Part 10 (2/2)

Poor Grandpa b.u.t.terfield could almost feel the bear's hot breath upon his back as he ran. Ten seconds more, he told himself, and he would be in the clutches of this brute. His obituary and the account of his tragic death would surely be in the county paper next week.

Suddenly his half-paralyzed brain was electrified by a thought. It was the honey that the bear was after, and not him. Who ever heard of a bear wanting to eat an old dried-up man, who was as tough as leather?

Without a second's delay he pitched the honey into the road behind him, and continued his frantic flight.

A few rods farther on, feeling that he was no longer pursued, he glanced back just long enough to see the bear tearing the paper from the package and licking out the honey.

That evening at the country grocery the bear-story of the squirrel-hunter was amply corroborated by Grandpa b.u.t.terfield, who was so winded and spent with running that he could barely gasp out his disconnected account of the chase through the woods.

The next morning, with Grandpa b.u.t.terfield as a guide, several men went over the ground, where there was plenty of evidence to substantiate the old man's story. The empty honey-frames were there, and the bear-tracks told as plainly as words that a bear, of unusual size, had given the old man the run of his life through the woods.

Grandpa b.u.t.terfield was the hero of the village, both for that day and several following, and the long-talked-of bear-hunt was at once organized.

There was but one rifle in the village, and that was a 38-55 Winchester, the property of the young hunter from the city, who had filled Black Bruin's coat with squirrel-shot. So old rusty shotguns were got out and cleaned up in readiness for the fray. Some of them had not seen service recently, with the exception of once or twice a year, when they were used to scare off the crows or to frighten a woodchuck which was making too free with the beans.

Boys hunted up old rusty bullet-moulds and ran bullets, and the shotguns were loaded with slugs and buckshot.

Those who were not fortunate enough even to possess a disreputable old gun, armed themselves with pitchforks, so that altogether it was a motley armed party that started out one early October morning to annihilate Black Bruin.

The dogs comprising the pack were half-breed hounds and beagles, with two or three pure-blood foxhounds.

By rare good fortune a farmer, coming into town early, had seen the bear crossing the road ahead of his team, so that the dogs could be shown the trail at once.

But when the hunters pointed out the hand-shaped track in the road and said ”seek,” the hair rose upon the dogs' backs and they stuck their tails between their legs and interpreted ”seek,” as meaning that they were to seek their own homes by the shortest path. This new rank animal scent had no attraction for them. They had not lost any bear.

In other words, they would not follow.

Here was a difficulty that the hunters had not foreseen, and for a time it looked as though the hunt was doomed to end then and there.

Finally some one in the party said, ”We ought to have taken along Ben Holcome's Growler. Growler ain't afraid of the devil himself.”

Growler was a mongrel, half-hound and half-bulldog. He had not nose enough to follow alone, but as had been said, he wasn't afraid of anything. So as there was nothing else to do, a boy was sent cross-lots after Growler, while the hunters waited impatiently.

Growler and the boy at last put in an appearance, and the mongrel was shown the bear-track in the road.

Growler's hair likewise rose up on his neck, but his lips also parted in a snarl and he started off on the fresh track, uttering excited yelps. Growler thought he scented a good fight ahead, and he would rather chew on a good adversary any day than upon a piece of beefsteak.

Seeing what was expected of them, and made courageous by Growler's example, the pack followed at full cry, and the great bear-hunt was on in earnest.

Black Bruin heard them almost at the outset, where he was digging roots in the deep woods, and for some reason the sounds annoyed him. He knew they were made by dogs, for he had often heard the old hound Hecla at the farmhouse running rabbits in the near-by swamp.

But here, there were half-a-dozen hounds instead of one, and their baying was fairly clamorous.

Finally, the pack entered the woods not forty rods away, and Black Bruin began to get uneasy. At last it dawned upon him, as the pack drew still nearer and nearer, that; they were upon his track. This thought filled him with both fear and rage. What did these curs want of him? Had he not killed a dog that was worrying him, while with Pedro, with a single blow?

So he crouched in a thicket and waited expectantly. He had not long to wait, for in fifteen seconds the pack came up. When they discovered the bear so near at hand, however, and saw what menacing game they had been running, the hounds all slunk back to a safe distance, and sat on their tails. But not so Growler.

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