CHAPTER VII
A BEAR AND HER CUBS
Slowly an hour slipped by. To Dave it seemed an age, and more than once he peered up and down the rough rocks to see if there was any sign of friends or enemies. From a distance had come two shots, but after that all was quiet as a tomb, save for the wind, which still swept through the forest, and the occasional patter of a few drops of rain.
“Don’t go too far, lad,” said Raymond, by way of caution, after Dave had climbed out on the rocks for the fourth time. “Those Injuns may be closer nor you think.”
“I must find out what has become of Henry,” was the half-desperate answer.
“Yes, yes, I know, but——”
“Do you think any of our party escaped to the boats?”
“It’s not likely they would expose themselves, lad. If they tried to row away some of the redskins would be sure to see ’em and send a shower of arrows after ’em.”
“But it is dreadful to think Henry may be killed, or a prisoner!”
“I know that too, lad. Didn’t I lose my brother Dan on the frontier only four years ago? I did my best to save him, too, but it was no use. I was taken prisoner, and they had just started to torture me when some of the Gordon Rangers came up and saved me. That was the fight in which they killed old Tom Granby and his son Jabez, and carried off Mrs. Williamson and little Ned Ford.”
“Did the prisoners ever escape?”
“All but little Ned. He was carried westward, and they have never heard of him since,” answered Raymond, with a sorry shake of his head.
A lump arose in David’s throat and he found great difficulty in swallowing it. If Henry was dead how would he ever be able to send the news to Mrs. Morris and the others?
“It will ’most break Aunt Lucy’s heart,” he thought. “And Uncle Joe’s heart too. With Rodney a cripple they all depended on Henry so much!”
Raymond was about to take a look around, when a curious sound from the rear of the cave-like opening caused both the backwoodsman and the young soldier to leap up in fresh alarm.
“What was that?” cried Dave, as he brought up his musket.
“Don’t know,” whispered Raymond. “Lay low! The Injuns may be coming on us another way.”
Both crouched back into a niche of the wall and waited. Soon the noise was repeated, and they heard a scratching on the rocks at the back of the opening.
“Reckon I know what that is,” said Raymond at length.
“What?”
“Bear’s cubs.”
“Do you really think so?” cried Dave. “If that is true, this must be a bear’s den.”
“More’n likely, lad, and if it is we had better get out.”
“You think the old she bear will be back?”
“To be sure. She won’t leave her cubs over night. She’d be back before this, only it’s likely the shots made her timid.”
“It’s queer we didn’t hear the cubs before.”
“They have been asleep and just woke up. Hark!”
They listened and heard the scratching on the rocks again. It came closer, but when Raymond made a noise, it sounded fainter and fainter.
“They won’t touch us, that’s sure,” said Dave. “But the old she bear——”
“Something is coming!” interrupted Raymond. “Reckon it’s her!”
He was right—the mother of the cubs—a black bear of good size, was coming slowly along at the foot of the rocks. She sniffed the air and looked from side to side with keen suspicion.
“Hadn’t we better get out without being seen?” whispered the young soldier. “If we kill her, the Indians will hear the shots.”
“Yes, come on,” replied Raymond.
Side by side they started to leave the entrance to the bear’s den. But as they stepped out the old she bear uttered a whine, and the cubs in the cave gave answer. Then the mother bear saw the intruders in the semi-darkness and let out a growl of savage rage.
“She’s going to fight!” cried Dave.
“She thinks we have hurt her cubs!” returned the backwoodsman.
Raymond was right, and before they could take a dozen steps up the rocks the black bear was leaping after them, snarling viciously and showing her long, white teeth.
“We’ll have to shoot—or be chewed up!” gasped Dave, when the bear was less than fifty feet from him.
He had scarcely uttered the words when Raymond’s rifle rang out. But the aim of the backwoodsman was poor, and the bullet passed wide of the beast. The report stopped the bear but a second, then she came on as furiously as ever.
It was now Dave’s turn to shoot, and he lost no time in blazing away. He was more fortunate, and the black beast was brought to another halt, this time with a bullet in her shoulder. But the fight was not yet knocked out of her, and she tried to limp over the rocks, uttering growl after growl.
“She won’t give in,” said Raymond, and both started to reload. While they were doing this the cubs, two in number, appeared at the entrance to the cave-like opening.
On catching sight of her offspring, the wounded bear paused once again. She evidently wished to pursue her enemies and at the same time she wished to make certain that her cubs were really unharmed. Slowly she limped back to her own.
