CHAPTER III.

WHEN THE FOXES TOOK TO THE TREES.

"Bang!"

"Hold on there, Bumpus, you're crazy!" shouted Thad.

"Bang!" went the other barrel of the new ten-bore gun, with which the fat scout was determined he would sooner or later get a bear.

"Oh! he knocked him over!" shrieked Step Hen, who had managed in some mysterious way to get possession of his own gun, and was visibly disappointed because it began to look as though he could not make use of it.

"Bumpus has killed a grizzly!" shouted Giraffe; and then, quick on the heels of this exultant cry he added: "no he ain't, either! Look at him gettin' up on all fours again! Now he's sighted us, fellers! Here he comes, licketty-split! A tree for mine! They told us grizzlies couldn't climb trees, you know."

Giraffe was as good as his word. He seemed to fairly fly over to the nearest tree, and the way those supple long legs wrapped around the slender trunk was a sight worth seeing.

A panic broke out among the rest, especially when Thad shouted:

"Get up a tree, everybody! Quick, now, he's coming right along!"

Now, Step Hen had his rifle, and knew that it could be depended on to do its work, provided the marksman himself was there with the good aim. Step Hen did not have full confidence in his ability to plant a bullet where it would do the most execution. Besides, the sight of that savage monster lumbering along, and looking so very fierce, gave poor Step Hen an attack of the "rattles."

When he heard the scoutmaster call out for every one to hunt a tree, Step Hen felt that he must be included in that order. If all the others climbed to safety, it would be the height of folly for him to remain below.

And not wanting to play the part of Casibianca, the boy who "stood on the burning deck, whence all but him had fled," Step Hen, dropping his gun as he ran, made for a tree that seemed to offer all the advantages of home.

Just ahead of him was Bumpus, gripping a limb with a desperation born of despair, and struggling furiously to get one of his fat legs entwined above, when he might hope to pull himself up.

Step Hen had no trouble in mounting on his side of the tree.

"Give Bumpus a hand, Step Hen!" shouted the scoutmaster, already settled in a nest of his choosing.

As one scout is expected to help another whenever the chance arises, doubtless Step Hen would have rendered this "first aid to the clumsy" even though Thad had not seen fit to call out.

There was really need of haste. The wounded bear was perilously near, and seemed to be heading straight for the tree where Bumpus was, unable, in his excitement and fright to draw his body up on the limb to which he clung.

His fat face was white, and his eyes seemed almost ready to pop out of his head, as Step Hen, bending down, caught hold of his coat collar. It looked as though the angry bear just knew which of these campers had inflicted this pain upon him, and was bent upon revenge.

But Step Hen was strong, moreover, the necessity of moving the unwieldy body of Bumpus was great. Exerting himself as the fat scout commenced to strain again, Step Hen managed to get Bumpus up alongside him.

Even then there was more or less danger that the grizzly might stand erect on his hind legs, and be able to claw them, so the boys hastened to put more distance between their precious bodies and the furious beast.

When the bear found that he could not reach any of the scouts, he spent some little time rolling from one tree to another, and looking up at the boys in the branches and sending forth loud growls.

"Scat! get out!" shouted Giraffe. "Say, he's a goin' to try and climb up my thin tree. Here, quit that, you old scamp! Look what he's doin', Thad! Wow! he wants to shake me down like a big persimmon."

The bear did actually shake the slender tree to and fro, by exerting his tremendous strength. Giraffe had a few anxious minutes. He had to hold on with all his might to keep from being dislodged. And then again, there was always a chance that the furious grizzly might actually snap the tree off.

After a short time the animal seemed to tire of this sport. Greatly to the relief of Giraffe he ambled away.

"Good-bye, old feller! Come again when you can't stay so long!" cried Giraffe, whose courage returned when he realized that his safety was assured.

But the bear did not have the remotest idea of abandoning his game.

"He smells our grub, that's what!" called out Bumpus. "See him sniffing, would you? And there he goes, right at our stock of things. Oh! what if he gobbles it all up, whatever will we do, stranded away up here?"

"We've got to do something, boys, to chase him off," declared Allan.

"If I had some powder up here, I'd show him," declared Giraffe.

"What would you do?" demanded Smithy, who for once had not waited to pick out a clean tree, when he started to "elevate."

"Why, I'd wet some powder, and make those sputtering 'devils' you remember I used to carry around with me. Then I'd get the old bear right under, put a match to a bunch of the powder, and when it took to sending out sparks to beat the band, I'd drop it on his back. Wow! but take my word for it, boys, he'd make tracks out of this in a cloud of smoke."

"Well, suh, why don't you do that, and help us out of a bad scrape?" demanded Bob White, whose hot Southern blood fairly boiled at the ridiculous idea of eight wide-awake scouts being made prisoners, by just one old bear.

"For several reasons," replied Giraffe, calmly. "In the first place I don't happen to possess a single match, even if I had the powder, which is not the case. And then again, I want to see how our sagacious and resourceful scoutmaster works his little game."

This caused all the others to turn their attention toward Thad. For the first time they discovered that he was lowering a long piece of cord, with an open loop a few inches in diameter at the end.

"Oh! I know what he's hoping to do," sang out Bumpus. "He wants to fish up Step Hen's gun, that lies just below him, where Step Hen dropped it."

