Seeing this, and understanding that it is always an unwise thing to push a horse or a human being in the beginning of a long race, Mr. Witherspoon thought it best to slacken their pace.
They were in no particular hurry to get anywhere; and once heels began to get sore from the rubbing of their shoes, it would not be easy to cure them again. The wise scout master was a believer in the motto that “an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.”
Ahead of them loomed the lofty elevation that possibly from its shape had long been known as Big Bear Mountain. The boys had tried to learn just how it came by that name—and naturally this subject interested them more than ever as they found themselves drawing steadily closer to its foot.
“It doesn’t look so very much like a bear to me,” George Kingsley remarked, as the discussion waxed warmer. Though for that matter George always did find some reason to object to almost everything.
“I was told by an old settler who ought to know,” ventured Tom, “that long ago numerous bears lived in the rocky dens of the mountain, and that’s how it came to be called as it is.”
“Must have been years and years ago then,” said Josh, “because I never remember hearing about a bear being seen hereabouts. I often used to look for bear tracks when I was out hunting, but of course I never found one.”
“Wouldn’t it be a great thing if we did happen on a real bear while we were out on this hike?” suggested Billy Button, who was rather given to stretches of imagination, and seeing things where they did not exist.
So they beguiled the time away as they tramped along. Gradually they approached the great gloomy looking mountain, and it was seen that by the time they stopped for their noon meal they would probably be at its foot.
Tom and Carl were walking together, for somehow the boys seemed to pair off as a general thing. Carl was looking brighter now, as though in the excitement of the start he might have temporarily forgotten his troubles.
“There don’t seem to be so many farms up this way as we thought,” Tom observed as they found themselves walking close beside a stretch of woodland, with a gully on the other side of the road.