“Now is our chance!” cried Dave, and over the rocks went the young soldier and the backwoodsman, scrambling along with all possible speed. The route was a rough one, and more than once they had their hands and faces scratched and their uniforms torn.
“Those shots will put the Indians on the watch,” said Raymond, as they pushed along.
“Perhaps they will bring some of our friends to the vicinity,” returned Dave. “If Henry——Oh!”
Dave’s speech ended in a cry of pain. He had slipped on the rocks and his left leg had received a severe wrench at the knee. He tried to rise and then fell back with a groan of agony.
“What’s the matter, lad?”
“I’ve twisted my knee.”
“Can’t you get up?”
“I’ll try it. Oh!”
Dave stood up on the limb that was uninjured and tried to take a step. But the pain was too great and he was forced to sit down on a rock.
“That’s too bad, certainly,” said Raymond sympathetically. “If you can’t walk, I really don’t know what we are to do.”
“Perhaps you had better go on alone.”
“No, I shan’t leave you, Dave—it wouldn’t be human.”
“Yes, but—but we left Henry,” said the young soldier bluntly.
“That was in the midst of a fight and a different thing altogether. If you can’t walk, can you climb yonder tree, do you think?”
“Perhaps, with your help.”
“Then let us both get up. The bear can’t climb with a wounded leg, and if she does I can give her a shot right in the head when she comes up,” went on the backwoodsman.
He picked the youth up in his arms and walked over to the tree he had pointed out. The darkness of night had now settled down, and it was with difficulty that they made their way among the lower limbs. Dave wanted to shriek with pain, but gritted his teeth and kept silent.
It was a lonely and never-to-be-forgotten night. In an hour or two the wind went down and it began to rain steadily. Dave did not feel like stirring, and all he could do was to rub the cords of his limb that had become so sadly twisted. Raymond remained on guard, but neither the bear nor anything else came to disturb them.
At daybreak it was still raining, but the clouds showed signs of breaking away, and before nine o’clock the hot midsummer sun shone as brightly as ever.
“We are in a bad plight, no two ways about it,” said the backwoodsman. “What is best to do I must say I don’t know.”
“I don’t believe I can walk very far yet,” answered Dave despondently. “My knee feels as stiff as if it was in a vise.”
“Perhaps I had better scout around a little, leaving you here. It is barely possible I may run across some of the others and find out what became of your cousin.”
“Then go, by all means!” cried Dave. “You cannot do me a greater favor than to find Henry.”
“But you must lay low, lad. The Injuns may be closer nor you think.”
“I will keep quiet. But I’d like to have a drink before you go,” answered the young soldier.
Some water was obtained, and he gulped it down eagerly, and bathed his sprained knee with what remained. Then cautioning him once more, Raymond left him, the backwoodsman setting off in the direction of the lake front.
If the night had seemed lonely, the time now was doubly so to Dave, who could do nothing but nurse his bruise and keep a lookout for a possible enemy. His thoughts traveled constantly to his cousin, and he wondered if Raymond would bring in any news of Henry.
“He ought to learn something,” he told himself over and over. “I am sure I could if I was in his place.”
Nine o’clock came and then ten o’clock, and still the silence of the forest remained unbroken save for the occasional song of some distant bird, and the buzzing of bees around an adjacent bee-tree. The nearness of this bee-tree put Dave in mind of that discovered by his uncle and himself while on their trip to Annapolis some years before. What great changes had occurred since that time!
“This war has been an awful thing, and I shall be glad when it is at an end,” he thought. “But unless we win, there will be trouble with the Indians and the French for years and years to come.”
It was almost noon when he heard a faint sound in the woods to the north of the tree. Instantly he caught up his musket, which had been resting in a crotch close at hand.
Slowly the sound came closer, and he could hear the labored breathing of some man or animal. He leaned as far down as possible to catch a glimpse of the newcomer.
“Shamer!” he murmured.
He called the soldier’s name softly, and Shamer paused in wonderment.
“Who is calling me?” he panted.
“I am, Dave Morris, Shamer. I am up in the tree. Are you alone?”
“Yes, and I can hardly walk,” groaned the soldier. “A bullet struck me in the calf of the leg. Any Indians around here?”
“I haven’t seen any. My knee is hurt. Raymond was with me, but he has gone down to the shore to take a look around. Do you know anything of my cousin Henry and the others?”
“Gilfoy is dead.”
“Yes, Raymond said they had killed him. And the others?”
“The Indians captured both Silvers and Henry and carried them off,” was Shamer’s answer, which caused Dave’s heart to sink like a lump of lead in his bosom.