TWO ENDS OF A BEAR STORYTWO ENDS OF A BEAR STORY
TWO ENDS OF A BEAR STORY
IN my “Benacadie,” or home camp, one summer was a cow, very much out of focus, that had been led far through the woods, and then, in a lunatic moment, had been rolled into a bateau and rowed across the big lake. That last was a brave adventure, especially when the cow, not knowing why she should be bundled up like a sack, kicked free of the straps, heaved up on wobbly legs, and tried to climb out of the boat; but that is not the comedy.
Not far from “Benacadie,” on the other side of a wooded ridge, was a beaver meadow sparsely overgrown with ash and alder, where the cow was tied out every morning in blue-joint grass up to her eyes. It was fine pasturage, and the cow, being a sensible creature when she was not in aboat, proceeded to make cream of it. Before the season was over she became a pet and, like most pets, something also of a nuisance. She had a genius for freedom and diet; no sooner had she slipped her halter than she would come begging for cake at the kitchen. She would poke her head into open doors at unseemly hours of the night, ormoointo open windows at cockcrow in the morning. When she had eaten all she wanted of grass or browse, then her thoughts turned to pastures new, and she would follow any foot-loose man wherever he might be going.
In camp that summer was a cookee and handy man, who had been hired to do whatever anybody else or the cook shied at. It was a loose kind of contract, but Cookee kept his part of it admirably, stopping his whistle to answer our lumberman’s hail of “Cookee here!” and tackling any job with unfailing good humor. Though he got the burnt end of every stick, he believed he was born lucky until the bear chased him; after that he was sure of it. One of his jobs was to mog over to the beaver meadow before sundown, and lead the cow home to her shack for the night. She was a precious old beast, the only one of her kind in the whole region, and because there were bear signs in the woods we were taking no chances. Her owner said she would be worth a hundreddollars if we did not bring her back; and that is a lot of money to put into a bear bait.
Now Cookee, though he had spent a good part of his days in the lumber woods, had never met a bear, and said he never wanted to. After hearing plenty of bear stories, he was mortally afraid of the brutes. One afternoon, just as he approached the tethered cow, he ran head-on to a bear, and had the shock of his life. His first bulgy-eyed glance told him that it was a big bear, a black bear, a ferocious bear with red eyes; his next, that the fearsome beast was creeping over a windfall in his direction. With a yell he turned and streaked for camp. At his first jump he lost his hat, and he maintains that it was no bush but his own rising hair that lifted it off. A few more jumps and he had ripped off most of his buttons, with some of his clothes, as he tore his way through fir or moosewood thickets.
The lucky man had compelling reason for his haste. Even as he turned he heard a loud, unearthly bawling; which sent him up in the air in a convulsive way, as if thrown by a spring. Then came a terrifyingwoof-woof!a cry with teeth and claws in it. On the heels of that sounded a furious crashing of brush, coming nearer and nearer.
Cookee never turned to look; he had no time.He had started to run, being light shod with moccasins; but now he flew. Great pine logs lay across his trail, with rows of little spruces growing out of their mossy tops; he sailed over them without touching a thing. Till that moment he had not dreamed how he could jump. Where the trail corkscrewed to avoid a thicket, he drove straight through with the directness of a startled grouse, leaving here a bit of skin or there a shred of raiment to mark his course. Every time he broke into open traveling he loosed another yell.
At first he felt himself going like the wind, and no deer ever took the jumps as he took them; but presently, though he was moving faster than ever, his heart sank, his spirit groaned, his legs became leaden legs, and his pace a snail’s pace. With all his striving, which was supermannish, he was not gaining an inch. However he jumped or however he ran, he could not shake off that ferocious thing at his heels. It stuck to him like a leech. No sooner did he hit the ground after one of his kangaroo springs than he heard behind him a thump and a grunt as the creature cleared the same log. Hardly was he out of a thicket with a despairing, “Save me, O Lord, from this bear!” on his lips, than there would follow a nerve-shattering crash as the pursuing beast plunged through the same bushes.
