CHAPTER XIX

The Bear Hunt—In Which the Boys Discover that the Bear Doesn’t Do All the Hard Work

Right after breakfast the next morning they got the cars out and left behind at the hotel all the luggage they wouldn’t need on the bear-hunting trip. Mr. Stone was exhibiting his new camera, an astonishing invention which he held in his hand like a kodak, while it took twenty-five feet of film (he could carry as much as two hundred feet of extra reels in one side pocket, too), when Pep appeared in his “antique.” They heard him before they saw him, in fact. The car was a runabout. The paint apparently had vanished about 1918. The muffler was broken so that she roared and spit like a motorcycle. One mud-guard was so cracked that it half hung from the car and flapped and rattled. The other three were bent and dented. The wind-shield was cracked, and the radiator was covered with iron rust where the water had boiled over and run down the sides. When Pep put his foot on the brake to stop, she shrieked and wailed like a sick cat.

Bennie walked over to this car and stared intently.

“Some boat!” he said. “Some boat! Say, Spider, a scout is always respectful and kind to the aged and infirm. Remember that. What’s its name, Mr. Peters?”

“Its mother never named it,” said Pep. “I’ve called it a lot of things, but they aren’t very polite.”

Dumplin’ laughed. “I know what its name is, all right.”

“Yes?”

“Its name is Methuselah.”

“I thought Methuselah died when he was only nine hundred,” said Bennie.

“Say, if you boys make fun of my car, I won’t let you ride in it,” Pep threatened.

“Would it hold up two passengers?” asked Bennie.

“All aboard!” called the doctor. “Stop insulting Pep’s chariot, and climb into your own. Lead the way, Pep.”

Pep spun his crank around, Methuselah grunted, spit, coughed, and then roared, the doctor and Mr. Stone stepped on their starters, and the procession moved down the main street of Bend, Methuselah leading, and swung south on the same road they had come up the day before. Once out in the open, Pep began to travel. Through the cloud of dust he kicked up, those behind could see the rear wheels of the old runabout go bobbing up and down, and from side to side. The doctor’s speedometer crept up to thirty, to thirty-five, to forty miles, as he followed.

“Gosh, he doesn’t care what happens to him!” Bennie said. “Think of hitting forty on this road in Methuselah!”

“Think of hitting forty on _any_ road in Methuselah,” Uncle Billy laughed. “He’ll stop pretty soon, to cool her off—and tell us it was for something else.”

Before long he did stop. When the other cars drew up, Pep was standing beside Methuselah, at a place where a side road led off to the west, toward the white-capped mountains.

“Thought you might miss the turn if I didn’t wait,” he explained.

The doctor winked at the boys, and Bennie got out and started to put his hand on Methuselah’s radiator. But he speedily removed it.

“Will you have your eggs three minutes or four this morning, gents?” he asked. Then he listened with his ear near the hood. “Uncle Billy, I think you ought to come here,” he added. “I’m afraid poor old Methuselah has got blood pressure.”

Even Pep laughed at this. “Maybe I give him too much meat,” he said.

The cars now turned up the side road, which was little more than a couple of wheel ruts through the endless yellow pine forest, and began to wind their way southwestward. Even Methuselah didn’t hurry through here. The road was too rough and too winding.

“Say, I expect to meet myself coming back on this road,” Bennie declared. “The feller who laid it out must have had the blind staggers.”

“If it was straightened it wouldn’t be more than half as long,” said the practical Spider.

Presently, coming around a sharp turn, they found Methuselah silent and stalled, with Pep, the hood lifted, poking into the engine.

Everybody climbed out, and went over to him.

“What’s wrong?” they asked.

“I just stopped to tell you about a man who was drawing a load of hay over this road once,” said he. “He never got it out, because the horses ate it all up behind his back from the tail of the wagon.”

“That’s a good story. Now let’s go on,” winked the doctor.

“Wait just a minute,” Pep said. “Methuselah’s foot slipped, and he sprained his carburetor. I think it’s his carburetor. Maybe he pulled a tendon in his ignition.”

“Quick, doctor, the arnica!” called Bennie.

But Spider, who knew something about cars, was poking into the engine.

“I don’t think it’s the carburetor,” he said. “You’ve flooded that trying to start her. Let me have a screw-driver, and you turn her over slowly.”

He traced the ignition around till he found a spot where there was no spark, and behind that found a loose connection, into which had settled an insulating film of dust and grit. When this was cleaned and tightened, Methuselah coughed and spit and roared again, and once more they started on their way.

