CHAPTER XVIIITWO BEARS
Severalof the lumbermen in charge of the raft of logs came rushing out of the slab cabin at the sound of the shot—or what they thought was a shot from a gun.
One of the men, seeing the dog, rushed to the edge of the raft and cried:
“Who shot Spot?”
“Nobody shot him!” laughed the steersman, who was chuckling so with mirth that he let go of the long sweep that was used to guide the raft. “Leastways, if he’s shot he shot himself! Ho! Ho!”
“Shot himself! What do you mean?” asked one of the lumbermen.
The Curlytops, also, did not understand what had happened. But Mr. Martin, looking at the inner tube of his tire which was now quite flat, knew what had taken place.
“Yep, Spot shot himself!” laughed thesteersman. “He bit into that blown-up auto tire on the shore and made a hole in it. He punctured it, and the air popped out like a gun, right in his face. I guess Spot thought he was shot, anyhow.”
“It did sound like a gun,” remarked one of the men. “Hi, Spot!” he called.
With a bark, the dog, his tail between his legs in fright, raced along the shore and gave a leap which carried him across the water between the raft and the bank and landed him on the logs. Then he ran inside the cabin and hid himself.
The steersman guided the log raft against the bank, thus bringing it to a stop, and he jumped ashore.
“I’m right sorry, sir, that our dog punctured your tire,” he said.
“Oh, that’s all right,” replied Mr. Martin, with a smile. “It’s easily mended again. We aren’t fussy about dogs—we have one at home.”
“That’s good,” murmured the lumberman. “Some folks don’t like dogs, but they’re a heap of company, I say. I reckon Spot must have thought your auto tire was a big, red bologna sausage, all ready for himto eat, and he wanted to take a bite out of it.”
“He might have thought that,” said Mr. Martin. “His sharp teeth didn’t take long to put a hole in the tube. And it certainly shot off like a gun.”
“He doesn’t know much about auto tires—this dog of ours,” said the steersman. “I reckon he never saw a red blowed-up tire on the ground before.”
“And he’ll never want to see another, I reckon!” added a big lumberman in high boots. “He sure was a scared dog.”
“Won’t he come out again and play with us?” Trouble wanted to know.
“Maybe I can coax him out,” said one of the men.
After some urging, Spot was induced to leave the cabin, where he had been cowering under a bunk. He whined and seemed still afraid, but when the Curlytops had coaxed him ashore and romped about with him, he regained his spirits and began to bark and leap about.
“Don’t put that tube on the ground again after you get it mended,” said Mrs. Martin to her husband, with a laugh, as she saw him at work, cementing another patch on theplace where Spot’s sharp teeth had gone through the rubber.
“No, indeed!” he agreed.
And when the tube had been mended again Mr. Martin hung it over the rear of the car to dry. It held the air when he tested it, and, slipping it inside the shoe, he pumped it up fully and soon had the rim and tire back on the car.
By this time the raft had been worked out from shore and was ready to go on again.
“Here, Spot!” called the steersman.
The dog seemed to want to remain on shore and have fun with the Curlytops, but he knew his master’s voice and, with a little whine and bark of farewell, he jumped on the moving raft and went on down the river.
“Good-by!” called Trouble, waving his hand to the dog. And Spot waved his tail in answer.
“Where did the raft come from?” asked Ted, for he had seen his father talking to the men while waiting for the second tire patch to dry.
“The trees were cut in the woods, quite a distance up the river,” explained Mr. Martin. “They were floated down from the lumber camp, a few miles up.”
“Could we go to the lumber camp?” asked Ted. “I’d like to see it.”
“I’d like to see it, too,” added Janet. “We had fun in a lumber camp once.”
“There isn’t much going on in a lumber camp in the summer time,” explained their father. “Winter is the busy season there, for the logs are cut and hauled through the woods to the edge of the water that is to float them to the mill.”
“How can the water float them to the mill in winter when the rivers and lakes are frozen?” asked Ted.
“That’s just it—they don’t float the logs down in the winter,” his father explained. “They pile them up near the river and wait for spring to come when the snow and ice melts and makes the water very high—higher than at any other time of the year. It is on this high water that the logs are floated down.
“However, there is some little work being done in this lumber camp now, the men said. They are cleaning up the logs left over from the spring freshet run, and this raft was one of that sort. I suppose we might stop off at this lumber camp, if your mother thinks itwould be all right,” said Mr. Martin, looking at his wife.
“Do whatever you like,” she said, with a smile. “We are touring around to give the Curlytops a good time, and we might as well stop at the lumber camp as anywhere else.”
So it was decided, and after making sure nothing had been left behind, the auto party went on again.
Mr. Martin expected to reach the lumber camp that evening, and he knew he would be welcome there with his family, to spend the night, for the men on the raft had told him so. They could sleep in one of the log cabins, the steersman said, since only a few of the wood-choppers were in the camp now.
But the river road, which had been very good at first, soon became so rough that the auto had to be driven slowly, and not as good time could be made. Also the distance was farther than Mr. Martin thought, or at least farther than the men on the raft had told him.
When the evening shadows began to fall they were still traveling along, with no signs of the lumber camp in sight.
“I guess we shall have to camp out again to-night alongside the road,” remarked Mr.Martin, as he scanned the highway ahead of him and saw no sign of a house.
“That’ll be fun!” declared Ted.
“Maybe a horse will visit you to-night instead of a cow,” his sister said.
“I don’t want either one,” declared the lad.
Mr. Martin drove the auto on for another mile or two and then, coming to a place he thought would make a good camp—an open space near a spring—he stopped and the work of making camp for the night was begun.
The tent was stretched out from the side of the auto and the folding cots put beneath the shelter. As before, Janet and Trouble would sleep in the auto itself.
Mrs. Martin got the supper over the alcohol stoves, which, though small, gave good heat. Ted and Janet gathered wood, for their father had said they might make a campfire and sit about it before going to bed.
When the meal was finished Ted was allowed to light the fire. The children sat about it on smooth stumps, pretending they were early settlers living in the wilderness.
“It’s just like the Pilgrims,” said Janet,who was fond of history. “Only there aren’t any wild Indians or wild animals to come after us,” she added.
“Yes, that’s the only difference,” agreed Ted.
“They is some wild animals,” said Trouble, who was sitting near his mother. He suddenly arose and looked off toward the forest. “They is some wild animals here.”
“Oh, no, there aren’t, Trouble!” declared Ted.
“Yes, they is!” insisted his little brother. “They is two bears! I see them! Here they come!”
He pointed across the open glade, and the Curlytops, looking, saw, to their great astonishment, two bears shuffling their way toward them!
“Oh! Oh!” screamed Janet. “Oh, look at the bears!”