Black Bruin | Page 6

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