The Youths Companion | Page 4

out two or three places. In one of them the
earth was soft. There were fresh tracks crossing it,--bear tracks. There
was no doubt about it.
"It was a terrible situation for a poor woman. Whether to follow the
bear and try to recover her child, or go at once for her husband, or
alarm the neighbors, what to do with Johnny meanwhile,--all that
would have been hard enough for her to decide even if she had had her
wits about her.
"She hardly knew what she did, but just followed her instinct, and ran
with Johnny in her arms, or dragging him after her, to where her
husband was chopping.
"Well," continued the one-eyed hostler, "I needn't try to describe what
followed. They went back to the house, and Rush took his rifle and
started on the track of the bear, vowing that he would not come back
without either the child or the bear's hide.

"The news went like wildfire through the settlement. In an hour
half-a-dozen men with their dogs were on the track with Rush. It was
so much trouble for him to follow the trail that they soon overtook him
with the help of the dogs.
"But in spite of them the bear got into the mountains. Two of the dogs
came up with him, and one, the only one that could follow a scent, had
his back broken by a stroke of his paw. After that it was almost
impossible to track him, and one after another the hunters gave up and
returned home.
"At last Rush was left alone; but nothing could induce him to turn back.
He shot some small game in the mountains, which he cooked for his
supper, slept on the ground, and started on the trail again in the
morning.
"Along in the forenoon he came in sight of the bear as he was crossing
a stream. He had a good shot at him as he was climbing the bank on the
other side.
"The bear kept on, but it was easier tracking him after that by his blood.
"That evening a hunter, haggard, his clothes all in tatters, found his way
to a backwoodsman's hut over in White's Valley. It was Rush. He told
his story in a few words as he rested on a stool. He had found no traces
of his child, but he had killed the bear. It was Old Two Claws. He had
left him on the hills, and came to the settlement for help.
"The hunt had taken him a round-about course, and he was then not
more than seven miles from home. The next day, gun in hand, with the
bear-skin strapped to his back,--the carcass had been given to his friend
the backwoods-man,--he started to return by an easier way through the
woods.
"It was a sad revenge he had had, but there was a grim sort of
satisfaction in lugging home the hide of the terrible Old Two Claws.
"As he came in sight of his log-house, out ran his wife to meet him,

with--what do you suppose?--little Johnny dragging at her skirts, and
the lost child in her arms.
"Then, for the first time, the man dropped; but he didn't get down any
further than his knees. He clung to his wife and baby, and thanked God
for the miracle.
"But it wasn't much of a miracle, after all.
"Little Johnny had been playing around the door, and lost sight of the
baby, and maybe forgotten all about him, when he strayed into the
woods and saw the bear. Then he remembered all that he had heard of
the danger of being carried off and eaten, and of course he had a
terrible fright. When asked about his little brother, he didn't know
anything about him, and I suppose really imagined that the bear had got
him.
"But the baby had crawled into a snug place under the side of the
rain-trough, and there he was fast asleep all the while. Then he woke up
two or three hours after, and the mother heard him cry; her husband
was far away on the hunt.
"True,--this story I've told you?" added the one-eyed hostler, as some
one questioned him. "Every word of it!"
"But your name is Rush, isn't it?" I said.
The one eye twinkled humorously.
"My name is Rush. My uncle's brother-in-law was my own father."
"And you?" exclaimed a bystander.
"I," said the one-eyed hostler, "am the very man who warn't eaten by
the bear when I was a baby!"
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
RECONCILIATION.

We crown the unconscious brew with wreath of bays We press in
pulseless hands the sweetest flowers. When all unneeded any grace of
ours