The instant they reached Mustagan he shouted to the boys to return, and not a moment too soon, for crashing through the bushes came the two old bears, fierce and savage, and showing that in some way they had become suspicious of danger.
Coolly picking up the two baskets which the two young bears had upset, the boys, keeping their faces to the fierce, savage brutes, slowly retreated. The bears, at first only seeing the boys, came rushing toward them, but when they reached their young ones they stopped for a time, and then came on to attack the boys.
To the ledge of rocks Mustagan had carried the now happy children. They had nearly smothered “dear old Mustagan,” as they loved to call him, with their kisses. Wild, indeed, were they with joy as father and mother rushed forward and received them as from the dead. They could only lie clinging to them while they wept out their bliss.
From it they were startled, as out rang a volley from the guns, and two great, fierce bears rolled over each other, each shot through more than one vital spot.
“Capture the little fellows alive!” was the cry.
And soon, after a lively chase and some sharp struggling, two four months’ old cubs were so tied up as to be unable to do any injury either with teeth or claws.
Very anxious had the boys been during the search for the lost children. Their only regret was that they were so powerless as to be unable to join in the search. Very proud, however, were they to have had some share in the exciting events of the last hours of their strange deliverance. Tears were in their eyes and dimmed their vision as they first saw them in the company of the wild beasts, showing by their appearance what they must have suffered during the long days and nights of such hardships.
The story of the children’s account of their adventures and hardships will be given in another chapter. Suffice here to say that very quickly was the march taken up, after the half-famished little ones had been fed, for they had had nothing but berries to eat, and, as Roderick put it:
“Naughty bears, they kept me all the time picking berries for them.”
The return to the camp on the banks at Sea River Falls, and then to Sagasta-weekee, was soon made.