CHAPTER VII

THE CLIMBER OF THE BEECH TREE

“Ginger! there _is_ something big and black up in that tree, as sure as you live!” exclaimed Wee Willie, excitedly.

Both Elmer and Amos also stared. Apparently they found it necessary to agree with what the tall chum had just said. It looked as though humble Perk had scored again; somehow he seemed to be connected with almost everything that had happened to them thus far; when as a usual thing such events took delight in passing him by.

“There, didn’t you see him move?” he added, with a tinge of triumph in his voice. “Just think of his nerve, climbing that tree to watch what we do. If he’d been a signal-sender in the old Boy Scout days at Chester, before the troop busted up, he couldn’t have picked out a better location. I bet you he’s watching us right now. What ought we do about it, Elmer?”

Considerably to the astonishment of the speaker, Elmer was heard to give an unmistakable chuckle, as though something amused him.

“Well,” he went on to say, “we might walk out there and tell that party we objected to his company; but the chances are he’d sniff at us, and amble away; for you see it’s only _a bear_!”

“A bear!” gasped Perk, turning again to fasten his eyes on the mysterious object perched high in the big beech tree.

“Yes, a black bear, and I reckon a half-grown cub at that, else he wouldn’t be so fresh as to climb a tree so near our camp,” the other continued; while Wee Willie nodded his head in affirmation, and hastened to corroborate the statement by saying:

“No doubt about it, Perk, your hobo is a four-legged tramp, all right. I c’n make him out plainly, now he’s moved a bit; though at first I began to think it might be a man sitting astride a limb.”

“But what’s a bear doing up there, I’d like to know?” Perk objected, hardly liking to give up his side of the case so easily.

“Why, from away back bears have been in the habit of climbing trees whenever they felt like it,” the tall boy told him; “and there’s nothing in the Constitution of the United States that’s going to make ’em change their habits either—that is, black bears. It’s a different thing with grizzlies out in the Rocky Mountain country, I understand; they keep to the ground.”

Perk sighed with real relief as he hurriedly remarked, and quite cheerfully at that:

“Well, I’m glad to know I was mistaken. It gave me a bad feeling to think that ugly tramp was spying on us. Yes, now the thing shifts again, and sure enough I can make him out plainly. It’s a real live bear—not a monster, but pretty hefty for all that.”

Amos darted into the cabin.

“Now what’s he after, I want to know?” Perk quickly asked.

“Just as like as not, that camera of his,” Elmer explained. “Amos is crazy on the subject of photography, and his first thought always is, ‘Will it make a striking picture?’ I reckon he thinks he might be able to creep up close enough to snap that chap off, up in the beechnut tree.”

Sure enough out came Amos on the run, and gripping his ready camera.

“I’d like to get him the worst kind, fellows!” he told them. “Some of the boys at home will laugh at us when we tell them we actually saw a black bear up in a tree. I’d make them feel like thirty cents if I could hold up a photo of the happening, taken at closer quarters than this.”

“We’ll all go along, Amos,” suggested Elmer.

Possibly he fancied that the others might find their presence useful in some way or other. It might be wise, Elmer even suspected, since the rash photographer, in his burning desire to get a close view, might run foul of the claws of Bruin, and need material assistance.

“Glad to have you,” agreed Amos, a faint smile coming on his usually wan face; “but let’s hurry, please, because the bear might take a notion to come down, and then my chance would be gone.”

“Follow me,” Elmer told him. “We’ve just got to swing around a bit so as to come up to leeward, for he’d be apt to scent us if we kept straight on down the wind.”

“Good boy, Elmer, you’re right!” commended Wee Willie.

“And now no talking except in whispers, with as little of that as possible. We don’t want to have our walk for nothing, I imagine.”

With these words Elmer led off, the others trooping after him, Amos coming next, then the tall chum, and fat Perk bringing up the rear, as was ordinarily his custom.

They soon found themselves deep in the woods, with all sight of the big beechnut tree on the knoll lost to them. But trust Elmer for having fixed the location indelibly in his mind. Every step they took was fetching them just that much closer to their goal; and while Wee Willie also kept tabs on their progress, not once did he find occasion to enter the slightest protest concerning the leadership of Elmer.

After about ten minutes of this sort of thing, the one in the van stopped, and held up his hand. They seemed to be at the foot of the knoll, judging from the lay of the land. Elmer parted some bushes that hemmed them in, and, looking up, the others saw the very beech tree toward which they had started.

