But his wish was disregarded, and some of the hunters cowardly fired. Then they advanced cautiously, still fearing that the bear might have life enough in him to give battle. But the “bearish head” was not raised; the “thick snout” was not dilated.
Steve, who was ahead, suddenly gasped out a plaintive “Oh.” Then the others also saw. The sun shone through the trees, and left a peculiar shadow on the grass and brushwood. That was the bear.
“Let us clap this bear into the museum,” Stephen presently observed.
The disgusted hunters concluded to separate, and meet at a certain time and place, if they didn’t get lost or eaten up.
Will wandered off alone, and shot scores of useful birds and animals—not useful to him, as a hunter, but useful in the economy of nature. But after one shot had been thus thrown away, a yell of anger and terror rang through the forest, and with his heart beating time to his footsteps, Will hurried in the direction of that yell.
He soon came up to a man, sitting on a fallen tree, distorting his features, and nursing his finger in his mouth, with a gurgling noise, peculiar to a sobbing school-boy trying to soothe the pain inflicted by a hasty-tempered wasp.
“Hello, there!” cried this man. “Did you shoot that bullet?”
“Yes, I have just discharged my gun,” Will answered. “Did—did it hit you, sir? If so, I am extremely sorry, for, I assure you, I had no intention—”
“That’ll do!” broke in the wounded man, removing his finger for a moment. “It is plain enough that you are no hunter,” contemptuously. “A genuine hunter doesn’t go cracking around like a boy with a pop-gun, nor talk like as if he was writing to the post-master general. But, I say, do you know what you have done? You have smashed my little finger!”
“What? Are you really hurt? Did the ball strike your finger?”