Methuselah had no more mishaps, though they expected to find him stalled around every bend, and after a couple of hours they came out of the yellow pine forest into open country, right under the big mountains, and presently before them lay Elk Lake, with the white reflection of South Sister, 10,000 feet high and snow covered, mirrored in the dark water. The road ran along beside the lake to the upper end, and there, in a grove of pines and fir trees, was a big camp, and men and women just sitting down to luncheon at long board tables. Methuselah had been parked beside the road, and Pep was bobbing about talking and laughing with the crowd.

“What’s the big idea?” Bennie asked. “Gee whiz, a whole bunch of strange people, and no chance for a swim!”

“I guess they don’t own the whole lake,” the doctor laughed. “Anyhow, they’ll give us some grub.”

The crowd, they found, was a convention of Oregon editors, with their wives. They were having a fine time, no doubt, but the newcomers didn’t seem exactly to fit.

“Spider was one of the editors of our high school paper last winter,” said Bennie, “but all I did was get an advertisement for it from Dad. I thought we were going to hunt bears, not editors.”

As soon as lunch was over somebody got up and began to make a speech. The crowd sat back and got ready to listen. Whereupon Uncle Billy beckoned to the boys and Mr. Stone, and they silently sneaked away from the tables.

“I didn’t go on a vacation to listen to speeches,” the doctor said. “It will be too late to get into camp at Newberry Crater tonight if we hang around here till that bunch gets through telling each other what’s wrong with the newspaper business. You wait here while I have a heart-to-heart talk with Pep.”

After ten minutes the doctor came back with the long, lank Peters.

“Sorry, boys,” Pep said. “I thought there were a couple of good sports in this outfit who really wanted a bear hunt. But when I told ’em they’d have to sleep out, and get up at three A. M., they decided they’d rather listen to the speeches. Some folks would do anything rather than get up in the morning. Well, come on, we’ll get our bear even if there isn’t anybody to write it for the papers.”

“Oh, ho!” cried Uncle Billy, “so that was it! Well, I am a dumb-bell, as Bennie would so elegantly put it. I didn’t realize before why you were so set on having some editors along. You want to be boosting Bend all the while, don’t you? Maybe Spider will write it up for his school paper. That’s something. Cheer up, Pep, and see if Methuselah is still alive.”

Pep spun the crank till the drops of sweat fell from his forehead before she coughed and started.

“I get a fine lot of exercise with this car,” he panted, wiping his face before he climbed aboard.

They cut south from the winding road after a little way, and presently arrived in the hamlet of La Pine, the town which Bennie said one of Uncle Billy’s friends once lost out of his pocket. Not far from this town, in an extraordinarily green meadow beside the Deschutes River, a long meadow like a rich oasis in the dry desert soil, they came to the Vreeland ranch, where the house sat beneath great poplar trees, and the barns were full of fresh-cut alfalfa and the cattle were browsing as they do in the East, along the river bank.

“Give this soil some water,” said Spider, “and instead of a desert, it’s like our richest farms at home.”

“Yes, sir. Irrigation is all we need in Oregon to grow anything,” said Uncle Billy, as the three cars pulled up in the yard.

Pep found Mr. Vreeland out in a field, and brought him in. He was a big, bronzed man, who looked hard and wiry for all his gray hair and beard, and at the suggestion of a bear hunt his eyes lit up and he smiled. A long, low whistle brought an answering joyous yelp from a near-by barn, and four hounds, with thin bodies and long ears and sad faces, came jumping and wriggling up to him.

“Them pups’ll get you a bear, if there is a bear,” said their master proudly. “I guess we can rustle up the horses. Let’s see, we’ll need six for you, and one for me, and one for the rustler, and a pack animal—that’s nine. We’ll start in an hour. Hi—Tom!” he shouted to a man out in the paddock.

“He doesn’t lose any time,” whispered Mr. Stone.

“Not when he smells a bear,” Pep replied. “He can see a bear track in the dark. And he’s got some regular dogs.”

While the horses were being saddled the boys made up six blanket rolls for their party, and one for Pep, and packed up enough provisions for a couple of days. The provisions, a few “eating irons” and cooking utensils, and the blankets were put on the pack horse. Mr. Vreeland brought out two rifles, one for himself and one for somebody else.

“Who gets it?” he asked.

“Not I,” said Spider.

“Nor I,” said Mr. Stone. “Here’s my gun.” He patted the case of his tiny movie camera, which was slung from his shoulder.

“I’ll take it,” said Bennie.

“Know how to use it?” the man asked.

“N-not very well,” Bennie admitted.