There could no longer be the least doubt concerning the nature of that dark object, for it was a young black bear. Whatever had tempted him to climb the tree they could only guess; for at the time they discovered him afresh the clumsy little animal was thrusting out his muzzle, and seemed to be sniffing the air suspiciously.

“He’s got a whiff of human presence near by, somehow or other,” whispered Elmer; “do you think you could snap him off from here, Amos?”

“To be sure I can,” came the ready response, as the camera owner shifted his position; and a few seconds later a sharp click announced that he had done the work.

“He heard even that little sound,” announced Wee Willie, in a low tone, “because I saw him give a start. Hurry and duplicate, Amos, for the rascal means to come down.”

Sure enough the bear seemed to have decided to change his location, as if growing uneasy after getting that suspicious waft of a scent his instinct told him was hostile to his species.

His method of descending the tree was exceedingly clumsy when compared with the clever actions of a gray squirrel while skimming the smooth trunk with ease. Indeed, the bear acted very much like a boy would have done, coming down stern first, and being very careful not to let go above until sure of his footing on a limb below.

Amos kept busy snapping him off in various postures. He evidently meant to make sure of having some extra fine pictures to show.

Perk meanwhile began to grow a little uneasy, and even plucked at the sleeve of Elmer as he managed to say excitedly:

“What if he’d feel mad and start to tackle the bunch? We haven’t got even a club or a hatchet along, come to think of it. Are black bears inclined to be vicious, Elmer; will they bite and scratch like a wildcat?”

“Don’t worry about that, Perk,” chuckled the other. “They are most harmless animals as a rule, hardly more dangerous than so many hogs in the pasture. Besides, this is only a youngster; chances are he’ll run for all that’s out as soon as he hits solid ground.”

“I’ll give a whoop, and help scare him off then,” suggested Perk, picking up his courage again.

“Just as you please; and Amos here can snap him off while on the gallop!” Elmer concluded.

The bear was now almost at the foot of the tree. Amos stepped out so as to command a better position for covering the spot. He had just one more exposure left, when the half dozen would be complete; and he wanted to make sure this last would not be wasted.

Perk was waiting, getting redder than ever in the face with suspended breath and no sooner did he discover that the young bear had reached the ground than he let out a yell that might easily have shamed a Comanche Indian. Of course, this started the timid beast off at a wild pace, while Amos clicked his camera to prove that he had taken advantage of the opportunity.

The last they heard of Bruin was the clatter amidst the brushes and thickets as he scrambled madly through every obstacle to his progress, only wild to get away from that point of danger.

Elmer and Wee Willie exchanged looks, and laughed good and hard.

“Never will stop short of three miles, believe me!” asserted the latter. “I didn’t believe you had it in you to let out such a fiendish whoop, Perk. But it paid us for coming over here, for now we can say with truth we had an adventure with a wild bear, and that Amos here had to ‘shoot’ six times before the fight was finished.”

Amos looked decidedly pleased.

“I’ll have to call this my bear roll of film,” he suggested, patting his camera affectionately, after the manner of those who are seized with the photographic craze. “And out of the lot there must be several half-way decent pictures. I never believed I’d get such a great chance as this.”

“Say, things are happening like hot cakes, seems to me,” Perk remarked, as once more they turned their faces in the direction of the camp. “Why, we hardly get through with one event before another comes crowding along right at its heels. We’ve done considerable camping this summer, ever since we started the Camp Fire Boys’ Club, but nothing like this ever came along the pike.”

“Suits me all right!” Wee Willie declared, grinning. “I like excitement, and just sitting around, loafing, never was my style of enjoying myself. Why, I’m even hoping we’ll see something of this chap who was hanging out in the cabin when we came along and squatted here.”

“Oh, wouldn’t it be a tough joke on us now if, when we got back, we found he’d been there in our absence, and helped himself to lots of our stuff?”

Perk, as he spoke, looked as though this might not be a groundless fear after all, but Elmer only laughed at him.

“I’m going back another way, you notice, Perk. Every now and then we can get glimpses of the cabin, with our fire burning in front, and so far I’ve seen no sign of any intruder. Don’t worry about it. In three minutes we’ll be home again.”

His prophecy came true, and Perk was relieved to discover that nothing had mysteriously vanished during their brief absence from camp.