CHAPTER XII.
"GO IT, OLD BRUIN!"
Before them lay a ruined tract of country, extending northward fartherthan eye could reach. It is called by Maine woodsmen a _brulee_, nameborrowed from their French-Canadian neighbors, who dwell across theboundary line which separates the Dominion from the United States.
The word signifies "burnt tract;" but it gives a feeble idea of thefire-smitten, blackened region on which the lads looked.
The forest until now had been a wilderness truly, but a wilderness whereevery kind and size of growth, from the giant pine to the creepingwintergreen and shaded mosses, mingled in beautiful confusion. Here itbecame a desert. For the terrible forest fires, the woodsman's tragicenemy, had swept over it not long before, devastating an area of manysquare miles. Millions of dollars worth of valuable timber had beenreduced to rotting embers. Storm-defying pines had crashed to the earth,and were overridden by the flames in their wild rush onward. Sometimesonly a smutty stump showed where they had stood; sometimes, robbed oflife and every limb, portions of the fire-eaten trunks still remainederect,--bare, blackened poles. All smaller growth, and even the surfaceof the ground, parched by summer heats, had burned like tinder. Rocksand stones were baked and crumbling.
"Boys, that's the most mournful sight a woodsman can see," said Doc,looking away over the wrecked region, touched with golden lights from anOctober sunset. "It makes one who loves the woods feel as if he had losta living friend."
"Well, 'tain't no manner o' use to fret over it," declared Joeenergetically. "Nature don't waste time in fretting, you bet! She startsin and tries to cover the stripped ground, as if she was sort of ashamedto have it seen."
The guide pointed earthward. At his feet a dwarfed growth of blueberrybushes and tiny trees was already springing up to screen the unsightly,ash-strewn land.
"True enough, Joe! Nature is a grand one for remedies," answered thedoctor. "Still, it will be half a century or more before she can raise atimber growth here again. Hulloa! Dol, what are you fellows up to?"
While his elders were studying the _brulee_, Dol, who objected to drearysights, had marched down to the brink of the stream, accompanied byRoyal's young brothers, Will and Martin Sinclair. The little rivergurgled and frisked along beside the burnt tract, like a line of lifebordering death. It seemed to the boys to prattle about its victory overthe flames when it stopped their sweeping course, so that the woods onits opposite bank were uninjured, as were those beyond the brook in therear.
"We're studying the ways of the great sea-serpent!" shouted back Dol,who was splashing about in a sedgy pool.
By and by when the guides had finished their work of making camp, whenthey had pitched the tents, cut boughs for beds and fuel in the sprucegrove behind, and were cooking an odorous supper, the three juvenilescame slowly towards the camp-fire from the water.
"What on earth have you got there, young one?" asked Dr. Phil; forAdolphus Farrar was bareheaded, and carried his hat very gingerly, withits corners clutched together to form a bag.
"The big sea-serpent himself," answered Dol mysteriously.
Of a sudden he opened his dripping hat, and spilled out a smallwater-snake, about ten inches long, upon the doctor's lap.
There was a great roar of laughter, in which Dol's abettors, Will andMartin, joined with cheerful shouts. The little joke had the effect ofwinning everybody's thoughts from roaring flames, wrecked forests, andthe dreary _brulee_. Uncle Eb killed the snake, maintaining thatwater-snakes were "plaguy p'isonous," while Cyrus scouted the idea. Thesupper that evening was a merry enough meal. The camp, lit by the ruddyglow from its great fire, looked an oasis of light, warmth, and jollityin the black and burnt desert.
The darky, hearing Cyrus declare that he was fearfully hungry, mixedsome flapjacks to form a second course, after the venison steaks andpotatoes. He had exhausted his stock of maple sugar, but he produced asmall wooden keg of the apparently inexhaustible molasses.
"He! he! he! Dat jest touches de spot, don't it?" he chuckled, when,having carefully served each member of the party, he seated himselfabout three feet from the camp-fire, with a round dozen of the thincakes for his own eating.
He coated them with the thick molasses, and set the keg down side byside with a bag of potatoes which had been brought from the settlement.
There these provisions remained when, earlier than usual, the partyturned in, and stretched their tired limbs to rest, lying down, as theyhad done before when sleeping under canvas, with all their garments onsave coats and moccasins. Whether Uncle Eb forgot his "m'lasses," orwhether he purposely left it without, there not being a spare inch ofroom in the small tents, no one then or afterwards inquired.
As a result of the jolly intimacy that had sprung up between the twocompanies during the few days when they had all things in common, theboys disposed of themselves for the night as they pleased. Neal turnedin with the doctor, Royal, and Joe, the four stretching themselves onthe evergreen boughs, with their feet to the opening of the tent, andtheir rifles and ammunition within reach. Of course the Winchesters wereempty, it being a strict rule that firearms should not be brought intocamp loaded.