“Well, it isn’t loaded,” Mr. Vreeland laughed. “Suppose you carry it today, and learn how much it weighs. Are we all set?”

Tom, the horse rustler, brought the saddled horses into the yard, and each rider was assigned a mount.

“Pick out a good strong one for that half starved little chap there,” said Mr. Vreeland, pointing to Dumplin’. “All you boys are good riders, I suppose?”

“Oh, sure,” said Bennie. “We gallop all the time over the wide prairies of Massachusetts. Got a nice mantelpiece for me to eat off of tonight?”

“It’s tomorrow night you’ll need that,” the man laughed. “All aboard!”

In spite of his weight and his gray hair, Mr. Vreeland swung into his saddle with the ease and grace of a cowboy. The doctor and Mr. Stone and Pep were not quite so easy, but they knew how to ride. Dumplin’, however, was as green as the two eastern scouts, and the three of them made a mess of mounting, and after they were mounted and their horses had started on a slow trot out of the yard, they bobbed around and jounced up and down like three apples in a dump-cart.

“Say, how do you manage this stunt?” Bennie called to his uncle. “If I keep on this way, I’ll all fall apart.”

“Stand in your stirrups as naturally and easily as you can, and then lean forward a little from your waist,” the doctor called back. “Don’t try to do anything but just relax from your waist up, and stand on your stirrups.”

The boys tried this, and gradually, very gradually, they began to get on to the trick, so that their bodies rode a little better with the motions of the horses’ backs. It was hard work, though, and they were glad enough when they had crossed the highway, headed east up a road through the yellow pines, and finally dropped down to a walk as the road began to climb. When the horses stopped trotting, the three boys sat back in their saddles and took the weight off their tired legs. Of course, they bounced a bit, but that didn’t matter when the horse wasn’t trotting.

They were on the lower slopes of Newberry Crater now, which is an 8,000-foot mountain standing fifty miles or more east of the Cascade range, all alone in the desert pines, and was once a volcano. On the top, Uncle Billy told them, is a big crater, almost as large as Crater Lake, but only a few hundred feet deep, and instead of being filled with water, it contains two ponds and a lot of summer camps. The whole mountain is a State game reserve, for the slopes are covered with pine woods, and the water attracts both birds and animals.

The party climbed slowly up the dusty road for two hours, while the boys wriggled and shifted in their saddles to find easy positions (which they couldn’t find), and the rifle Bennie was carrying either banged his back or had to be held across his saddle, growing heavier and heavier.

At last, as the sun was setting in the west, they came out of the yellow pines into a big open meadow, through which Paulina Creek flowed on its way down the mountain, making the grass rich and green. Here Mr. Vreeland turned in. The horses were watered at the stream and then hobbled (hobbles are just leather bands like handcuffs put around their forelegs, so they can move around to feed, but cannot wander far away). On the edge of the meadow, near the brook but under the pines, camp was made, by the simple process of building a fire and spreading the blankets on level spots of dry ground. While Mr. Vreeland and Tom, the horse rustler, were cooking supper, the rest went to the creek for a bath. The water was icy cold, but, as Bennie said, it was softer to sit on than a saddle.

After supper they gathered around the fire for a while, in the cold mountain air of night, while Mr. Vreeland told bear stories. The four dogs lay sleeping close to them, one of them, old Ben, Mr. Vreeland’s pet, with a muzzle snuggled against his side.

But before long he ordered them to bed.

“I’ll get you up before the sun,” he said. “That’s the only time to start after bears. Their tracks are fresh then, and the dogs can follow ’em.”

In spite of their saddle soreness, and the bare ground they were sleeping on, the boys rolled up in their blankets, without undressing, and were soon fast asleep. There is nothing like riding a horse in the mountains to make you slumber!

“Golly, doesn’t seem as if I’d more’n dropped off,” said Bennie, sitting up and rubbing his eyes when he was awakened by the voice of Mr. Vreeland.

“I don’t care what becomes of ol’ bear. I’m goin’ sleep some more,” mumbled Dumplin’, drawing his blankets tighter about his neck and rolling over on the other side.

“Yes, you are!” yelled Spider and Bennie, grabbing the blankets and rolling him suddenly out of them.

It was still dark in the woods, with a dim, gray light over the open meadow. They could scarcely see the horses, which they heard feeding and thumping about on hobbled feet. Tom had the fire going, and soon there was the welcome smell of coffee. After the coffee, everybody felt more awake, the light increased, the trunks of the trees began to emerge from the gloom, and Tom and Mr. Vreeland rounded up the horses and began to saddle.

