FOUR men once came to a
wet place in the roadless forest to fish. They pitched their tent fair upon the
brow of a pine-clothed ridge of riven rocks whence a bowlder could be made to
crash through the brush and whirl past the trees to the lake below. On fragrant
hemlock boughs they slept the sleep of unsuccessful fishermen, for upon the
lake alternately the sun made them lazy and the rain made them wet. Finally
they ate the last bit of bacon and smoked and burned the last fearful and
wonderful hoecake.
Immediately a little
man volunteered to stay and hold the camp while the remaining three should go
the Sullivan county miles to a farm- house for supplies. They gazed at him
dismally. “There's only one of you--the devil make a twin,” they said in
parting malediction, and disappeared down the hill in the known direction of a
distant cabin. When it came night and the hemlocks began to sob they had not
returned. The little man sat close to his companion, the campfire, and
encouraged it with logs. He puffed fiercely at a heavy built brier, and
regarded a thousand shadows which were about to assault him. Suddenly he heard
the approach of the unknown, crackling the twigs and rustling the dead leaves.
The little man arose slowly to his feet, his clothes refused to fit his back,
his pipe dropped from his mouth, his knees smote each other. “Hah!” he bellowed
hoarsely in menace. A growl replied and a bear paced into the light of the
fire. The little man supported himself upon a sapling and regarded his visitor.
The bear was evidently
a veteran and a fighter, for the black of his coat had become tawny with age.
There was confidence in his gait and arrogance in his small, twinkling eye. He
rolled back his lips and disclosed his white teeth. The fire magnified the red
of his mouth. The little man had never before confronted the terrible and he
could not wrest it from his breast. “Hah!” he roared. The bear interpreted this
as the challenge of a gladiator. He approached warily. As he came near, the
boots of fear were suddenly upon the little man's feet. He cried out and then
darted around the campfire. “Ho!” said the bear to himself, “this thing won't
fight--it runs. Well, suppose I catch it.” So upon his features there fixed the
animal look of going--somewhere. He started intensely around the campfire. The
little man shrieked and ran furiously. Twice around they went.
The hand of heaven
sometimes falls heavily upon the righteous. The bear gained.
In desperation the
little man flew into the tent. The bear stopped and sniffed at the entrance. He
scented the scent of many men. Finally he ventured in.
The little man crouched
in a distant corner. The bear advanced, creeping, his blood burning, his hair
erect, his jowls dripping. The little man yelled and rustled clumsily under the
flap at the end of the tent. The bear snarled awfully and made a jump and a
grab at his disappearing game. The little man, now without the tent, felt a
tremendous paw grab his coat tails. He squirmed and wriggled out of his coat,
like a schoolboy in the hands of an avenger. The bear howled triumphantly and
jerked the coat into the tent and took two bites, a punch and a hug before he
discovered his man was not in it. Then he grew not very angry, for a bear on a
spree is not a black-haired pirate. He is merely a hoodlum. He lay down on his
back, took the coat on his four paws and began to play uproariously with it.
The most appalling, blood-curdling whoops and yells came to where the little
man was crying in a treetop and froze his blood. He moaned a little speech
meant for a prayer and clung convulsively to the bending branches. He gazed
with tearful wistfulness at where his comrade, the campfire, was giving dying
flickers and crackles. Finally, there was a roar from the tent which eclipsed
all roars; a snarl which it seemed would shake the stolid silence of the
mountain and cause it to shrug its granite shoulders. The little man quaked and
shrivelled to a grip and a pair of eyes. In the glow of the embers he saw the
white tent quiver and fall with a crash. The bear's merry play had disturbed
the centre pole and brought a chaos of canvas about his head.
Now the little man
became the witness of a mighty scene. The tent began to flounder. It took
flopping strides in the direction of the lake. Marvellous sounds came from
within--rips and tears, and great groans and pants. The little man went into
giggling hysterics.
The entangled monster
failed to extricate himself before he had frenziedly walloped the tent to the
edge of the mountain. So it came to pass that three men, clambering up the hill
with bundles and baskets, saw their tent approaching.
It seemed to them like
a white-robed phantom pursued by hornets. Its moans riffled the hemlock twigs.
The three men dropped
their bundles and scurried to one side, their eyes gleaming with fear. The
canvas avalanche swept past them. They leaned, faint and dumb, against trees
and listened, their blood stagnant. Below them it struck the base of a great
pine tree, where it writhed and struggled. The three watched its convolutions a
moment and then started terrifically for the top of the hill. As they
disappeared, the bear cut loose with a mighty effort. He cast one dishevelled
and agonized look at the white thing, and then started wildly for the inner
recesses of the forest.
The three fear-stricken
individuals ran to the rebuilt fire. The little man reposed by it calmly
smoking. They sprang at him and overwhelmed him with interrogations. He
contemplated darkness and took a long, pompous puff. “There's only one of me--and
the devil made a twin,” he said.