"That's the stuff!" declared Davy Jones, excitedly, as he watched the operation.

"But look at the bear, fellers!" cried Giraffe. "He's right at it now, chawin' up our grub as if he could store away the lot of it. Guess he's forgot all about us."

"Don't you believe it," declared Allan. "Watch me prove it."

With that he made as if to descend his tree. No sooner had his swinging legs attracted the attention of the bear, than uttering savage growls he abandoned his feast, and came hurriedly over, to look up at Allan with those cruel little eyes, as if inviting him to just try it.

So Thad had to suspend operations until Bruin, overtaken by a desire to once more revel in the camp-stores, shuffled back again to the neighborhood of the twin tents.

"Don't coax him over here again, please, Allan," remarked the scoutmaster, who was now busily engaged "fishing" with that looped cord, trying to drop the noose over the end of the little rifle, which, by a rare chance, was raised a few inches from the ground.

The other scouts were all watching his labor, being deeply interested in the result.

"Now you've got a bite, Thad!" called out Giraffe.

"Give it to him, Thad!" advised Step Hen.

But the fisherman was too cautious to risk so much. He wanted to slip the noose a little further along, before he made a final jerk, in order to try and tighten it.

"He's got his eye on you, Thad!" warned Smithy, whose tree happened to be better located for observation than any of the other ones appropriated by his comrades.

"Yes, and there he's coming over to see what you mean by that string hanging down," asserted Giraffe.

"Somebody draw his attention!" called out Thad. "Make him think you're meaning to drop down. It will give me the chance I need to finish my job."

"Yes, throw Bumpus down, Step Hen!" called out Giraffe. "He was the cause of all this trouble and he ought to sacrifice himself now, in order to create a diversion."

"Keep away from me! Don't you dare touch me, Step Hen! I'll pull you down along with me, if you try to do that," cried Bumpus, really alarmed.

But Allan caught the idea Thad advanced. Besides, it just happened that he was well situated for carrying it out. By going through some extravagant motions, as though about to descend, he caught the attention of the bear, which immediately shuffled over to his tree, and looked up expectantly.

Meanwhile Thad was not idle.

He saw what he had to do in order to make a sure thing of his work. Moving to one side a little, as the nature of his hold in the branches of the tree permitted, he jerked at his line until the loop actually closed tightly on the barrel of Step Hen's rifle. After that it should not be a difficult task to pull the weapon up.

"Quick! Thad, he's coming!" shouted the excited Giraffe.

In spite of all Allan's cutting-up the bear seemed to think that he had better be paying more attention to what was going on elsewhere.

Thad had raised the gun from the ground. It was slowly ascending through space, and turning around as it came.

The grizzly hurried underneath, while Thad hastened to pass the cord through his fingers and when the wise old bear, seeming to understand the case, reared up to strike at the dangling rifle, he just managed to give it a tap that started it to spinning around at a lively clip.

"Oh!" gasped Giraffe, under the belief that all was lost.

But Thad had made one last drag, and even as the other uttered that exclamation the scoutmaster snatched the gun out of the air; for with that very last pull, the noose seemed to have slipped.

"Hurrah! Thad wins!" burst out from Step Hen.

"Good-bye, old Charlie!" mocked Bumpus. "Better skip out while there is time, if you know what's good for you."

But the bear did not seem to be that wise. He remained there, winking those wicked little eyes up at Thad, as if daring him to do his worst.

"Give it to him, Thad!" begged Giraffe, so impatient that he could hardly understand why the more careful boy should wait.

But although Thad had never up to now encountered a wild grizzly, he had heard and read a great deal about them. And thus he knew that at times such an animal can be shot full of bullets, so to speak, without killing him, so tenacious of life is the grizzly bear of the Rocky Mountains.

On this account, therefore, Thad wished to make all the capital possible out of the six bullets that were contained in Step Hen's gun.

Waiting until a good opportunity presented itself, he took a quick aim, and then pulled the trigger. With the report there came a tremendous roar, so savage, so full of pent-up animal rage, that Bumpus immediately proceeded to climb up to a still higher limb of the tree in which he had found shelter.

"He's down! No, he's up again! Give him another, Thad! Oh! don't I wish I had my Old Reliable here, though," cried Giraffe.

Thad was awake to the necessity for prompt action. The bear, even though desperately wounded, was still full of fight. And there could be no telling what the maddened animal might not attempt, if given time.

Thad taking careful aim fired again.

He really felt an admiration for the hard-fighting grizzly, such as all hunters worthy of the name experience toward the four-footed enemy that puts up a game battle for its life.

There were four more bullets in the repeating rifle, and Thad had to make use of them all before he could really feel he had caused the last vital spark to flee from its abiding-place in the body of the shaggy monster.

But after the sixth and last shot had been fired, there was silence on the part of the terror of the mountain gulches. The grizzly's last convulsive movement had taken place. No longer would his savage roar, echoing from cliff to cliff, cause all other wild animals to flee.

"Hurrah!" shouted Giraffe, as he dropped to the ground.

"Is he surely dead?" asked Smithy, from his perch aloft.

For answer the reckless Giraffe ran up, and placed a foot on the motionless body of the bear.