“Well, son,” said Mr. Vreeland to Bennie, “how about that gun today? You’re going to ride some pretty rough country, and she’ll get heavy.”

“I don’t think he’d better carry a gun through this going,” the doctor said. “Especially as it is somebody else’s gun, and he’s somebody else’s boy, whom I’m responsible for.”

“Well, of course, I don’t want to worry my uncle,” Bennie assented, with surprising cheerfulness.

“You mean you need both hands to hang on to your horse,” said Spider.

“Marvelous, Sherlock, simply marvelous!” Bennie laughed. “When we get to the old bear, I’ll take the gun from my bearer, and put a well-directed bullet through his brain.”

Now, in the fast increasing daylight, they were off, Mr. Vreeland leading the way and sitting his horse as straight as a ramrod. The boys were stiff and sore, but once on the saddle they felt easier than the day before.

The leader crossed the meadow to the upper side, and put his horse up on a long sloping ridge covered with an open stand of yellow pine. As they climbed this ridge, the boys could see a long distance between the trees, and discovered that the side of the mountain was composed of a series of long ridges, like this one, with deep erosion gullies between them. The sides of these gullies were very steep, and at the bottom grew thick stands of lodge-pole pines. After climbing a way on the first ridge, and evidently seeing nothing which appealed to him, Mr. Vreeland suddenly turned his horse right down the side, into the gully. As the boys followed they found their horses’ heads almost underneath them, and they had to lean far back in the saddles to keep their balance. At the bottom, Mr. Vreeland simply rode right into the dense stand of little lodge-pole pines and disappeared. The doctor, Mr. Stone and Tom and Pep followed. And after them went the three horses that carried the three boys. There was nothing to do about it. The horses were trained to follow in file, and it was their job to go through where the others went. But the boys made an interesting, not to say painful discovery.

They discovered that when a horse goes through a thicket of lodge-pole pines, he picks out a place that is wide enough for him to squeeze through, and high enough so his head doesn’t hit a limb. But he doesn’t pay any attention to the fact that his rider’s feet and legs stick out on either side and his rider’s head is considerably higher than his own. He’s looking out only for himself, and it’s up to the rider to take the consequences for getting on his back.

When they emerged on the farther side of the gully, Bennie didn’t have any cap, Dumplin’ had a hole torn in the right knee of his trousers, and Spider had a rent in the left shoulder of his shirt and a long scratch on his face.

But there was no stopping for repairs. Already the other horses were up on the next ridge, and with a heave and snort the boys’ horses suddenly stood on their hind legs and scrambled up also, the boys leaning far forward and hanging on to the horns of their saddles to keep aboard.

“Some sport!” panted Bennie. “Gee, that was a good cap, too.”

“My face feels as if the cat had sharpened her claws on me,” said Spider.

“My knee’s bleeding,” puffed Dumplin’.

Mr. Vreeland kept on up through the open woods of the ridge, and suddenly pulled his horse to a sharp halt, in a little patch of light made by the rising sun. Here he spoke softly to the dogs, who had been padding along at his horse’s heels with a bored air, as if a bear were the very last thing they were thinking about. As the dogs trotted sharply forward under the horse’s nose and began to sniff where he pointed, Mr. Stone got his camera out of the case and made ready. Suddenly all four dogs began to utter little moaning sounds, like barks just beginning in their throats, and with a loud bay the two younger ones started off down the mountain, while Mr. Stone’s camera whirred. Ben, however, didn’t go. He kept on moaning and sniffing around.

“They are back tracking. You watch Ben and Cap, the wise old boys!” Mr. Vreeland cried, his eyes dancing with excitement.

Then Ben and Cap, too, suddenly uttered deep, silvery, triumphant bays, and sprang down the farther side of the ridge into a second ravine. An instant later the other two dogs came crying back and followed them, just in time to get into the last foot of the film. Then Mr. Vreeland put his horse down after them at a gallop, and vanished into the pines, followed by Tom and the doctor and Pep. Mr. Stone had a hard time holding his horse while he got his camera back into the case. Then he, too, went down the side of the ravine and into the lodge-poles.

“Now, darling, _please_ take it easy! Whoa! Whoa!” yelled Bennie at his horse, as that animal cascaded down the soft soil of the bank and made for the wall of tearing little trees.

Holding their legs as close to the horses’ sides as they could, ducking to protect their faces, wriggling and squirming in their saddles to avoid having their legs torn and bruised by trees between which the horses squeezed, the boys got through, and followed the hunt. They could hear the dogs baying in the next ravine, and over the ridge they went, in time to see the tail of Mr. Stone’s horse vanishing into another thicket of scrub.

