Tom and his cousins, of course, asked a good many questions with their lips and more with their eyes, but Joe and his two friends were too busy to answer them. They made all haste to raise their anchors, and then pulled rapidly but silently toward the shore, all the while keeping a close watch over the movements of the bear, which was wandering listlessly about, now and then stopping to look into the water or to sniff at a log, as if he were hunting for something he had lost. Tom and his cousins thought he looked too small for a bear, but as he did not walk or act like a dog or any other animal they had ever seen at large, they were forced to conclude that he really was a bear, and that he was in search of his breakfast. They didn’t know whether to be afraid of him or not; but when they saw how anxious Joe and his two friends were to bring themselves within shooting distance of him, they lost no time in pulling up their own anchors and falling in behind them. The bear, however, was not to be taken unawares. He did not appear to notice their approach, but he had his eyes on them nevertheless, and when he thought they had come close enough, he left the beach and lumbered off into the bushes.
“There!” said Tom, who was glad to see the last of him. “He has taken himself safely off.”
“We expected it,” said Roy, redoubling his exertions at the paddle. “If we only had Mars with us we could see more fun with him in half an hour than we could in a week’s fishing. He begged hard to be allowed to come, but Joe made him stay behind. You see, he won’t sit anywhere but in the bow, and he is so heavy that he makes a canoe hard to manage in rough water.”
“He wouldn’t trail the bear, would he?”
“Of course he would, and be glad of the chance. If he found him, he would set up such a yelping that you would think there were a dozen dogs in the woods.”
“What are you going to do now?” inquired Ralph, as the six canoes ran their bows upon the beach, one after the other.
“We are going to stretch our legs, and that will be a comfort after sitting in such cramped positions for four long hours,” replied Joe, at the same time catching up his double-barrel and springing ashore with it. “We’ll follow up his trail, which we can easily do for a mile or more, because all the ground about here is swampy, and when we lose it, we’ll knock over a few squirrels and go up to the point and eat our breakfast. Keep close to us, or else stay within sight of the beach. The woods are thick, and you could get lost without half trying.”
Led by Arthur Hastings, the boys ran up the shore of the pond until they reached the place where the bear had turned off into the bushes, and then the pursuit began in earnest. Whether or not Loren and Ralph were as anxious to get a shot at the game as they pretended to be, it is hard to tell; but they made a great show of eagerness and enthusiasm, and Tom, not wishing to be out-done, floundered along the trail behind them. But he did not keep his companions in sight for more than five minutes—in fact, he didn’t mean to. He gradually fell to the rear, and when the bushes closed up behind Roy Sheldon, who was the last boy on the trail, Tom sat down on a log and thought about it.
“That bear doesn’t belong to me, and I don’t know that it is any concern of mine whether they find him or not,” said he to himself. “It is easier to sit here in the shade, even if one does have to fight musquitoes, than it is to go prancing about through a swamp where the water, in some places, is up to the tops of a fellow’s boots.”
Tom suddenly brought his soliloquy to a close and jumped to his feet. There was a frightened expression on his face, but the determined manner in which he gripped his gun showed that he had no intention of running away until he had had at least one shot at the bear; for that it was the bear which occasioned the slight rustling in the thicket a short distance away, Tom had not the slightest doubt. Probably the animal had made a short circuit through the woods, and was now coming back to the pond to finish his breakfast. While these thoughts were passing through Tom’s mind, the bushes toward which he was gazing parted right and left, and a big red nose, with a shock of uncombed hair above and a mass of tangled brown whiskers below it, was cautiously thrust into view, being followed a moment later by the burly form of Matt Coyle, the squatter. He was as ragged and dirty as ever, and carried a heavy rifle on his shoulder.