So, wild-eyed and hatless, but thrilling with a new hope, Cookee burst out of the woods, and just below him lay the camp, smoke curling out of its chimney most peacefully. Down the rough trail he came, hurdling stumps like a grasshopper, and almost scared the life out of the cook as he dove with a final yell of “Bear! Bear!” into the kitchen. Clear across the floor he slid, upsetting everything but the stove, and bringing a big dishpan down on the wreck with a mighty clatter. The scared cook had mind enough left to slam the door on the instant. Grabbing one the poker, the other a butcher knife, they rushed to the window to meet the enemy like men. And there, wheezing, stood the old cow with her nose against the door, trying to follow Cookee the rest of the way to safety. He had made that heart-bursting run with the notion that it was the bear making all the noise behind him.
So much of the story we heard from Cookee when we tumbled hastily out of tent or cabin at his wild yelling. The remainder I read from the trail or pieced together from my imagination.
That bear was a young bear, as the trail showed, and he had probably never seen a cow nor a man in his life before. Roaming with him were two others, a yearling and big she-bear; but they were luckily on the farther side of the beaver meadow, whereCookee could not see them. Had he met three bears, no one knows what miracle of jumping might have followed. He says that he would not have run any faster had he met a whole flock of bears, because no man could.
As Mooween came shuffling along, nosing about for grubs and other kickshaws that bears like, a new odor poured suddenly into his nostrils, a startling odor, rich and strong, which made him halt and sniff for possible trouble. Rising on his hind legs to peek over a windfall, he saw a strange beast, big and red and very smelly. Though its head was out of sight in the grass, two pointed horns were thrust about in alarming fashion; though its legs and most of its body were hidden, there was still bulk enough in sight to shame any bear, and it flirted a tail such as no bear ever dreamed of. A most astonishing beast, surely; but was it dangerous? Very cautiously, like any other suspicious bear, Mooween crept over the windfall for a better look and sniff at the monster.
It was at this psychological moment that Cookee appeared and fled. Startled by his yell, the cow threw up her head; and before her was a strange black beast, such asshehad never encountered. It was a day of surprises for everybody. The cow was staring in heavy, bovine wonder when a wisp of wind eddied round the meadow; it brought toher nose the rank bear smell, which electrified her like a yelping dog and a swarm of hornets all at once. Though that powerful, wet-doggy odor had never before entered her nostrils, there were ages of memory behind it, dead but not lost ages, during which countless of her ancestors had always curled their tails and fled from unseen bears. Her nerves first and then her heels flew off in a panic. With a bawl that shocked even herself she surged away on her rope, heading straight for camp, giving no heed to obstacles. Suddenly she had the legs of deer, the strength of giants.
The rope was tied to an overturned stump, to which clung a tangle of weathered roots; and it proved light anchorage for heavy weather. For a dozen yards the crazy thing whirled through grass or bushes, waving all its crooked arms like a devilfish. Then it caught fast; the rope snapped, and the cow went tearing up the trail on the heels of Cookee, following her protector jump for jump, as close as she could get without stepping on him.
Meanwhile the bear was running for his life, going twice as fast as any cow or cookee ever went, in the opposite direction. The first human yell had scared him stiff; but the bovine bawl galvanized him into action. Then came the bounding root, whirling mad arms, tearing up the grass,and that petrified him once more. With awoof-woof!which sounded like an explosion, but which only said, “I’m a goner if I don’t light out of here!” he plunged headlong into the windfall over which he had just crept like a shadow, cracking a deal of dead branches as he went through. No more cat-footing for him; the world was too full of strange monsters. Across the meadow and into the big woods he rushed with great smashing of brush, making so much racket himself that he scarcely heard the sound of another flight. Behind him lay an amazing trail: here a hole in a wet spot with mud spattered all about; there a bunch of moss or a sliver of bark ripped from the top of a log; yonder, where the bear struck rising ground, a volley of dirt or chips flung out as he dug his toes into the hillside in frantic haste to get over the horizon.