The Boy Scouts of Bob's Hill Part 21

At last he was crouching down behind some big bushes, and on the other side he could hear the deer real plain, tramping around like a horse.

"Gee!" thought he. "It's a big one and will look great up by our cave."

He didn't say it out loud because he knew that although the deer could not smell him on account of the wind blowing the other way, he would hear him, unless he was very careful.

Then, getting the rope ready to throw, with the slip noose working easily, he parted the bushes gently and crept through.

There was a great crashing as some big animal broke his way through the bushes in front of him. Then came a snarl and a growl that made Skinny's heart almost stop beating. And there he stood, paralyzed, looking straight into the eyes of a bear!

It wasn't any Jake Yost with his boots on wrong, either. It was the real thing, looking as big as the Quaker Meeting House to Skinny, although it was really only a cub, about half grown.

I guess the bear wasn't expecting anybody to call, for he stood there, sort of paralyzed himself, his eyes looking right into Skinny's and one big paw raised to take another step.

Skinny gave a howl and started for the nearest tree, one that was too small for a bear to climb.

Say, if tree climbing had been one of the Scout stunts, Skinny would have won two badges.

It isn't any fun to sit in a tree on a mountain, with a real live bear sniffing around at the bottom and you both getting hungrier every minute.

Skinny knew he was safe as long as he stayed in the tree, but he didn't dare get down while the bear was in sight, and the cub wouldn't go away more than a few rods. I guess Skinny looked good to him, he was so fat.

Dinner time came and went. He was still in the tree and the bear was still fooling around below.

Skinny called for help until he was hoa.r.s.e, but there wasn't anybody pa.s.sing at that time of day. Then he began to get mad, and when Skinny gets mad, look out!

"You think you're smart," said he, "but old Long Knife will show you a thing or two."

First he let down his rope and found that it would reach the ground.

Then he fixed the noose up in good shape, tied the other end around a limb and waited.

By and by the bear came smelling around that rope to see what it was, and that was exactly what Skinny had been waiting for. He leaned down and tried to swing the noose over the cub's head. The bear didn't know what to make of it and every time the rope would hit his nose he would growl and strike it away with his paw.

Skinny saw that he would have to get closer. He climbed down to a lower limb; then held on with one hand, swung out over the bear, and tried to la.s.so him with the other.

He almost did it, too, but just as he leaned still farther down, all of a sudden there was a cracking noise and the limb broke.

With an awful scream of despair, Skinny fell.

CHAPTER XII

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BEAR

THE Band, I mean the Ravens, don't know so very much about bears. That was the only bear we ever had come across and we had been berrying all over those mountains, although mostly on the Greylock side. Pa says that they usually keep away from the road, the few that are left, because they are afraid of folks.

Anyhow, it isn't any picnic to fall out of a tree at any time, especially when there is a bear at the bottom.

When the limb began to crack, Skinny knew that he was a goner. He yelled so loud that it surprised the bear and it looked up into the tree to see what was going on. Just at that second the leader of Raven Patrol landed on the cub's nose, like a thousand of brick. Boy and bear both went sprawling, one in one direction and the other in another.

Skinny was the first to get on his feet and the way he shinned up the tree again was a caution. He didn't stop to look until he had reached the limb where the rope was tied. Then he felt safe.

The bear had picked himself up and was standing close to the foot of the tree, looking up and whining, as if he didn't like being hit in the head by a boy very well.

It was the chance which Skinny had been waiting for. He gathered the rope up in his hands and opened the noose wide. Then, leaning down as far as he dared, until he was right over the bear, he dropped it. The noose fell as straight as a die and, spreading out around the cub's head, lay across his shoulders with the side nearest the tree almost touching the ground.

Just as the bear stepped one foot over the loop, Skinny grabbed the rope with both hands and gave a quick jerk. The noose tightened; and there was the most surprised bear you ever saw, tied fast to the tree! Skinny stood on the limb above like a big crow, cawing to beat the band and so excited that he came near falling again.

"Gee, but that bear was mad," said Skinny, when he was telling us about it. "He growled and he snapped and he rolled on the ground; then he ran around and around the tree, until he had wound himself up short, but he couldn't get away. It was great, only I didn't dare jump on him again.

He was too crazy."

"Great snakes, Skinny!" exclaimed Bill. "You always have all the fun."

"I guess you wouldn't have thought it so much fun if you had been up in the tree and couldn't get down. I'd 'a' choked him with the rope, if he hadn't got his feet tangled up in it so that I couldn't."

"How did you get down, Skinny?" asked Benny, because Skinny had a way of stopping at the most interesting places and pretending that he was through telling about it.

In order to tell about that I'll have to go back a little in this history.

When Mr. Richmond told Skinny to go up to Savoy and to be careful not to let the bears get him, he was trying to scare a Boy Scout. He says that he hadn't any idea there would be a bear or deer around, or he shouldn't have let him go. But the next morning a man from Savoy drove past the house and told about seeing a bear on the way down. He didn't have his gun along and besides the bear ran into the woods when he saw him.

That made Mr. Richmond feel uneasy.

"I wish I hadn't let the boy go up the mountain," he said. "I don't suppose anything will happen to him, but I'd feel better if he hadn't gone. I guess, of the two, the bear would be the most scared if they should meet."

"He told me that he'd surely come in time for dinner," said Mary.

When dinner time came she put a plate on for him. He didn't show up, of course. He was up in the tree about that time, wondering how he ever would get down. After that Mr. Richmond grew real anxious and went to the house several times to see if Skinny had come.

"That boy looked to me," he said at last, "as if he wouldn't be guilty of missing a good dinner if he could help it. I am going after him. He may be all right, but I'm going to find out for sure."

With that, he hitched up a horse, took down his gun, and started.

"Let me go, too," Mary called after him. "I can hold the horse while you are looking."

"All right. Jump in. We'll probably meet him on the road somewhere."

The first they saw or heard of him was the yell which Skinny gave when the limb broke. It scared them.

"Take the reins," said Mr. Richmond. "There is trouble over there. Turn around and if anything comes run the old horse down the road."

Say, he was paralyzed, when he found the bear tied to a tree and Skinny standing on a limb, cawing.

"I was that flabbergasted," said he afterward, "that I hardly could pull the trigger."

But he pulled it, all right, and that was the end of Mr. Bear.