Chapter XII - "Go It, Old Bruin!"

Before them lay a ruined tract of country, extending northward farther than eye could reach. It is called by Maine woodsmen a brûlée , name borrowed from their French-Canadian neighbors, who dwell across the boundary line which separates the Dominion from the United States.

The word signifies "burnt tract;" but it gives a feeble idea of the fire-smitten, blackened region on which the lads looked.

The forest until now had been a wilderness truly, but a wilderness where every kind and size of growth, from the giant pine to the creeping wintergreen and shaded mosses, mingled in beautiful confusion. Here it became a desert. For the terrible forest fires, the woodsman's tragic enemy, had swept over it not long before, devastating an area of many square miles. Millions of dollars worth of valuable timber had been reduced to rotting embers. Storm-defying pines had crashed to the earth, and were overridden by the flames in their wild rush onward. Sometimes only a smutty stump showed where they had stood; sometimes, robbed of life and every limb, portions of the fire-eaten trunks still remained erect,—bare, blackened poles. All smaller growth, and even the surface of the ground, parched by summer heats, had burned like tinder. Rocks and stones were baked and crumbling.

"Boys, that's the most mournful sight a woodsman can see," said Doc, looking away over the wrecked region, touched with golden lights from an October sunset. "It makes one who loves the woods feel as if he had lost a living friend."

"Well, 'tain't no manner o' use to fret over it," declared Joe energetically. "Nature don't waste time in fretting, you bet! She starts in and tries to cover the stripped ground, as if she was sort of ashamed to have it seen."

The guide pointed earthward. At his feet a dwarfed growth of blueberry bushes and tiny trees was already springing up to screen the unsightly, ash-strewn land.

"True enough, Joe! Nature is a grand one for remedies," answered the doctor. "Still, it will be half a century or more before she can raise a timber growth here again. Hulloa! Dol, what are you fellows up to?"

While his elders were studying the brûlée , Dol, who objected to dreary sights, had marched down to the brink of the stream, accompanied by Royal's young brothers, Will and Martin Sinclair. The little river gurgled and frisked along beside the burnt tract, like a line of life bordering death. It seemed to the boys to prattle about its victory over the flames when it stopped their sweeping course, so that the woods on its opposite bank were uninjured, as were those beyond the brook in the rear.

"We're studying the ways of the great sea-serpent!" shouted back Dol, who was splashing about in a sedgy pool.

By and by when the guides had finished their work of making camp, when they had pitched the tents, cut boughs for beds and fuel in the spruce grove behind, and were cooking an odorous supper, the three juveniles came slowly towards the camp-fire from the water.

"What on earth have you got there, young one?" asked Dr. Phil; for Adolphus Farrar was bareheaded, and carried his hat very gingerly, with its corners clutched together to form a bag.

"The big sea-serpent himself," answered Dol mysteriously.

Of a sudden he opened his dripping hat, and spilled out a small water-snake, about ten inches long, upon the doctor's lap.

There was a great roar of laughter, in which Dol's abettors, Will and Martin, joined with cheerful shouts. The little joke had the effect of winning everybody's thoughts from roaring flames, wrecked forests, and the dreary brûlée . Uncle Eb killed the snake, maintaining that water-snakes were "plaguy p'isonous," while Cyrus scouted the idea. The supper that evening was a merry enough meal. The camp, lit by the ruddy glow from its great fire, looked an oasis of light, warmth, and jollity in the black and burnt desert.

The darky, hearing Cyrus declare that he was fearfully hungry, mixed some flapjacks to form a second course, after the venison steaks and potatoes. He had exhausted his stock of maple sugar, but he produced a small wooden keg of the apparently inexhaustible molasses.

"He! he! he! Dat jest touches de spot, don't it?" he chuckled, when, having carefully served each member of the party, he seated himself about three feet from the camp-fire, with a round dozen of the thin cakes for his own eating.

He coated them with the thick molasses, and set the keg down side by side with a bag of potatoes which had been brought from the settlement.

There these provisions remained when, earlier than usual, the party turned in, and stretched their tired limbs to rest, lying down, as they had done before when sleeping under canvas, with all their garments on save coats and moccasins. Whether Uncle Eb forgot his "m'lasses," or whether he purposely left it without, there not being a spare inch of room in the small tents, no one then or afterwards inquired.

As a result of the jolly intimacy that had sprung up between the two companies during the few days when they had all things in common, the boys disposed of themselves for the night as they pleased. Neal turned in with the doctor, Royal, and Joe, the four stretching themselves on the evergreen boughs, with their feet to the opening of the tent, and their rifles and ammunition within reach. Of course the Winchesters were empty, it being a strict rule that firearms should not be brought into camp loaded.

