Mr Ross’s lips quivered, but crushing down his own fears he said, as he comforted his sorrow-stricken wife:
“Yes, thank God! Perhaps he has made even the wild animals of the forest to be their guardian angels.”
Frank, Alec, and Sam had listened to Mustagan with bated breath. As Alec said afterward:
“My heart seemed to stop beating while I listened.”
When it came out that the bears were friendly, and not disposed to injure the children, the lads could hardly restrain the hearty cheers that somehow, in spite of themselves, would try to burst out.
There was no more sleep that night. As it was at least five miles to the spot where the tracks had been discovered, the strict orders of silence were cancelled, and soon there were noise and activity. Food was prepared and eaten with an appetite unknown since Wenonah and Roderick were of the happy party.
The absorbing question with Mr and Mrs Ross, in consultation with Mustagan and Big Tom, was how they were to proceed when the morning came.
To follow them up and rush in upon them might anger the bears, and the children might suffer. To stalk them so quietly as to be able to get within range and shoot the bears might terrify the children, or they might be wounded by the bullets. There was much talking and many suggestions. A remark from Mustagan gave Mrs Ross a hint, and so a woman’s quick intuition solved the perplexing question.
Mustagan had said that, as he carefully examined the tracks, he found where the children had evidently filled their birch dishes with berries and fed them to the little bears, whose many tracks had shown that, like young dogs, they had gambolled and played around them.
Said Mrs Ross as she heard this: