Chapter XIII: A Strange Bear Hunt

Four-thirty that afternoon found the two boys trudging along the mountain trail which Johnny, Bexter, and Ballard had followed on that sad but eventful day when the swinging bridge went down.

In Johnny’s pocket was a bundle of tough paper bags. Slung across his shoulder was a sack of pulverized charcoal. In a sling, Donald carried a jug of liquid air. “Looks like a water jug,” Donald laughed. “One drink from that jug would be your last. Two hundred and sixteen below zero!”

“We saw a bear on this trail a while back,” Johnny broke in. “He had a young pig in his mouth. Somebody’s got to get that bear. Old Uncle Mose lost another pig last night.”

“What if we met him now?” Donald stared ahead.

“Probably miles away,” Johnny replied quietly.

A moment later they rounded a curve and, off to the right, a dark opening appeared.

“That’s the cave,” Johnny explained. “Grand place I guess. Bear went in there.”

“Suppose he’s in there now?” Donald’s tone was eager.

“Probably not.”

“Let’s just go in a little way. Always did want to see the inside of a cave. I’ve got a flashlight.”

“All right. Can’t stay long though. We’ve got to blow up a coal mine. Don’t forget that.”

A moment more and they were winding in and out over a narrow passageway. This passage soon widened into a large room. Still another moment and they were standing speechless while Donald’s flashlight played over massive pillars of faultless white.

“It—it’s like a great, beautiful church,” Donald murmured low. In that still place even his murmur echoed and re-echoed from pillar to pillar.

“What a place for silence,” Johnny whispered. Yet, even as he spoke that silence was smashed into a million echoes by a tremendous outburst of sound, a roar that might, Johnny thought, have come from the throat of some prehistoric monster. But Johnny was not deceived, this was no mythical monster. It was the bear.

What was to be done? The passage was narrow, the bear apparently all but upon them.

“Here!” With hands that trembled slightly, Johnny filled a paper sack with charcoal, then thrust a length of fuse into it.

Again there came that terrifying roar.

“Here. Give me that jug.” Tipping the jug on one side he saturated the charcoal in the paper bag with liquid air. After that, drawing on heavy mittens, he pressed the mixture into a solid mass.

“Now,” he breathed. “We’ll see.”

Donald was trembling from head to foot but Johnny was calm. He stared straight ahead toward the spot where the bear at any second might appear.

With the roar of the enraged bear still ringing in his ears, Johnny calmly lighted the fuse leading to the sack of liquid air and charcoal.

The fuse sputtered and flashed. It was a fairly long fuse. Would it last thirty seconds? Longer perhaps. Johnny felt the hair at the back of his neck prickle and rise. It was a tense moment. Before him was the bear, behind, a narrow passage and at his feet that strange explosive, liquid air and carbon.

“Will it explode?” he said aloud.

“It will,” Donald, his companion, replied. Then, as if awaking to a new and terrible danger, he fairly shouted in Johnny’s ear, “Come on! Run! Run for your life!” Without a further word, he turned and fled.

Johnny, who understood not at all, stood still watching that fuse grow shorter and shorter.

Then came the bear. With tongue lolling, white teeth all agleam, he came roaring out of the shadows. Johnny turned as if about to flee. Then, remembering that a bear was fast, that in that narrow passageway, he had no chance, he turned resolutely about.

The bear, apparently catching a glimpse of that sputtering spark of fire, reared himself on his hind legs. With a sudden inspiration, Johnny seized the bag of strange explosives and hurled it at the bear. To his vast surprise, he saw the bear catch it neatly between his steel-like jaws.

“A chilly mouthful,” was Johnny’s mental comment as he turned and fled.

Never in all his life had he travelled so fast as now. Unconsciously, as he ran, he waited for something. Just as he reached the last straight stretch that led to daylight, the thing happened. There came a dull explosion and Johnny, as if seized by soft but powerful hands, was lifted and pushed up and out of the cave to land, sprawling, on a pile of gravel.

“Ah! There you are!” Donald exclaimed. “Ten seconds more and you would have been too late.

“But what happened?” he asked in a puzzled tone. “You had enough explosive there to fairly blow the roof off the mountain.”

“The bear caught it.” Johnny’s head was in a whirl. “He—he must have chewed it up and wasted most of it. Do—do you suppose it got him?”

“Well,” Donald chuckled, “I’m not going back to see.”

“Neither am I,” said Johnny. “So let’s get going. We’ve got a coal mine to blow up before dark.”