The younger Sinclairs, with Cyrus, Dol, and Uncle Eb, occupied the other tent.

It seemed to Neal that he had hardly slept one hour,—probably it was nearer to three,—during which time he had been dreaming with vague foreshadowings of the final and crowning sport of the trip, the grand moose-stalking, and of Herb Heal, the mighty hunter, when he was awakened by a shrill scream just outside the canvas. He started, with his heart going whackety-whack. The cry was sudden and intensely startling, appearing twice as loud as it really was when it broke the pathetic stillness of the brûlée , where not a tree rustled or twig snapped, and the night wind only sighed faintly and fitfully through the newly springing growth.

Again sounded that startling screech; and yet again, making a dreary, piercing din.

"By all that's funny! it's another coon," gasped Neal; and he gently pinched the shoulder of Joe, who lay on his left.

"Joe!" he whispered. "Wake up! There's a raccoon just outside the tent. I heard his cry."

The guide was awake and alert in an instant. So, too, was Dr. Phil.

"What's up, boys?" asked the latter, hearing a murmur.

"There's a coon close by," said Neal again. "Listen to him!"

Even while he spoke, young Farrar caught sight of two feathered things hopping along the avenue of light which lay between him and the camp-fire, the red flare of the flames mingling with the white radiance of a cloudless moon. At the same time the screech sounded and resounded.

"Coon!" exclaimed Joe derisively. "That's no coon. It's only a little owl. Bless ye! I've had five or six of 'em come right into this tent of a night, and ding away at me till I had to talk to 'em with the rifle to scare 'em off. I'll give 'em a dose o' lead now if they don't scoot mighty quick; that'll stop their song an' dance."

"Their cry is pretty much like a raccoon's, Neal," said Doc. "Only it's a great deal weaker. Lie down, boy. Go to sleep, and don't mind them."

The owls perhaps apprehended danger. At all events, they were silent for a while; and in three minutes each occupant of the tent was fast asleep again, with the exception of Neal. The sharp awakening had upset his nerves a bit. He obeyed the doctor, and hugged his blankets round him, hoping sleep would return; but he lay with eyes narrowed into two slits, peeping at the ruddy camp-fire, involuntarily listening for the screeching of the birds, and wishing that he had not been such a greenhorn as to disturb his comrades for nothing. Royal, who lay on his right, was of a less excitable temperament. Although he had been awakened, he was now snoring lustily, insomnia being a rare affliction in camps.

"What's that?"

About half an hour had passed when Neal Farrar suddenly and sharply rapped out these words close to Joe's ear. He felt certain that he would not now bring upon him the woodsman's good-natured scorn for making a disturbance about nothing. A heavy, stealthy tread, as of some big animal, was crushing the pygmy bushes near the tent. Immediately afterwards he saw an uncouth black shape in the lane of light between himself and the fire. It disappeared while his heart was giving one jump, and he heard a dull, mumbling noise, such as a pig might make when rooting amid rubbish, varied with an occasional low growl.

Joe was already awake. His hunter's instinct told him that something truly exciting was on now.

"My cracky! I b'lieve it's a bear!" he muttered, forming his words away down in his throat, so that Neal only caught the last one. "Keep still as death!"

The guide reached out a long arm, and clutched his rifle. Hurriedly he jammed half a dozen cartridges into its magazine. Then lightly and silently, as if he was made of cork, he got upon his feet, and bounded out of the tent, Neal copying his actions nimbly and noiselessly as he could; though, in his excitement, he only succeeded in getting two cartridges into his Winchester.

Royal's snoring ceased. Doc's eager question, "What's up now, boys?" reached the two just as they quitted shelter, and passed into the broad moonlight, crossed with red gleams from their fire.

"A bear!" yelled Joe in answer, his rifle and he breaking silence together.

Three times the Winchester sharply cracked.

Then with a mad "Halloo!" the guide seized a flaming stick from the fire, and, swinging it above his head, started after the big black animal of which Neal had caught a glimpse before. He now saw it plainly as, already fifty yards ahead, it made off at a plunging gallop across the moonlit brûlée .

Young Farrar had been the champion runner of his school, and he blessed his trained legs for giving him a prominent part in the wild chase that followed. Still imitating the woodsman, he pulled another half-lighted stick from the camp-fire, and waved it in a frenzy of excitement, while he ran like a buck at Joe's side.

"Tumble out! Tumble out, boys! A bear! A bear!" now rang from one tent to another.

In two minutes every camper, in his stocking feet, just as he had risen from his bed, was tearing across the brûlée in the wake of Bruin, yelling, leaping, and swinging smouldering firebrands.

It was a scene and a chase such as the boys, in their most far-fetched dreams, had never pictured,—the white moonlight glimmering on the black stumps and tottering trunks of the ruined tract, the hunted bear plunging off among them, frightened by the shouting and the lights, the heavy, lumbering gallop enabling it at first to distance its pursuers.

Owing to their fleetness and the odds they had at the start, the guide and Neal kept far ahead of their comrades. The noise which Bruin made as he lumbered over the pygmy growth, and the charred, rotting timber that littered the ground beneath it, were quiet enough to guide Joe unerringly in the bear's wake, even when that bulky shape was not distinguishable.

"What's this?" screeched the woodsman suddenly, as he stumbled upon something at his feet. "By gracious! it's our keg of m'lasses. He made off with that, and has dropped it out o' sheer fright, or because he's weakening. I know I hit him twice when I fired; but he's not hurt too badly to run, or to fight like a fiend if we come to close quarters. Like as not 'twill be a narrow squeak with us if we tackle him. If you're scared a little bit, Neal, let up, an' I'll finish him alone."

"Scared!" Neal flung the word back with scorn, as if he was returning a blow. For the life of him he could not bring out another syllable, going at a faster rate than ever he had done in the most stubbornly contested handicap. The strong-winded guide rapped out his sentences as he ran, apparently without waste of breath.

The feverish enthusiasm of the hunter, which he had never felt before, was now alive in Neal. His blood raced through his veins like liquid fire. He had been long enough in Maine to know that in wreaking vengeance on Bruin for many misdeeds he would be acting in the interests of justice. For the black bear is still such a master pest to the settlers who are trying to establish their farms amid the forests where it roams, that the State has outlawed the beast, and pays a bounty for its skin.

Joe thought little about this; for a gentleman whom he had guided early in the summer had lately written to him, offering a price of fifteen dollars for a good bearskin.

Here was the woodsman's golden opportunity—an opportunity for which he had been thirsting since the receipt of that letter.

"Go It, Old Bruin! Go It While You Can!"

He already regarded his triumph over the bear as secure, and its hide as forfeited. He nearly caused Neal Farrar to burst a blood-vessel from the combined effects of struggling laughter and running, when he began to apostrophize the flying foe with grim humor, thus:—

"Go it, old Bruin! Go it while ye can! There ain't a hair on yer back that b'longs to ye!"

But it soon became evident that the bear couldn't go on much longer at this breakneck pace. Its pursuers heard its steps with increasing distinctness, and then its labored breathing. They were gaining on it fast.

The brute came into full view about forty yards ahead, as it ascended a slight elevation, crowned with blasted tree trunks.

"I'll draw bead on him from here," said Joe, stopping short. "Get ready to fire, lad, if he turns. It'll take lots o' lead to finish that fellow."

Twice Joe's rifle spoke again. One shot took effect. There was a fearful growl from the beast, but it was not yet mortally wounded.

Maddened and desperate, it wheeled about, and came straight for its pursuers. Again the guide fired. Still the bear advanced, gnashing its teeth and mumbling horribly; Neal saw its black shape not thirty yards from him.

"Shoot! shoot, boy!" screamed Joe. "Or give me your rifle. I haven't got a charge left!"

For half a minute Farrar shook all over as with ague. His nostrils felt choked. His mouth was wide open in his efforts to breathe. His heart pounded like a sledge-hammer. With that mumbling brute advancing upon him, he felt as if he couldn't fire so as to hit a haystack or a flock of hens at a barn-door.

Then, suddenly, he was cool again, seeing and hearing with extraordinary clearness. The ignominious alternative of giving his rifle to Joe produced a revulsion. His fingers were on the trigger, his left hand firmly gripped the barrel of his Winchester; he brought it to his shoulder.

"Aim low! Try to hit him in the front of the neck where it joins the body," said Joe, in tones sharp as a razor, which cut his meaning into Neal's brain.

Bruin was only fifteen yards away when Farrar's rifle cracked once—twice—sending out its messengers of death.

There was a last terrible growl, a plunge, and a thud which seemed to shake the ground under Neal's feet. As the smoke of his shots cleared away, Joe beheld him leaning on his rifle, with a face which in the moonlight looked white as chalk, and the bear lying where it had fallen headlong towards him. It made a desperate struggle to regain its feet, then rolled on its side, dead.

One bullet had pierced the spot which Joe mentioned, and had passed through the region of the heart.