CHAPTER XIII A STRANGE BEAR HUNT
Four-thirty that afternoon found the two boys trudging along the mountaintrail which Johnny, Bexter, and Ballard had followed on that sad buteventful day when the swinging bridge went down.
In Johnny's pocket was a bundle of tough paper bags. Slung across hisshoulder was a sack of pulverized charcoal. In a sling, Donald carried ajug of liquid air. "Looks like a water jug," Donald laughed. "One drinkfrom 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 ayoung pig in his mouth. Somebody's got to get that bear. Old Uncle Moselost 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 openingappeared.
"That's the cave," Johnny explained. "Grand place I guess. Bear went inthere."
"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 acave. 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 andthey were standing speechless while Donald's flashlight played overmassive pillars of faultless white.
"It--it's like a great, beautiful church," Donald murmured low. In thatstill place even his murmur echoed and re-echoed from pillar to pillar.
"What a place for silence," Johnny whispered. Yet, even as he spoke thatsilence was smashed into a million echoes by a tremendous outburst ofsound, a roar that might, Johnny thought, have come from the throat ofsome prehistoric monster. But Johnny was not deceived, this was nomythical monster. It was the bear.
What was to be done? The passage was narrow, the bear apparently all butupon them.
"Here!" With hands that trembled slightly, Johnny filled a paper sackwith 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 thecharcoal in the paper bag with liquid air. After that, drawing on heavymittens, 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 staredstraight ahead toward the spot where the bear at any second might appear.
With the roar of the enraged bear still ringing in his ears, Johnnycalmly 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 lastthirty seconds? Longer perhaps. Johnny felt the hair at the back of hisneck prickle and rise. It was a tense moment. Before him was the bear,behind, a narrow passage and at his feet that strange explosive, liquidair and carbon.
"Will it explode?" he said aloud.
"It will," Donald, his companion, replied. Then, as if awaking to a newand 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 growshorter and shorter.
Then came the bear. With tongue lolling, white teeth all agleam, he cameroaring out of the shadows. Johnny turned as if about to flee. Then,remembering that a bear was fast, that in that narrow passageway, he hadno 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 seizedthe bag of strange explosives and hurled it at the bear. To his vastsurprise, 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, ashe ran, he waited for something. Just as he reached the last straightstretch that led to daylight, the thing happened. There came a dullexplosion and Johnny, as if seized by soft but powerful hands, was liftedand pushed up and out of the cave to land, sprawling, on a pile ofgravel.
"Ah! There you are!" Donald exclaimed. "Ten seconds more and you wouldhave been too late.
"But what happened?" he asked in a puzzled tone. "You had enoughexplosive there to fairly blow the roof off the mountain."
"The bear caught it." Johnny's head was in a whirl. "He--he must havechewed 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 mineto blow up before dark."
The mining experiment was a complete success. Donald made up smallparcels of liquid air and carbon while Johnny drilled holes in the coal.The charges were quickly stamped, the fuses were lighted, and then theywere 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 quitesuddenly. Looking away toward the top of the ridge where a single powerline 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 wayfor the benefit of that man, Blinkey Bill Blevens you know, who's beengoing 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 rememberedsomething. Jack Dawson, the aviator, who had come to live down there onthe edge of the meadow, had said, "We'd have made the trip faster if we'dhad 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 thetrunk of a fallen tree. They were both deliciously weary. All day theyhad tramped the hillsides. The dry leaves had rustled beneath their feet.From time to time beechnuts had come showering down upon them. At othertimes too, the deep baying of Ballard's big red hound had told them ofsquirrels up a tree. It had been grand.
Now they could see the sun casting long mountain shadows over the valleyfar below. At their side rested six red squirrels and one big fat stripedcoon. Yes, it had been glorious. Garbed in her knickers and russet redsweater, 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 inpointing out a huge, hollow chestnut tree. Some thirty feet from theground Jensie caught sight of a faint, wavering line.
"It's a bee tree!" Ballard was excited. "A big swarm. Hundred pounds ofhoney, 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 astudy.
"Ballard," the girl's voice was low and husky, "we've been to schooltogether all our lives. We belong to the mountains, you and I. Andbecause we belong, we have to do all we can for the mountains.
"Yesterday, I saw the coach." Ballard shifted uneasily. "I asked if he'dtake 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. Hedid not speak.
"The coach said," Jensie went on after a time, "that he understood thecode of the mountains. He's lived down here. But he says the code of themountains is not the code of Hillcrest. He said that people who callother folks vile names don't have to be killed for it. In time they killthemselves. They get to t
alking out real loud and then they lose alltheir friends. After that they may not be dead but they might as wellbe."
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 quitonce. 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 arestrong, you can't quit. It's for the mountains, Ballard, and for yourfuture, all the glorious, golden days that lie ahead.
"I--I think we better go down now." She took up her gun. The big redhound sprang to his feet. They were off.
Their way home led past Cousin Bill's store. Johnny sat on the benchbeside 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 wedropped 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 thewomen. Be a lot sorrier times in this here world if it weren't fer thewomen folks."