Northern Diamonds Part 4

"But what was it?" stammered Maurice, out of breath.

Looking back, they could see nothing but the faint glow from the scattered brands. But they could not overlook the whole interior of the camp, where the intruder must be now lying quiet.

Trying to collect himself, Fred told how he had been awakened.

"It came straight out of the fire!" he declared.

"Out of the log, I guess," said Peter. "Here, I know what it must be.

It's simply a bear!"

"A bear!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Fred.

"Yes, a bear, that must have had his winter den in that big log. He was hibernating there, and our fire burned into his den and roused him out. That's all."

"Quite enough, I should think," said Maurice. "Bears are ugly-tempered when they're disturbed from their winter dens, I've heard. He's got possession of our camp, now. What'll we do?"

"We'll freeze if we don't do something pretty quick," Fred added.

In fact the boys were standing in stockinged feet in the snow, and the night was bitterly cold. All looked quiet in what they could see of the camp.

"I don't see why one of us hadn't the wit to grab a gun!" said Peter bitterly.

He turned and began to wade back cautiously toward the camp. The other boys followed him, till they were close enough to look into the pit.

No animal was in sight.

"Perhaps he's bolted out the other side," muttered Peter. "Who's going to go down there and find out?"

n.o.body volunteered. If the bear was still in the camp he must be under the roofed-over shelter, and, in fact, as they stood shivering and listening they heard a sound of stirring about under the cedar poles of the roof.

"He's there!" exclaimed Fred.

"And eating up our stores, as like as not!" cried Maurice.

This made the case considerably more serious.

"We must get him out of that!" Macgregor exclaimed.

How to do it was the difficulty, and, still more, how to do it with safety. Both the rifles were still lying loaded under the shelter, probably under the very feet of the bear.

"Well, we've got to take a chance!" declared Macgregor at last. "Talk about cold feet! We'll certainly have them frozen if we stand here much longer. Scatter out, boys, all around the camp. Then we'll s...o...b..ll the brute out. Likely he's too scared to want to fight.

Anyhow, if he jumps out on one side, the man on the opposite side must jump into the camp and grab a rifle."

It looked risky, to provoke a charge from the animal in that deep snow, where they could hardly move, but they waded around the camp till they stood at equal distances apart, surrounding the hollowed s.p.a.ce.

"Now let him have it!" cried Peter.

Immediately they began to throw s...o...b..a.l.l.s into the camp, aiming at that dark hole under the cedar roof where the animal was hidden. But the snow was too dry to pack into lumps, and the light ma.s.ses they flung produced no effect. Peter broke off branches from a dead tree and threw them into the shelter, without causing the bear to come out.

Finally Fred, who happened to be standing beside a birch tree, peeled off a great strip of bark and lighted it with a match.

"Hold on! Don't throw that!" yelled Peter.

He was too late. Fred had already cast the flaming ma.s.s into the camp, too close to the piles of cedar twigs. The resinous leaves caught and flashed up. There was a glare of smoky flame--a wild scramble and scurry under the shelter, and the bear burst out, and plunged at the snowy sides of the pit on the side opposite Fred's position.

He fell back as he had done before, but floundered up with a second leap. Maurice, who was nearest, gave a shrill yell and tried to dash aside, but he stumbled and went head-long in the deep snow.

Fred instantly leaped into the camp. The shelter was full of smoke and light flame, but he knew where the rifles lay, and s.n.a.t.c.hed one.

Straightening up, he was just in time to see the bear vanishing with long leaps into the darkness, ploughing up clouds of snow.

He fired one shot wildly, then another, but there was no sign of the animal's being stopped, and the next instant it was out of sight.

"Quick! Stamp out this fire!" exclaimed Peter at his shoulder.

They tore down the flaming branches and beat them out in the snow. The light flame was easily put out, but it left the camp a chaos of blackened twigs and ashes.

"Well, we turned him out," said Maurice, who had hastened in to help.

"Did you hit him, do you think?"

"I wish I'd killed him!" said Fred. "He's ruined our camp. But I don't believe I touched him. He was going too fast."

Peter had raked the camp-fire together and thrown on fresh wood. A bright blaze sprang up, and by its light they took off their stockings and looked for the dead white of frozen toes. But it was only Maurice who had suffered the least frost-bite, and this yielded to a little snow-rubbing. The heavy woolen stockings, and perhaps the depth of the snow itself had protected the rest of them.

Putting on his moccasins Fred then went to look for results from his shots, but came back reporting not a drop of blood on the snow. The bullets had missed cleanly, and the animal was probably miles away by that time.

"What do you suppose he'll do for the rest of the winter?" Maurice asked.

"Oh, he'll find some hole to crawl into, or perhaps he'll just creep under a log and let the snow bury him," said Peter. "He'll have to look a long time to find another snug nest like this one, though."

The big log was hollow, as they had thought, and the fire had burned well into the cavity. They could see the nest where the bear had lain, soft with rotted wood and strewn with black hairs. It seemed a pity to have turned him out of so cozy a sleeping-place.

The boys' own sleeping-place was in a complete state of wreck. The cedar roofing had fallen in, and everything was littered with snow and burned brush. The fire had been too light and too quickly extinguished to do any damage to the stores, however, and they were relieved to find that the bear had eaten none of the bacon or bread. Probably the animal had been merely cowering there for shelter, afraid to come out.

They did not attempt to rebuild the shelter roof, but cleared away the snow and ashes, and sat in their sleeping-bags by the fire. After all the excitement none of them felt like sleeping. They were hungry, though, and finally they boiled tea and cooked a pan of bacon and dried eggs. Even after this they lay talking for a long time, and it was between midnight and dawn when they finally fell asleep.

This was the reason why it was long after sunrise when they awoke, feeling rather as if they had had a bad night. It was another clear, bright day, though still very cold, and they felt it imperative that they should reach the cabin before nightfall.

That forenoon they made all the speed they could, halted for only a brief rest at noon, and pushed on energetically through the afternoon.

The cabin could not be far, unless Macgregor had mistaken the way.

Look as he would, he could not make out any landmarks that he could remember; but he had been through only by canoe in the summer, and the woods have a very different appearance in the winter.

As the afternoon wore on they began to grow anxious. At every turning they looked eagerly ahead, but they saw nothing except the unbroken forest. It was nearly sunset when Maurice suddenly pointed forward with a shout of excitement.

They had just rounded a bend of the river. A hundred yards away, nestling in a hemlock thicket, stood a squat log hut. But no trail led to its door, no smoke rose from its chimney, the snow had drifted almost to its eaves, and it looked gloomy and desolate as the darkening wilderness itself.

CHAPTER III