“I have just got to find out what all that is about,” decided Little Black Bear, as he folded his lunch bag. “Who knows? It may prove the best kind of an adventure.”
And so, guided by the song of the saw, he started up the side of the mountain. As he advanced the trees grew less dense and this made more light. Long, dazzling beams that seemed to split into thousands of glistening splinters came from the foliaged canopy that spread far above. Great rocks began to appear. The grass grew more green. The hammering was very near now. And then, reaching the edge of what proved to be a broad clearing, Little Black Bear came in sight of a scene that caused him to halt in amazement.
Spread out before him was a sort of niche in the mountain with a floor as wide as the menagerie tent, fully as smooth and almost as long. At the back of the niche and framed by jaggedy rocks were two wooden doors made of small trunks of trees bound tightly together with bolts and with bars. Both these doors were closed as if shutting the mouth of a cave.
But it was what occupied the center of the clearing that held the fascinated attention of Little Black Bear. Here was a wide-spreading tree and under its shade an enormously long work-bench surrounded by whole drifts of curlycue shavings. The bench was fitted with a vise with wide wooden jaws, while its face was covered with many strange tools. Just in front of the bench and half in the sunlight were two massive sawhorses that supported an oddly shaped frame. And, bending over these, a cap on his head and a carpenter’s apron tied round his waist was a shaggy coated bruin of marvelous size.
Now, of course, Little Black Bear took in the entire scene in a whole lot less time than it has taken to tell of it. Indeed, by now he had softly lifted himself to the top of a rock that he might obtain a still better view. Then, just as he had done so, and without the least sign of warning, the rock rolled away with a crash, and the next moment he lay sprawling in the clearing not a half-dozen steps from the bear in the cap and the apron!
CHAPTER XX
IN WHICH LITTLE BLACK BEAR MEETS SHAGG, THE CARPENTER
Now, usually the very first thing one does after taking a tumble is to scramble up again. And that is exactly what Little Black Bear was of a mind to do when the rock on which he was standing turned over and he suddenly found himself sprawling almost at the feet of the great bear who was at work in the clearing. But he did not recover himself before the one with the hammer had taken full account of his plight.
“Tacks, jackplanes and drawshaves, and what is all this!” roared that ponderous party, as he put his arms akimbo and gazed in astonishment at the mass of curly black hair that lay there before him.
“Why—why, it’s just me come to call,” sputtered Little Black Bear, as he winked and blinked from his place on the ground.
“That’s quite plain to see,” the other agreed, in a voice that resembled nothing so much as thunder. “But gluepots and gimlets, what is the notion of prostrating yourself in this humble fashion. For I assure you that I am neither a prince nor a king but merely a hard-working carpenter.”