This kept on for an hour or more—it seemed ages to the three boys. In their efforts to get through the ravines without any more injury to their clothes or their persons than was necessary, they had to slow their horses down, and the hunt, which was working steadily up the mountain, got farther and farther ahead of them. They had long since lost all sight even of Mr. Stone, and the deep, bell-like baying of the hounds grew fainter and fainter. At last it ceased altogether.

When that happened Bennie pulled up his horse and waited for Spider and Dumplin’ to catch up.

“Say, fellers,” he asked, “what are we going to do? We’ve lost the hunt, all right. I can’t hear a sound now, and we’ve been off the tracks for twenty minutes, I guess. Those last two ravines we came through hadn’t been broken before, and I haven’t seen a hoof-print for a long while.”

“We’re a swell lot of bear hunters, we are,” Dumplin’ panted. “Gee, Spider, look at your face!”

“Well, if it looks anything the way it feels, I’m some beauty, I can tell you that. Look at your own face—and your pants, too.”

“I don’t feel as if I had any pants left,” said Bennie. “Gee, I’m sore all over, and my hands are all torn. What are we going to do?”

“I guess it’s up to us to go back to camp,” Spider suggested.

“How are we ever going to find camp?” Dumplin’ demanded. “As far as I’m concerned, we’re lost.”

“‘Lost on Newberry Crater, or The Young Bear Hunters from Bend’—sounds like a dime novel,” Bennie grinned. “Maybe we could follow our trail back by the blood on the ground. But I got a better idea than that. Let’s go on up this ridge a ways till we come to an open place, and then sit there and wait. We can always follow the ridge down westward till we come to the road. Guess we can’t starve. Maybe the old bear will trot around past us. They don’t travel in a straight line, I guess. Anyhow, it’s a chance, and I guess it’s our only chance to get back in the game.”

“That’s a swell idea!” said Dumplin’, scornfully. “What you going to do if he does come around? You wouldn’t carry the old gun. Use your pocket-knife?”

“No, I’ll look at him between my legs,” Bennie answered. “The old bear won’t trouble us. All he’s thinking about is getting away from the hounds. Anyhow, I don’t see any use in trying to follow any longer, ’cause we’ve sure lost the hunt, and I hate to go back this early in the day. We may find a place where we can look out and see something.”

“Sounds good to me. You’re the captain. Lead on,” said Spider.

So Bennie led the way up the open woods of the spine, which were growing lower now, and presently they found themselves in a little clearing on a sort of peak of lava. From here they could look out on one side for miles and miles, over the wilderness of the mountain side, to the white summits of the Cascades. But not a sight nor a sound of the hunt did they have.

They dismounted stiffly, aching in every joint, and tied the horses in the shade. Dumplin’ flopped to the ground with a groan. “My knee’s all stiff,” he complained, “and the blood’s all clotted on my leg. Gee, I’ve got six tears in my pants!”

The boys looked themselves over. Their clothes were torn, their hands and faces scratched and covered with blood, and their thighs and knees sore with the bruising trees. They were, in fact, a woe-begone looking lot.

“And I could drink a barrel of water, and eat a ton of food,” sighed Bennie.

“If you talk about water, I shall cry!” Dumplin’ exclaimed. “My mouth’s full of cotton.”

“Go to sleep, and forget it,” said Spider.

“If the bear comes, wake me up,” Dumplin’ answered, closing his eyes at once.

While Dumplin’ was slumbering Bennie and Spider debated what they should do. It seemed pretty stupid to sit there all the morning doing nothing, when they had come 3,000 miles to Oregon for a taste of the real wilderness. But, as Spider pointed out, if they tried to follow the hunt again they would only get more hopelessly lost. Finally they decided the only thing to do was to wait till they heard some sound of it again and then make toward the sound. Unless the bear went clear around the mountain, sooner or later he ought to come within sound of them again, they reasoned. He would try to get back to his familiar hunting ground. They waited one hour, two hours, getting more and more thirsty, when Spider suddenly cried “Hark!”

Far off, somewhere, he and Bennie couldn’t yet tell where, they heard the deep, silvery bugle of one dog, apparently old Ben, who had the deepest voice. The hunt was coming their way again! Quickly they roused Dumplin’, and all three listened. Yes, there was no mistake! It was the bay of a hound, and it was coming nearer!

“There’s only one dog, though,” said Bennie. “What’s the matter with the others?”

