Chapter 15
DICK AND THE BEAR
Dick wanted a bear and the outlaw showed him a near-by swamp where several of the creatures lived. Day after day Dick waded, wandered and watched in that swamp with the rifle, while Ned tramped in another direction carrying the shotgun, making maps of the country, and picking up occasionally a duck or Indian hen for dinner. Sometimes Dick got sight of a bear, but Bruin was shy and kept well out of range. One day, while sitting in some thick woods, hoping that a bear would wander near him, Dick heard a loud tearing sound that seemed to come from the top of a little group of young palmettos. He crept as slowly and silently as possible near the trees and saw a bear sitting in the top of a palmetto, tearing away the outer husk of the bud of the tree which is the cabbage of the Cracker and often serves as his bread. While Dick was creeping nearer to get a surer shot, Bruin tore out the bud and, with the cabbage in his mouth, dropped from the top of the tree to the ground, alighting on its fore shoulder. Dick didn't know that this was the way bears in that country usually came down a tree when in a hurry, and supposed the bear had met with an accident and was killed. He changed his mind the next instant when the creature came racing toward him. Dick and the bear were about ten feet apart when they saw one another. The bear had to turn quickly to keep from running over Dick, and Dick had trouble to keep from punching the bear in the ribs with his rifle when he fired at it.
No one was hurt on this first round and the bear thought it had escaped and so did the boy. Dick churned a cartridge from the magazine to the barrel of his rifle and watched closely the undergrowth through which the bear was running, hoping for another shot. Just as the splashing in the marsh grew indistinct and Dick realized that his last chance had gone, he got one glimpse of the bear as it sprang upon a log that lay across its path. Dick threw his rifle to his shoulder with the quick motion of the sportsman who takes a woodcock on the wing, and fired. The bear, which was distant more than a hundred yards, disappeared and it seemed to the boy scarcely worth while to follow it. It was only the notion to look for the mark of his bullet on some tree near the log that induced him to wallow through the swamp to where he had last seen the bear. To his amazement he found a piece of bone and some fresh blood on the log. He had no thought now of abandoning the trail. He followed it through swamp and jungle, sometimes losing it where the ground was hard or where it crossed the path of an alligator. Often when he became fearful that he had lost the trail a smear of blood on root or leaf told him that he was on the track. From former hunts and the study of Ned's maps, he knew the general lay of the land, but he stopped often and noted his course, for he meant to follow that trail and camp on it if necessary until he lost it finally or found the bear. The animal seemed to know all the bad stretches of marsh and thorny bits of jungle and, as the hours passed and night drew near, without his getting a sight of his quarry, he consoled himself with the thought of what Mr. Streeter had told him:
"A man is never lost in the swamp so long as he knows where he is himself."
Dick knew he wouldn't starve. There were always birds to be shot, alligators which he could kill with a club, and palmetto cabbage which he could dig out with his knife. He had his matches in a watertight box, a little bag of salt in his pocket, the swamp water was fresh, and what more could a hunter-boy ask for? He felt so cheerful that he began to whistle, which brought him bad luck, for he stumbled over a root which caught both feet and threw him head-down into a deep pool of mud. He was half strangled before he got out and was looking down shudderingly into the morass out of which he had crawled, when he missed his rifle and knew he had got to get back into the mudhole. It was so deep that he laid a branch across it to cling to, before venturing in. A big moccasin crawled from under a root beside the pool of mud as Dick stepped in it and the boy shut his teeth tight as he forced himself to wallow through the slimy, snaky mass from which his flesh recoiled.
He was waist-deep in that broth of mud when his feet found the rifle and he stooped down into it and groped around among roots that felt like living, squirming reptiles before he recovered the weapon. When he had scraped the most of the mud off of himself and out of the rifle it was too dark to follow the trail and Dick walked to a near-by thicket where he hoped to find better ground for a camp. He was peering into a dark recess in the thicket when a fierce growl within a few feet startled him terribly, but told him that he had found his bear--or another one. Dick was about to run, when a picture of Ned facing the outlaw formed itself in his mind and after that the bear couldn't have kicked him out of its path. As the boy's eyes became accustomed to the gloom he saw the bear lying within six feet, with jaws half open, and eyes fixed upon him. Dick believed the bear was dying, since he failed to spring upon him, but he thought a bullet would make things safer and he raised his rifle. He pointed the weapon at the animal's head, but it was too dark to see the sight of the rifle, the brain of the creature was small, and Dick, remembering that a bear with a sore head is likely to be cross, dropped the muzzle of his weapon to the fore shoulder of the beast, and fired. The bear scarcely moved, but its eyes closed and Dick was prudently waiting before touching it, when he heard the distant report of a gun and knew that Ned was worried about him. He fired an answering shot and then, finding a bit of dry ground beside the body of the bear, decided to eat his supper the next morning and lay down to sleep with his head on his new bear robe.
At daylight he heard the report of Ned's gun and fired his rifle in reply. The bear was so heavy that Dick had trouble in handling it and before he had finished skinning it the report of a gun within two hundred yards showed that Ned was out hunting for him and had taken the right course.
"Hope you didn't worry about me," was Dick's greeting as the boys met.
"Nope, didn't worry after you answered my shot, but I was mighty envious of you, for I knew you had got hold of something. I didn't believe it was a bear. Were you scared, Dick?"
"Yes, I was, a heap, but I pulled through," and Dick told his chum of the thought that braced him up.
Ned tried to speak roughly, but his voice trembled and he looked affectionately at his companion as he said:
"See here, Dick, boy, you can cut out all that outlaw talk. The gun business was all bluff and you know it as well as I."
"You looked pretty white, Neddy, for a fellow who didn't think he was taking any risk. But if you'll tell me now, honest Injun, that you didn't think there was any danger when you faced that convict and called him a liar, a thief and a coward, why I'll never speak of it again. I noticed that your pet outlaw, who said the fellow was a murderer, three deep, didn't seem to think that you had done anything so very amusing in giving that fellow the lie and all the rest of it."
"I see you are round-skinning your bear for mounting. I'm glad of that. Some day I'll see it in your house and we'll be talking about last night."
"That skin is for you. I want you to have it stuffed and put where it can watch your alligator."
"I'm not going to take all the trophies of this trip. You can bet your life on that."
"Don't get slangy, Neddy. You aren't used to it and it isn't becoming. Besides, we may never get these little souvenirs out of the wilderness."
By which remark Dick proved himself to be a prophet.
The trail of the bear had been roundabout and had brought Dick within less than a mile of the camp. The buzzards were gathering and Dick remained to guard the meat while he finished removing the skin and cleaning the skull. Ned made two trips with good loads and then, taking all they could carry, the boys returned to camp, leaving a big feast for the bird scavengers.