It stopped and seemed a trifle uneasy, swinging its head and evidently sniffing the air. Then, seeming reassured, it suddenly reared up on its hind legs, and with one sweep of its paw, sent the cover of the nearest hive flying.
They saw the bees boil up like smoke into the bright moonlight. Carl grasped the rifle, and cocked it noiselessly. The bear plunged his nose into the super, and they heard the delicate combs and frames smash under his teeth.
A tearing flash from Carl’s rifle split the shadows. Alice uttered a shriek of excitement. The bear was down, rolling over beside the hive, and apparently done for. Carl dashed out in triumph.
But as he approached the animal it reared up unsteadily, and launched a vicious sweep with its iron-clawed paw. Carl sprang back, threw up the rifle and pulled the trigger. Only a soft snap answered. He had forgotten to throw another shell into the chamber.
As he tried to protect himself, the gun was dashed out of his hand, and he might have been struck down the next instant, but Alice charged up and fired both barrels of the shotgun at a range of two yards. As it appeared afterwards, she missed the bear cleanly with both shots; but the buckshot, clustering like a bullet, blew the nearest beehive almost to pieces.
But the shots turned the animal’s attention, and it wheeled and charged straight through the shotgun smoke. Carl uttered a shout of horror, but Alice had already dodged and was running like a deer across the bee-yard, with the bear hotly in chase.
Carl groped desperately for the rifle that had flown out of his hands, but failed to find it. Bees from the damaged hives seemed to be crawling all over the ground. He gave up the search and rushed wildly after the bear, shouting at the top of his voice to distract its attention. It paid no heed, but at that moment Alice, with most remarkable gymnastic skill, scrambled into a small hemlock just in time.
But a bear can climb trees better than any girl! Carl saw the animal rear up against the trunk and he flung a knotted lump of wood with all his force. It hit the beast on the back. It turned with a fierce snarl, and Carl in his turn had just time to scramble into a tree to escape its charge.
The moment he had done so he was sorry, for now he was sure to be clawed out of the branches; but man has an almost uncontrollable instinct to climb a tree to avoid a danger. The bear did indeed rear up against the trunk, clawing the bark and trying to draw himself up. But he did not actually climb, and it came into Carl’s mind that perhaps his first bullet had so injured the animal as to make him unable to climb.
He looked down at it with the most intense anxiety. It really did seem either unable or unwilling to ascend the tree. It walked about uneasily; then went over to the hemlock where Alice was perched, and finally returned to Carl. After sniffing about the foot of the tree it lay down as if on guard.