“Probably old Ben has got ahead of the others, or they’ve got off on another track,” said Spider. “Let’s wait and see if it stops in one place. That’ll mean Ben’s treed the bear, I guess. Then we can go there and not get lost again.”

“Maybe _you_ can,” said Dumplin’. “I couldn’t go anywhere now, ’cept on a stretcher.”

“We’ll leave you here then—the air’s fine,” said Bennie.

The baying didn’t stop in one place, however, for ten or fifteen minutes. It seemed to be moving up and down the mountain. Finally, however, it came from a single direction, seemingly only a quarter of a mile to the right, and down the mountain a bit, and the boys thought they detected a change in the sound. They also could now hear a second dog.

“I bet old Ben has treed him!” Bennie cried, “and one of the other pups has caught up! Come on, let’s go see!”

“Just us, a couple of dogs, and no gun, against a bear? No, thank you!” exclaimed Dumplin’.

“Well, I don’t live in Oregon,” Bennie replied, “but I know that when a bear is treed by a dog, he stays up the tree. Anyhow, I’m going to take a chance. You can stay here alone, if you want to. I’m going to see that old bear. That’s what we came here for.”

He got up and untethered his horse, climbing stiffly and with a groan into the saddle. Spider followed him.

“Oh, well, if you go, I’m going—if I can ever get aboard that beast,” said Dumplin’. “Gee, he’s about a thousand feet high!”

Bennie led the way toward the sound of the barking, which was still in one place, but not so loud now, and very hoarse. They had three ravines to cross, but in their excitement they didn’t think about the fresh tears and scratches. In fifteen minutes they came very near the sound of the barking. A moment later they broke up out of a lodge-pole thicket to find old Ben running ’round and ’round the trunk of a huge yellow pine, his bark almost gone, like the voice of a man who has been making too many speeches, nothing much left but a hoarse whisper, while Cap was standing with his front paws up the trunk as high as he could reach.

The boys looked up the tree and gave a wild yell, while old Ben, seeing them there, sprang at the tree with renewed life, as if he were trying to climb it, too, to show them he really wasn’t winded after all. Far up, sixty or seventy-five feet from the ground, in the crotch of the first big limb, lay a black bear. His forepaws were hugging the limb, his head was poked over, his tongue kept hanging out, and they could see his little eyes looking at them. Since they had no gun, he was perfectly safe as long as he cared to sit there, and he appeared to know it.

“There’s nothing for us to do but wait for the rest,” said Bennie. “Golly, he’s a big bear! I wonder what he weighs?”

“I hope he stays where he is,” Dumplin’ put in.

“Come on, let’s tie our horses and sit down and wait. Oh, boy, we beat the others to the bear!”

“No, sir, I sit here. My horse can go faster’n I can. Two dogs aren’t big enough, all alone, to tackle that bear if he starts coming down.”

“Maybe you’re right at that,” Bennie admitted. “But, say, we’ve sure got one on the rest when they show up! We’ll tell ’em we kept right on old Ben’s heels, and beat ’em to it!”

“We’ll tell ’em so,” Spider grinned. “But if you think you can put it over on Mr. Vreeland you’ve got another guess coming.”

So they attempted to sit on their horses near the tree, but the horses had something to say about that. Some downward current of air brought a sudden bear scent to them, and they began to rear and back and wheel, so that all three boys jumped off as quickly as they could, and led the twitching animals a long way down the slope and tied them. They hadn’t realized before how much a horse fears the smell of bear.

“I nearly got spilled before I could get my foot out of the stirrup,” Bennie said. “Thought I was a goner for a minute.”

“Me too,” said Dumplin’. “This isn’t so much fun as it’s cracked up to be. Gee, I wish I knew how to ride the way Mr. Vreeland does! He’d just have _made_ his horse stand still.”

As they were walking back they heard at last the bay of the other two dogs, and then the far-off sound of a horse crashing through lodge-poles. In two minutes the other dogs joined Ben in a dance below the big tree, and in two minutes more Mr. Vreeland and Tom rode up. Behind them, down the mountain, could be heard Pep’s and Mr. Stone’s and the doctor’s horses.

Mr. Vreeland didn’t see the boys at first, because they hid behind some bushes.

“Are the doctor and the camera man behind?” they heard him ask Tom. “Too bad the kids had to drop out. We’ll have to go hunting for them after Mr. Bear’s disposed of. They’re wandering around lost, I suppose.”

“Is that so?” cried the boys, jumping up from behind the bush.

