“Hey, answer that, Mr. Bear, please; let the poor boy know whether he tickled your tough old hide with one of his buckshot. Because, who knows, fellows, but what it might a glanced off the top of the water, and landed,” and he winked at Allan, who was in the canoe with Jim Hasty close by.
“I don’t hear any answer floating back,” remarked Thad; “and so we’ll have to believe that either the bear is lying there, stone dead, or else has skipped out to safe quarters. Bears never can stand being fired at by cannon, they tell me.”
“Cannon!” burst out Giraffe at this moment, for he had managed to possess himself of the new gun by pointing to it, and having Eli Crooks pass it along. “Cannon! well, I should smile! What d’ye think he did, fellers? Just exactly what I warned him to beware of, when he saw game, and got excited; pulled both triggers at the same time! Gee! no wonder it knocked him over! I’d hate to have been behind that charge myself; and I’ve stood a good many heavy ones.”
“Ain’t we going ashore to see if I did just happen to bowl that old bear over?” whined Bumpus, looking appealingly at Thad. “I’d never forgive myself, you see, if I found out that he had died, and no one even got a steak off him. A scout never wants to waste the good things of life like that, does he, Thad?”
But the scoutmaster shook his head.
“I guess there’s no chance of that happening, Bumpus,” he remarked. “By now your bear is a quarter of a mile away from here, and running yet.”
“Don’t blame him,” said Step Hen. “That new gun makes enough noise to burst your ear drums, Bumpus. And let’s hope you won’t ever pull both triggers again. Just practice putting one finger at a time in action. After you’ve shot the first barrel, let it just slip back to catch the second trigger. It’s as easy as tumbling off a log.”
“Or going over backward, when you do bang away with both barrels at once,” added Davy Jones, wisely.
As they were descending the river the work was comparatively easy for the two guides. They would have their business cut out for them later on, when their plan of campaign, looking toward reaching the Eagle chain of lakes, was more fully developed.
In the beginning there had been three of the paddlers in the party; but a telegram had caught them as they left the train, calling the Oldtown Indian, Sebattis, home, on account of the serious sickness of his wife.