CHAPTER XIII.
"THE SKIN IS YOURS."
A regular war-dance was performed about the slain marauder by the youngSinclairs and Dol Farrar, when these laggards in the chase reached thespot where he fell. The firebrands had all died out before the enemyturned; but in the white moon-radiance the bear was seen to be a bigone, with an uncommonly fine skin.
Neal took no part in the triumphal capers. He still leaned upon hisrifle, his breath coming in gusty puffs through his nostrils and mouth.Not alone the desperate sensations of those moments when he had facedthe gnashing, mumbling brute, but the unexpected success of his firstshot at big game, had unhinged him. By his endurance in the chase, bythe pluck with which he stood up to the bear, above all, by his beingable, as Joe phrased it, to "take a sure pull on the beast at aparalyzing moment," he had eternally justified his right to the title ofsportsman in the eyes of the natives. The guides, Joe and Eb, were notslow in telling him that he had behaved from start to finish like no"greenhorn," but a regular "old sport."
"My cracky! 'twas lucky for me that you had game blood in you, whichshowed up," exclaimed Joe, catching the boy's arm in a friendly grip,with an odd respect in his touch, which marked the admission of youngFarrar into the brotherhood of hunters. "I hadn't a charge left, an' noteven my hunting-knife. Lots o' city swells 'u'd have been plumb scaredbefore a growler like that,"--touching Bruin's carcass with hisfoot,--"even if they had a small arsenal to back 'em up. They'd havedropped rifle and cartridges, and hugged the nearest trunk. I've seenfellers do it scores o' times, bless ye! after they came out here riggedup in sporting-book style, talking fire about hunting bears and moose.But that was all the fire there was to 'em."
Yet Neal's triumph over the poor brute, which had raced well for itslife, was not without a faint twinge of pain; and he was too manly tolook on this as a weakness. A sportsman he might be, of the sort who canshoot straight when necessity demands it, but never of that class whoprowl through the forests with fingers tingling to pull the trigger,dreading to lose a chance of "letting blood" from any slim-legged mooseor velvet-nosed buck which may run their way. It needed Doc's praise tomake him feel fully satisfied with his deed.
"It was a crack shot, boy," said the doctor proudly. "And I guess thefarmer at the next settlement will feel like giving you a medal for it.Old Bruin has only got what he gave to every creature he could master."
There being no tree conveniently near to which they could string up thedead bear, the guides decided to leave the ugly matter of skinning anddissecting him for morning light. The excited party returned to camp,but not to sleep. They built up their scattered fire, squatted round it,and discoursed of the night's adventure until a clear dawn-gleambrightened the eastern sky. Then Uncle Eb and Joe started out againacross the _brulee_. They reappeared before breakfast-time, bringingBruin's skin and a goodly portion of his meat.
Joe laid the hide at Neal's feet.
"There, boy," he said, "the skin is yours. It belongs rightly to the manwho killed the bear; and I guess the brute wasn't mortally hurt at alltill your bullet nipped him in the neck."
"But what about the fifteen dollars from that New York man, Joe? You'lllose it," faltered young Farrar, with a triumphant heart-leap at thethought of taking this trophy back to England, but loath to profit bythe woodsman's generosity.
"Don't you bother about that; let it go," answered Joe, whose businessof guiding was profitable enough for him. "'Tain't enough for the skin,anyhow. Nary a finer one has been taken out o' Maine in the last fiveyears; and mighty lucky you Britishers were to git a chance of abear-hunt at all. Old Bruin must have been powerful hungry to comearound our camp."
There was a grand breakfast before the travellers broke camp thatmorning. The guides and Doc--who had got accustomed to the luxury duringvisits to settlers and lumber-camps--feasted off bear-steaks. Cyrus andthe boys, American and English, declined to touch it. The wholeappearance of Bruin as he lay stretched on the ground the night beforemade their "department of the interior" revolt against it.
When a start was made for the settlement, Joe bundled up the skin, and,as a tribute of respect to Neal's "game blood," carried it, in additionto his heavy pack, for a distance of four miles over the desolate_brulee_ and across a soft, miry bog. On reaching the farm clearing, hecut the stem of a tall cedar bush, which he bent into the shape of ahoop, binding the ends together with cedar bark. He then pricked holesall around the edges of the hide with the sharp point of hishunting-knife, stretched it to its full extent, and fastened it to thehoop, which he hung up to a tree near the settler's cabin, telling Nealthat in a few days it would be dry enough to pack away in a bag.