“Well, I’m darned!” Mr. Vreeland exclaimed. “How did you get here? Where’s your horses?”

“Down the slope—tied,” said Bennie. “We kept right on old Ben’s heels. How’d you lose the trail? Get off on a false scent? Too bad!”

Mr. Vreeland fixed Bennie with a cool look, which had a twinkle behind it.

“Were you huntin’ the bear, or was he huntin’ you?” said he. “I used to know a nigger down South, where I was once, who always went out behind a fox hunt, and sat down after a bit, and waited for the fox to come trottin’ back. He’d get the fox, and the rest would get the exercise. They had to do somethin’ kind o’ drastic to that nigger.”

(“I told you so!” Spider laughed at Bennie. “Can’t fool him.”)

“You look as if the bear caught you, too,” Mr. Vreeland went on. “Did he make those scratches with his claws? He’s got nice claws.” (This last as he cast a contemplative glance up into the tree.)

“Just the same, we beat you to the old bear, however we did it,” Bennie grinned. “Who’s going to shoot him?”

“Well, if you got here first, you can take a crack,” Mr. Vreeland said. “Wait till the camera man comes. I hear ’em now.”

A minute later the doctor and then Mr. Stone and Pep came into the clearing. They were not torn and scratched so much as the boys, but much more than Mr. Vreeland and Tom. And they were even more surprised to find the boys there. However, there was no time for talk. The horses were dancing with nervousness, the dogs were jumping against the tree, and the hear was moving on the limb as if he contemplated climbing higher. Mr. Stone unlimbered his camera, Spider walked off into the woods because, he declared, he refused to see a fine animal shot in cold blood, and Bennie, armed with a rifle, was told to fire, aiming at the base of the brain.

He sighted and pulled the trigger, trembling with nervousness for fear he wouldn’t make a good shot. The kick of the gun staggered him for an instant, but as soon as he caught himself he stared into the tree, to see the bear snarling with pain and rage, but still crouched, alive, on the limb.

Bennie handed the rifle hastily to his uncle. “You do it!” he cried. “Gosh, all I’ve done is hurt him. I don’t want to mess the poor thing up any more.”

“Well, of all the——” Mr. Vreeland began.

“Shoot him, Vreeland,” said the doctor, sharply. “I’m no hunter.”

The old man raised his rifle, sighted it so quickly that it seemed part of the same motion, and there was a sharp crack. The bear seemed to spring right off the limb and fell, a black ball of fur, seventy feet to the ground.

The dogs were on it in a second, as its paws gave one or two feeble and undirected swipes. Then it lay dead. The dogs were called off, and promptly lay down, panting and exhausted. Bennie wanted to go away somewhere and lie down, too. He felt sick. He had thought it would be wonderful sport to kill a big bear, but now that he had pumped a bullet into it, and then seen the creature, helpless and defenseless, come crashing down dead out of the tree, the fun was gone. If the bear had been attacking him, or even attacking anybody, it would be different. But just to shoot it in cold blood, for the sake of killing something, suddenly struck Bennie as a low down, cruel trick. He felt the way Spider always felt. He’d never been able to understand Spider’s point of view before, but now that he had pumped a bullet into the bear, he understood. He thought of their talk about the deer that morning by the rim of Crater Lake.

But Mr. Stone was calling. He’d got a fresh roll of film into his camera, and wanted to take the whole party around the dead bear. Tom and Mr. Vreeland propped the big brownish-black body up into a sitting posture, Bennie stood beside it, with a gun in his hand, and Dumplin’, with a grin on his face, walked up, grasped the bear by the paw, and shook hands with a great show of friendliness.

“You weren’t planning to do that about twenty minutes ago,” came the voice of Spider, returning to the scene.

“Neither was the bear,” Dumplin’ answered.

Tom, Mr. Vreeland and the doctor now set about skinning the carcase, which weighed, the hunter estimated, about three hundred pounds. After that the doctor opened the stomach.

Bennie watched this operation for a moment, and then turned quickly away.

“What’s the matter?” his uncle asked.

“It—it isn’t what you’d call real sweet and pretty,” said Bennie.

“You’ll never make a doctor, then,” said his uncle.

“Not a bear doctor, anyhow,” Bennie laughed.

But Spider stood right by. He was intensely interested to see what the doctor found.

“Any evidences of a predatory diet?” he demanded.

“Of a _what_?” said Dumplin’ and Bennie. “Say, Mr. Peters, did you bring a dictionary?”

The doctor was looking carefully into the opened stomach.

