Followers of the Trail | Page 6

breaking up of winter. There
would still be days when the cold would be intense and snow would
drift in the trails. Nevertheless spring had called, and even the sluggish
blood of the porcupine responded. Every day the earth's white mantle
grew more frayed about the edges, leaving a faint tinge of green on
warm southward slopes.
It was on one of these mild days that Mokwa, the black bear,
shouldered aside the underbrush which concealed the mouth of the
snug cave where he had hibernated, and stepped forth into the
awakening world. Half blinded by the glare of sunlight upon the snow,
he stood blinking in the doorway before he shambled down the slope to
a great oak tree where a vigorous scratching among the snow and
leaves brought to light a number of acorns. These he devoured greedily
and, having crunched the last sweet morsel, sniffed eagerly about for
more. Mokwa had fasted long, and now his appetite demanded more
hearty fare than nuts and acorns.
The nights were chill, but each day brought a perceptible shrinking of
the snowy mantle, leaving bare patches of wet, brown earth. One day
Mokwa, breaking through a thick clump of juniper bushes, came out
upon the bank of the Little Vermilion, its glassy surface as yet
apparently unaffected by the thaw. For a moment the bear hesitated, his

little near-sighted eyes searching the opposite bank and his nose
sniffing the wind inquiringly; then, as if reassured, he stepped out upon
the ice and made for the opposite shore.
On the surface the ice appeared solid enough, but in reality it was so
honeycombed by the thaw that it threatened to break up at any moment
and go out with a rush. Mokwa was in mid-stream when a slight tremor
beneath his feet warned him of danger. He broke into a shuffling trot,
but had gone only a few steps when, with a groaning and cracking
which made the hair rise upon his back, the entire surface of the river
seemed to heave. A great crack appeared just before him. With a frantic
leap he cleared it, only to be confronted the next moment by a lane of
rushing black water too wide for even his powerful muscles to bridge.
Mokwa crouched down in the center of his ice cake, which was now
being swept along in mid-stream with a rapidity which made him giddy.
The weight of the bear helped to steady his queer craft, and unless it
should strike another floating cake, Mokwa was in no immediate
danger.
Thus he drifted for miles, while the banks seemed to glide swiftly to the
rear and the stream grew gradually wider. At length a faint roar,
growing louder every moment, caused Mokwa to stir uneasily as he
peered ahead across the seething mass of black water and tumbling ice
cakes. Suddenly his body stiffened and his eyes took on new hope. His
cake had entered a side current which carried him near shore. Closer
and closer drifted the great cakes all about him until at length, with a
hoarse grinding, they met, piling one upon the other, but making a solid
bridge from shore to shore. The jam lasted but a moment, but in that
moment the bear leaped, as if on steel springs, and as the ice again
drifted apart and swept on to the falls not far below, he scrambled
ashore, panting but safe. Here, with tongue hanging out, he stood a
moment watching the heaving waters which seemed maddened at the
loss of their prey. Then he turned and vanished into the forest.
Mokwa now found himself in unknown territory, but, as he managed to
find food to supply his needs, he accepted the situation philosophically
and was far from being unhappy.

One day his wanderings brought him to the edge of the wilderness
where, inclosed by a zigzag fence of rails, he caught his first glimpse of
human habitation. Concealed in a clump of young poplars, he gazed
curiously at the Hermit who was chopping wood at the rear of his cabin,
and at Pal who ran about, sniffing eagerly here and there, but never far
from his adored master.
At length one of his excursions into the border of the forest brought to
Pal's keen nostrils the scent of the bear. Pal hated bears. The hair
stiffened along his back while a growl grew in his throat, rumbled
threateningly and broke forth into a volley of shrill barks.
"Bear! Bear! Bear!" he called in plain dog language; but the ears of the
Hermit seemed to be strangely dull and, thinking that the dog had taken
up the trail of a rabbit or at the most that of a fox, he whistled Pal back
to the clearing. Pal obeyed reluctantly,