Nancy felt that there could be nothing more terrible than this big swaying body that came up the hill after them, the little pointed head with its white teeth showing, its small eyes blazing with an animal’s unreasoning fury. She was panting and exhausted, her knees shook under her, it seemed utterly impossible to go farther. One last hope flashed through her mind: it was the hour for Olaf to bring the milk and he might be somewhere below, coming through the pines. She hollowed her hands before her mouth and, with a final effort of her panting lungs, shouted with all her might:
“Olaf, Olaf.”
A faint hail came in answer. How far away it was! Would he know what had happened?
There was only a little further for them to climb, for a long ridge of rock, shouldering up through the underbrush, cut off their ascent with its smooth wall that offered no foothold. Beside it the mountain-side fell away in a sheer drop of a hundred feet of precipice so that their retreat was blocked completely. A vast furry form rose through the bushes beside them, and the bear struck at them with her great paw. Nancy was too bewildered to understand how Dabney Mills came suddenly to be behind her, while she was thrust forward into the very face of their enemy. The blow missed her, however, and struck the boy, just where she could not see. With a strange sickening sigh, he dropped and rolled toward the edge of the cliff. Nancy flattened herself against the rock wall, staring, fascinated, as the bear settled her haunches firmly, seemed to pause a moment, and then squared off to strike at her again.
CHAPTER IX
A DECISION
It was not easy for either Nancy or Olaf to give any connected account afterward of their adventure with the bear. Nancy could never describe it clearly at all, and Olaf, when questioned, gave a very simple version of the rescue.
“I saw the bear striking at them when I came near, so I just whanged her over the head with the milk-bucket, and she beat it.”
Dabney Mills, who had no knowledge at the time of what was happening, was able, perhaps, to give the most picturesque story of the three. Not even he, however, was able to deny that it was the milk-pail that saved the day. Olaf had been carrying it on his arm when he heard Nancy’s frantic cry for help, and he had never thought of setting it down, nor did he spill quite all of the contents as he ran to help her. He had come panting up the slope, just in time to see the bear’s blow graze the girl’s shoulder and rip away her sleeve. Being still out of reach, he had hurled the unwieldy tin bucket with all his might and with most successful aim. The clanging blow with which it struck startled Nancy, and the unexpected spectacle of a stream of white milk pouring over those black, furry shoulders made her feel that she had been bereft of her senses.
“And I have seen,” she said when she was trying to relate the tale to Beatrice, “what nobody else ever saw; I have seen a bear look surprised.”
Astonishment and horror seemed, indeed, to take instant possession of Mrs. Bruin, for she dropped from the ledge and made off through the bushes. The milk-pail, dislodged from where it had caught among the stones, rolled clanging and banging after her with a noise that lent even greater speed to her flight.