious of Hugh’s presence.
That was just the way any dog would do when disturbed while crunching a
bone between his teeth; and the scout master did not mean to let it
deter him from the task he had set out to perform.
“All done, Hugh?” burst out the admiring Billy when he saw the other
starting to move back.
“Yes, and if the rope only holds this time he’ll stay there till his
master shows up to take him in charge,” came from the other.
“You did it in first-class style, and that’s a fact, Chief!” asserted
the relieved Arthur.
“Now, what’s next on the program?” demanded Billy.
“Why, as I’ve managed to find the tracks of the foreigner leaving here,
I thought we might start out and follow the trail,” suggested the patrol
leader.
“Fine!” ejaculated Billy.
“And I think the same,” added Arthur, “though I hope that after we’re
all through with this job you’ll still come back with me, and try out my
wireless, Hugh. Promise me that, won’t you, please?”
“You can count on me, Arthur,” the other assured him. “I’m almost as
much interested in your experiment as you can be yourself. I think it
would be a great thing if we could talk across all the distance between
while you’re home here and some of the scouts are on board the _Vixen_
bound up the coast. It would show the boys of the Naval Reserve that
scouts are not so _slow_ after all to keep up with the procession. Yes,
you can count on me, Arthur, to watch you work your wireless.”
“All right, Hugh. Let’s see if we can find out what’s become of the man
who owns this poor bear.”
Hugh immediately led his chums over where he had been working at the
moment that the tocsin of alarm from Billy announced that something
unusual had happened, and that he was needed in another quarter.
“See here and here,” Hugh told them, pointing as he spoke to the ground.
“That is his trail as sure as anything,” admitted Billy instantly. “And
he’s wearing shoes with great big hob-nails in them, too. Most of these
foreigners do that, I guess. They make their shoes wear twice as long;
and every cent saved means they can go back all the sooner to their old
home with a little fortune tucked away in their corduroys or jeans. Lead
off, Hugh, and we’ll be right at your heels. And show us anything queer
you happen to run across on the trail, see?”
“Because as scouts,” added Arthur, promptly, “we want to be up to all
the wrinkles of the business, you know. I find out new things every day,
and it seems like the more you know the more you discover you don’t
know.”
“That’s a queer way of saying it, Arthur,” laughed Hugh, “but it covers
the ground, I think. You mean the field keeps on getting larger the more
our horizon is extended, which is what one writer says. Come on then,
we’ll leave the bear to finish his bread, and lick up the crumbs. I had
thought to have a share of that brown loaf myself, but it went in a good
cause and I don’t feel sorry.”
With the scout master leading them and all bending low so as to keep a
close watch on the tracks, they started forth. None of them could tell
just where that trail might take them,—a dozen possibilities opened up
before their mental vision. If they thought anything at all, possibly
Billy and Arthur were convinced that the foreigner may have wanted to
get rid of his charge, and had thus basely abandoned the poor bear to
its fate. Then again there was a chance that in going to town he may
have been arrested for some trivial thing, and was even then languishing
in the lockup, unable to make the police understand that his performing
bear would starve unless some one went up to Cedar Hill to relieve the
animal’s wants.
Several times Hugh did call a temporary halt. He had come upon some
phase of the trail that might have mystified a greenhorn, but which
proved no puzzle to him, because of his wide experience in these things.
And he took pleasure in explaining to his comrades what the combination
meant.
“It seems that the fellow might be trying to blind anybody that chanced
to be following his tracks,” Hugh once told his mates. “Three times now
he’s even gone to the trouble to walk along a fallen tree trunk, and
jump from the further end. If I didn’t know the old Indian dodge, it
would have fooled me, too.”
“And I never heard about such a game,” admitted Arthur, while Billy
nodded his head acknowledging the same thing.
“But whatever do you think he wants to do that for, Hugh?” the last
named asked.
“I don’t know, Billy,” replied the patrol leader thoughtfully. “Seems to
me he might be following a series of marks somehow, for look here at
this plain ‘blaze’ on this tree, made at least several months ago,
perhaps even last year. Now, it might be possible that the man has got a
secret _cache_ somewhere around, where he keeps his valuables; and
whenever he finds himself in this neighborhood he goes there to add to
the hoard, looking to the time when he thinks he will have enough saved
to go back home with. And he has made a secret trail from where he left
his bear to this hiding place.”
“Yes, but while that sounds all to the good, Hugh,” protested Billy,
“why should he stay away so long?”
“We’ll hope to find that out before we’re done,” Hugh told them; “that
is, fellows, if you don’t say you’ve had enough of this tracking game,
and want to call it off.”
Both the others immediately vigorously protested that they were not
dreaming of such a thing; that they stood ready to back the scout master
up, even if they had to continue this rambling around up and down among
the rough places of the mountain until dark set in.
“All right, that settles it,” said Hugh. “Let me tell you this is just
pie for me. I’m never so happy as when trying to find out the answer to
some knotty problem. We’ll keep right on, even if the zigzag trail takes
us all the way to the town lock-up!”
Ten minutes later Hugh held up his hand warningly.
“Steady, boys!” he remarked quietly. “Here’s a bad place where the
bushes seem to screen the brink of a little precipice; you can see for
yourselves that the man we’re tracking must have stumbled at the worst
spot he could have picked out to take the dip. Here is where he crashed
through the bushes; and look, when I part them with my hands, you can
see that there’s a bad drop beyond.”
“Listen!” said Arthur.
“What did you think you heard?” gasped Billy, looking somewhat awed.
“Sounded awfully like a groan!” replied the other solemnly.