The younger Sinclairs, with Cyrus, Dol, and Uncle Eb, occupied the othertent.
It seemed to Neal that he had hardly slept one hour,--probably it wasnearer to three,--during which time he had been dreaming with vagueforeshadowings of the final and crowning sport of the trip, the grandmoose-stalking, and of Herb Heal, the mighty hunter, when he wasawakened by a shrill scream just outside the canvas. He started, withhis heart going whackety-whack. The cry was sudden and intenselystartling, appearing twice as loud as it really was when it broke thepathetic stillness of the _brulee_, where not a tree rustled or twigsnapped, and the night wind only sighed faintly and fitfully through thenewly springing growth.
Again sounded that startling screech; and yet again, making a dreary,piercing din.
"By all that's funny! it's another coon," gasped Neal; and he gentlypinched the shoulder of Joe, who lay on his left.
"Joe!" he whispered. "Wake up! There's a raccoon just outside the tent.I heard his cry."
The guide was awake and alert in an instant. So, too, was Dr. Phil.
"What's up, boys?" asked the latter, hearing a murmur.
"There's a coon close by," said Neal again. "Listen to him!"
Even while he spoke, young Farrar caught sight of two feathered thingshopping along the avenue of light which lay between him and thecamp-fire, the red flare of the flames mingling with the white radianceof a cloudless moon. At the same time the screech sounded and resounded.
"Coon!" exclaimed Joe derisively. "That's no coon. It's only a littleowl. Bless ye! I've had five or six of 'em come right into this tent ofa night, and ding away at me till I had to talk to 'em with the rifle toscare 'em off. I'll give 'em a dose o' lead now if they don't scootmighty quick; that'll stop their song an' dance."
"Their cry is pretty much like a raccoon's, Neal," said Doc. "Only it'sa great deal weaker. Lie down, boy. Go to sleep, and don't mind them."
The owls perhaps apprehended danger. At all events, they were silent fora while; and in three minutes each occupant of the tent was fast asleepagain, with the exception of Neal. The sharp awakening had upset hisnerves a bit. He obeyed the doctor, and hugged his blankets round him,hoping sleep would return; but he lay with eyes narrowed into two slits,peeping at the ruddy camp-fire, involuntarily listening for thescreeching of the birds, and wishing that he had not been such agreenhorn as to disturb his comrades for nothing. Royal, who lay on hisright, was of a less excitable temperament. Although he had beenawakened, he was now snoring lustily, insomnia being a rare afflictionin camps.
"What's that?"
About half an hour had passed when Neal Farrar suddenly and sharplyrapped out these words close to Joe's ear. He felt certain that he wouldnot now bring upon him the woodsman's good-natured scorn for making adisturbance about nothing. A heavy, stealthy tread, as of some biganimal, was cru
shing the pygmy bushes near the tent. Immediatelyafterwards he saw an uncouth black shape in the lane of light betweenhimself and the fire. It disappeared while his heart was giving onejump, and he heard a dull, mumbling noise, such as a pig might make whenrooting amid rubbish, varied with an occasional low growl.
Joe was already awake. His hunter's instinct told him that somethingtruly exciting was on now.
"My cracky! I b'lieve it's a bear!" he muttered, forming his words awaydown in his throat, so that Neal only caught the last one. "Keep stillas death!"
The guide reached out a long arm, and clutched his rifle. Hurriedly hejammed half a dozen cartridges into its magazine. Then lightly andsilently, as if he was made of cork, he got upon his feet, and boundedout of the tent, Neal copying his actions nimbly and noiselessly as hecould; though, in his excitement, he only succeeded in getting twocartridges into his Winchester.
Royal's snoring ceased. Doc's eager question, "What's up now, boys?"reached the two just as they quitted shelter, and passed into the broadmoonlight, crossed with red gleams from their fire.
"A bear!" yelled Joe in answer, his rifle and he breaking silencetogether.
Three times the Winchester sharply cracked.
Then with a mad "Halloo!" the guide seized a flaming stick from thefire, and, swinging it above his head, started after the big blackanimal of which Neal had caught a glimpse before. He now saw it plainlyas, already fifty yards ahead, it made off at a plunging gallop acrossthe moonlit _brulee_.
Young Farrar had been the champion runner of his school, and he blessedhis trained legs for giving him a prominent part in the wild chase thatfollowed. Still imitating the woodsman, he pulled another half-lightedstick from the camp-fire, and waved it in a frenzy of excitement, whilehe ran like a buck at Joe's side.
"Tumble out! Tumble out, boys! A bear! A bear!" now rang from one tentto another.
