Moise now was a different man from the talkative companion of the camp. He was very silent, and advanced cautiously along the trail, his eyes studying every record of the ground and cover which had been left by the wounded animal. Once in a while he pointed silently to a broken bush or to a drop of blood. After a while he stopped and pointed to a tree whose bark was ripped off.
“Heem awful mad,” whispered Moise. “S’pose you’ll seen heem here, he’ll fight sure. He’ll bite all the tree an’ fight the bush.”
After a while Alex showed them a deep excavation in the soft dirt.
“He’ll dig hole here an’ lie down,” said Moise. “Plenty mad now, sure!”
They kept on after the trail, following it deeper into the forest and higher up the slope, minute after minute, for a time which seemed short, but which really was over an hour and a half in extent. Moise still remained silent and not in the least excited, and Alex still continued to pick his berries and eat them leisurely as he followed along in the rear. Once they lost the trail on an open hillside covered with wintergreen plants, and the boys thought the hunt was over. Moise however, swung around like a hound on the trail, clear to the other side of the hill, and in the course of a few minutes picked up the spoor again when it struck softer ground beyond. They passed on then, moving upward deeper into the forest for some minutes, until at length Moise turned about.
“About five minute now, we’ll found heem,” said he, quietly.
“How does he know, Alex?” demanded Jesse, who was farther to the rear.
“Easy enough,” answered Alex. “He says the bear has lain down ten times now, and he would not do that unless he was very weak. He would travel as far as he could. Now he is lying down very often. I’m sorry, but I don’t think we’ll get any fight out of this bear. Moise thinks you’ll find him dead.”
Surely enough, they had hardly gone another hundred yards before Moise, stepping back quietly, pointed through an opening in the bushes. There, lying before them in a little glade, lay a vast, black body, motionless.
Rob grounded his rifle-butt, almost in disappointment, but later expressed his satisfaction.