The mining experiment was a complete success. Donald made up small parcels of liquid air and carbon while Johnny drilled holes in the coal. The charges were quickly stamped, the fuses were lighted, and then they were scampering up the rope ladder leading to the mine and were away. There followed six loud booms.

“That should do it,” Johnny grinned.

As Johnny and Donald were walking back to the mill, Donald stopped quite suddenly. Looking away toward the top of the ridge where a single power line cut across to a distant coal mine, he said, “We might do it.”

“Do what?” Johnny asked in surprise.

“Bring a bolt out of the blue. At least we might make it seem that way for the benefit of that man, Blinkey Bill Blevens you know, who’s been going to make it hard for old Uncle Mose.”

“You might?” said Johnny.

“Yes. Anyway, I’ll give it a good think,” was Donald’s reply.

Truth was, Johnny had only half heard him. He had suddenly remembered something. Jack Dawson, the aviator, who had come to live down there on the edge of the meadow, had said, “We’d have made the trip faster if we’d had my new motor going.”

“A new kind of fuel,” Johnny whispered to himself. “That’s what he said. More foot pounds of energy than any other fuel. Wonder what it could be?”

At a rather late hour that same afternoon, Jensie and Ballard sat on the trunk of a fallen tree. They were both deliciously weary. All day they had tramped the hillsides. The dry leaves had rustled beneath their feet. From time to time beechnuts had come showering down upon them. At other times too, the deep baying of Ballard’s big red hound had told them of squirrels up a tree. It had been grand.

Now they could see the sun casting long mountain shadows over the valley far below. At their side rested six red squirrels and one big fat striped coon. Yes, it had been glorious. Garbed in her knickers and russet red sweater, the girl seemed a part of it all.

“Listen!” Ballard exclaimed quite suddenly. “Bees!”

Jensie listened but heard nothing. The sharp-eared boy was not long in pointing out a huge, hollow chestnut tree. Some thirty feet from the ground Jensie caught sight of a faint, wavering line.

“It’s a bee tree!” Ballard was excited. “A big swarm. Hundred pounds of honey, mebby two hundred. Monday I’ll come up and cut it down.”

“Monday, Ballard?” There was a power of suggestion in the girl’s tone.

Ballard made no reply. His face, as he looked away at the hills was a study.

“Ballard,” the girl’s voice was low and husky, “we’ve been to school together all our lives. We belong to the mountains, you and I. And because we belong, we have to do all we can for the mountains.

“Yesterday, I saw the coach.” Ballard shifted uneasily. “I asked if he’d take you back on the team. He said, ‘Ballard’s never been off the team.’”

The girl paused. Ballard’s hand clutched at the log. His lips moved. He did not speak.

“The coach said,” Jensie went on after a time, “that he understood the code of the mountains. He’s lived down here. But he says the code of the mountains is not the code of Hillcrest. He said that people who call other folks vile names don’t have to be killed for it. In time they kill themselves. They get to talking out real loud and then they lose all their friends. After that they may not be dead but they might as well be.”

Once again the girl paused. The shadows in the valley had grown longer. All the meadow lands were in the shadows now.

“Ballard,” she began again, “we mountain folks can’t be quitters. I quit once. Daddy sent me away to school. I couldn’t take it. I came home. I—I’ve always been sorry for that.

“But you, Ballard,” she touched his hand, “you are a boy. Boys are strong, you can’t quit. It’s for the mountains, Ballard, and for your future, all the glorious, golden days that lie ahead.

“I—I think we better go down now.” She took up her gun. The big red hound sprang to his feet. They were off.

Their way home led past Cousin Bill’s store. Johnny sat on the bench beside the door. He was whittling and talking to old Noah Pennington.

“Hello, Johnny,” Jensie greeted. “When are we going back?”

“Any time you say. How about nine tomorrow morning?”

“Tha—that will be fine, Johnny. Won’t it?” The girl turned to Ballard.

“I—I—yes, I suppose so,” Ballard stammered.

“Will you come to my house or shall we pick you up at the rim where we dropped you last night?” Jensie asked cheerfully.

“I’ll be at the rim, Jensie.”

“All right. We’ll be going on down. Come and see me, Johnny.”

“See you at nine,” Johnny grinned happily.

“Leave it to the women,” Johnny murmured when they were out of ear-shot.

“Yes,” old Noah Pennington, who sat at his side, agreed. “Leave it to the women. Be a lot sorrier times in this here world if it weren’t fer the women folks.”