In two minutes every camper, in his stocking feet, just as he had risenfrom his bed, was tearing across the _brulee_ in the wake of Bruin,yelling, leaping, and swinging smouldering firebrands.
It was a scene and a chase such as the boys, in their most far-fetcheddreams, had never pictured,--the white moonlight glimmering on theblack stumps and tottering trunks of the ruined tract, the hunted bearplunging off among them, frightened by the shouting and the lights, theheavy, lumbering gallop enabling it at first to distance its pursuers.
Owing to their fleetness and the odds they had at the start, the guideand Neal kept far ahead of their comrades. The noise which Bruin made ashe lumbered over the pygmy growth, and the charred, rotting timber thatlittered the ground beneath it, were quiet enough to guide Joeunerringly in the bear's wake, even when that bulky shape was notdistinguishable.
"What's this?" screeched the woodsman suddenly, as he stumbled uponsomething at his feet. "By gracious! it's our keg of m'lasses. He madeoff with that, and has dropped it out o' sheer fright, or because he'sweakening. I know I hit him twice when I fired; but he's not hurt toobadly to run, or to fight like a fiend if we come to close quarters.Like as not 'twill be a narrow squeak with us if we tackle him. Ifyou're scared a little bit, Neal, let up, an' I'll finish him alone."
"Scared!" Neal flung the word back with scorn, as if he was returning ablow. For the life of him he could not bring out another syllable,going at a faster rate than ever he had done in the most stubbornlycontested handicap. The strong-winded guide rapped out his sentences ashe ran, apparently without waste of breath.
The feverish enthusiasm of the hunter, which he had never felt before,was now alive in Neal. His blood raced through his veins like liquidfire. He had been long enough in Maine to know that in wreakingvengeance on Bruin for many misdeeds he would be acting in the interestsof justice. For the black bear is still such a master pest to thesettlers who are trying to establish their farms amid the forests whereit roams, that the State has outlawed the beast, and pays a bounty forits skin.
Joe thought little about this; for a gentleman whom he had guided earlyin the summer had lately written to him, offering a price of fifteendollars for a good bearskin.
Here was the woodsman's golden opportunity--an opportunity for which hehad been thirsting since the receipt of that letter.
"GO IT, OLD BRUIN! GO IT WHILE YOU CAN!"]
He already regarded his triumph over the bear as secure, and its hide asforfeited. He nearly caused Neal Farrar to burst a blood-vessel fromthe combined effects of struggling laughter and running, when he beganto apostrophize the flying foe with grim humor, thus:--
"Go it, old Bruin! Go it while ye can! There ain't a hair on yer backthat b'longs to ye!"
But it soon became evident that the bear couldn't go on much longer atthis breakneck pace. Its pursuers heard its steps with increasingdistinctness, and then its labored breathing. They were gaining on itfast.
The brute came into full view about forty yards ahead, as it ascended aslight elevation, crowned with blasted tree trunks.
"I'll draw bead on him from here," said Joe, stopping short. "Get readyto fire, lad, if he turns. It'll take lots o' lead to finish thatfellow."
Twice Joe's rifle spoke again. One shot took effect. There was a fearfulgrowl from the beast, but it was not yet mortally wounded.
Maddened and desperate, it wheeled about, and came straight for itspursuers. Again the guide fired. Still the bear advanced, gnashing itsteeth and mumbling horribly; Neal saw its black shape not thirty yardsfrom him.
"Shoot! shoot, boy!" screamed Joe. "Or give me your rifle. I haven't gota charge left!"
For half a minute Farrar shook all over as with ague. His nostrils feltchoked. His mouth was wide open in his efforts to breathe. His heartpounded like a sledge-hammer. With that mumbling brute advancing uponhim, he felt as if he couldn't fire so as to hit a haystack or a flockof hens at a barn-door.
Then, suddenly, he was cool again, seeing and hearing with extraordinaryclearness. The ignominious alternative of giving his rifle to Joeproduced a revulsion. His fingers were on the trigger, his left handfirmly gripped the barrel of his Winchester; he brought it to hisshoulder.
"Aim low! Try to hit him in the front of the neck where it joins thebody," said Joe, in tones sharp as a razor, which cut his meaning intoNeal's brain.
Bruin was only fifteen yards away when Farrar's rifle crackedonce--twice--sending out its messengers of death.
There was a last terrible growl, a plunge, and a thud which seemed toshake the ground under Neal's feet. As the smoke of his shots clearedaway, Joe beheld him leaning on his rifle, with a face which in themoonlight looked white as chalk, and the bear lying where it had fallenheadlong towards him. It made a desperate struggle to regain its feet,then rolled on its side, dead.
One bullet had pierced the spot which Joe mentioned, and had passedthrough the region of the heart.
Camp and Trail: A Story of the Maine Woods Page 13