“As far as I can see,” he answered, “this bear was living on vegetable food, for the past day or two. No trace of bones, feathers or meat. I should say he’d been feeding on berries.”

“Why does the government want ’em killed, then?” cried Spider.

“Why not? What good do they do?” Mr. Vreeland cut in. “Seems to me you boys are about the most tender-hearted people I ever stacked up against. What do you want to do, spoil all sport?”

“It’s just as much sport hunting with a camera,” Spider replied, “and a lot more dangerous, if you aren’t armed, and takes a heap more patience and skill.”

“Yes, and what do you get?”

“You get a picture—if you’re lucky—and you leave the animal alive for the next man to see.”

Mr. Vreeland grunted in disgust, scraped all the fat he could off the big, heavy skin, folded it up, put it over his saddle, and called his dogs. The boys got their horses, and the tired, hungry party rode down the mountain, following an open ridge to the meadows, and then trotted, lame and sore, to their camp. After a hasty meal, they rode back to the ranch. The doctor paid Mr. Vreeland for the trip, and insisted on giving him something for the bearskin beside, because it was his shot which brought down the bear. Then they all stood by while Pep struggled to get Methuselah started, and presently were out on the road again, headed for Bend.

Bennie sank back into the deep cushions of the motor with a huge sigh.

“Oh, boy!” he said, “p’r’aps these cushions don’t feel good! The last five miles, my saddle was made of cast iron. I’m dead to the world.”

“How far did that bear travel before he was treed?” asked Spider.

“I’d say he probably ran fifteen miles,” said the doctor. “It was enough, and lucky for you boys he doubled around, or you wouldn’t have seen him. I’m pretty sore and tired myself.”

“What I don’t get,” said Bennie, “is how Mr. Vreeland and Tom rode right through those pine thickets without getting torn to pieces. Gee, I’ve got to buy a new cap and a pair of trousers and a shirt in Bend before I can gladden the public eye.”

“They know how,” the doctor laughed. “After a while, you learn to estimate how much room there is, as well as the horse does, and protect yourself in advance.”

“It was an awful lot of fun,” Spider continued—“all but shooting the bear. I think it is wicked to kill off all the wild animals, when they are harmless. Pretty soon we won’t have any wild life left. The bears _must_ be harmless, because they don’t shoot ’em in the national parks, and nobody gets hurt, and the other game is thick. Mr. Vreeland thinks I’m chicken-hearted, I could see that. But I can’t help it. It’s not because I’m chicken-hearted. It’s because I love the woods and the wild animals in ’em, and hunting with a gun strikes me as kind of silly and wicked.”

The doctor drove in silence for a minute. Then he said, “I feel more or less as you do. But you must remember this: Vreeland is an old man who was brought up on the frontier. When he was a boy he had to hunt to get fresh meat. Game was as thick as huckleberries then. There were even grizzlies here in Oregon. It seems perfectly natural to him, and he can’t understand why eastern people, or any people, shouldn’t want to hunt. He can’t understand the word _conservation_ at all. But you young fellows, who are born later, into a world where most of the game has been killed off, and most of the forest cut down, don’t want to see less wild animals and less woods—you want to see more. Your point of view is just the opposite of his. Conservation has got to be preached and practised by the young chaps. The old fellows don’t understand it. They think a man is afraid, or chicken-hearted, if he won’t shoot a wild animal. That’s why I want to see the Boy Scouts learn all about conservation, and help in the good work.”

“You bet!” said Bennie. “When that old bear kind of looked at me and groaned, when I hit him, something turned over in the pit of my tummie. I guess he had as good a right to live as I have. But I’ll sure need his old skin to cover me, if the stores are closed when we get to Bend. I got to have some new pants.”

“It’s Saturday. They’ll be open all the evening,” Uncle Billy laughed.

All three of the boys had to buy new khaki breeches when they reached Bend, and new flannel shirts, and Bennie had to get a cap. The doctor gave them some salve and plaster for their cuts and scratches, and after a bath they were ready to eat everything the waitress brought to the table.

“And now,” said Mr. Stone, after dinner, “shall we all go to the movies?”

Dumplin’ gave his father one look of scorn.

“Bed!” he groaned.

“Bed!” said Bennie.

“Bed!” said Spider.

But Pep, who had stayed to dinner with them, said, “I’ve got to hunt up the editor of the _Star_, and tell him about this hunt—good story—more advertising for Bend.”

“Don’t forget to tell him how the three brave boys, alone and unarmed, got to the bear long before the skilled hunters,” said Bennie.

“I’ll tell him _exactly_ how they did it,” Pep laughed, as he said good night.