But as it was a cumbersome article to carry while tramping a dozen milesfarther to the camp on Millinokett Lake, the farmer offered to takecharge of it for its owner until he passed that way again on his returnjourney; an offer which Neal thankfully accepted. The old backwoodsmanwas, truth to tell, delighted to see hanging up near his cabin door theskin of an enemy who had ofttimes plundered him so unmercifully.
He made the travellers royally welcome, let them have the roomy kitchenof his log shanty to sleep in, with a soft bed of hay. Here he lay withthem, while his wife and sickly little girl occupied an adjoining spaceabout twelve feet square, which had been boarded off. This was all theaccommodation the log home afforded.
The forest child was a puzzle to the lads. To them she looked as if thesoul of a grandmother had taken possession of a thin, long-limbed bodywhich ought to belong to a girl of ten. Her pinched features andover-wise eyes told a tale of suffering, and so did her high-pitched,quivering voice, as it made elfishly sharp remarks about the boys untilthey blenched before her.
This was the little one of whom the doctor had said "that she fretted ifhe did not come to see her once in a while." And with Doc she was adifferent being. Her voice softened, her eyes became childlike, and thintinkles of laughter broke from her as she clung to him, and receivedcertain presents of medicines and picture-books which he had broughtfor her in a corner of his knapsack.
For two nights the travellers slept in a row on their hay bed; for twolong-remembered days the five boys roamed the country round theclearing, starting deer, catching glimpses of a wildcat, a marten ortwo, and of another coon. Then came, to use Dol's expression, "thebeastly nuisance of saying good-by."
Dr. Phil was obliged to return to Greenville; and he declared that nowhe must surely start his nephews homeward, for Royal expected tograduate from the High School during the following year, and to let himwaste more time from study would be questionable kindness. Joe Flint ofcourse would go back with his party. And here Cyrus paid Uncle Eb's feesfor guiding, and dismissed him too.
Only a dozen miles of tolerably easy travelling now separated Garst andhis English comrades from the camp on Millinokett Lake, where they wereto meet the redoubtable Herb Heal. The settler, knowing this tract ofcountry as thoroughly as he knew his own few fields, offered to lead ourtrio for the first half of their onward march; and as they could followa plain trail for the remainder of the way, they had no further need oftheir guide's services. They promised to visit Eb at his bark hut ontheir return journey, to bid him a final farewell, and hear one morestave of:--
"Ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!"
"Good-by, you lucky fellows!" said Royal Sinclair huskily, as he grippedNeal's hand, then Dol's, in a brotherly squeeze when the hour of partingcame. "I wish I was going on with you. We've had a stunning good timetogether, haven't we? And we'll run across each other in these woodssome time or other again, I know! You'll never feel satisfied to stay inEngland, where there's nothing to hunt but hares and foxes, afterchasing bears and moose."
"Oh! we'll come out here again, depend upon it," answered Neal. "Drop mea line occasionally, won't you, Roy? Here's our Manchester address."
"I will, if you'll do the same."
"Agreed. Good-by again, old fellow!"
"I've got the slip of birch-bark and the horn safe in my knapsack, Doc,
"Dol was saying meanwhile, feeling his eyes getting leaky as he badefarewell to the doctor. "I--I'll keep them as long as I live."
Doctor Phil had been as good as his word. He had made Joe rip the slipof white bark, with the rude writing on it, off the pine-tree near theswamp, and had presented it to Dol ere the boy quitted his camp.
"Well, confusion to partings anyhow!" broke in Joe. "Don't like 'em abit. Hope you'll get that bear-skin safe to England, Neal. When you showit to your folks at home, tell 'em Joe Flint said he knew one Britisherwho would make a woodsman if he got a chance. Don't you forgit it."
"Good-by," said the doctor, as he clasped in turn the hands of thedeparting three. "Good luck to you, boys! Keep your souls as straight asyour bodies, and you'll be a trio worth knowing. We'll meet again someday; I'm sure of it."
Martin and Will were chirping farewells, and lamenting that they wouldhave no more chances of studying water-snakes in sedgy pools with Dol.Amid cheers and waving of hats the campers separated.
"Forward, Company Three!" cried Cyrus encouragingly, stepping brisklyahead, his comrades following. "Now for a sight of the 'Jabberwock' ofthe forest, the mighty moose. Hurrah for the wild woods and allwoodsmen!"