The fugitive, however, did not stop, for before he could climb the brief distance necessary to reach the limbs, the beast would have had him at his mercy. He therefore continued his flight, yelling in such a delirium of fright that he really did not know what words escaped him.
“Why don’t you come down?” he called to his friends, “and give me a chance? Let him chase you awhile.”
It is unnecessary to state that neither Tom nor Jim accepted the urgent invitation of their imperiled comrade.
“Run hard, Bob, and show him what you can do!” called back Tom, who really thought it was all over with their leader.
This shout accomplished more than was expected. The noise led the bear to look up the tree, where he observed the two boys perched but a short distance above him. He seemed all at once to lose interest in the fugitive, who continued his flight some distance farther, when, finding his enemy was not at his heels, he sprang for a sapling, up which he went like a monkey.
The trouble with Bob, however, was that he climbed too high. It was a small hickory, not much thicker than his arm. This kind of wood, as you are aware, is very elastic, and the first thing the lad knew was that the upper part, to which he was clinging, bent so far over that it curved like a bow, and before it stopped he had sank to within six or eight feet of the ground.
Had the bear continued his pursuit, Bob would have been in an unfortunate predicament; but, casting a glance behind him, he noticed the beast had stopped under the tree supporting Tom and Jim.
Two courses were open to him, either of which would have secured his safety.
He had time enough to drop from the sapling and take to a larger one, up which he could have climbed and been beyond harm; or he could have slid a little farther down the hickory, so as to allow it to right itself, and he still would have been safe, for a bear is unable to climb a tree so slight in diameter that his paws meet around it.
But Bob was too terrified to do either. He simply held fast, and did the worst thing possible: he continued to shout for his companions to come to his help.