“Don’t you know that if the old one is anywhere around you are in danger down there?”
“I don’t think the old one will trouble us. She’s dead.”
“But suppose the father of the family should be in the neighborhood? Take to a tree, quick!” exclaimed Bob, as the cub once more set up his shrill cry. “Bring your rifle up with you, and if the other old one comes around you can shoot him easy enough.”
“That’s not my way of doing business,” replied Don, somewhat surprised at the proposition. “Why, Bob, I thought you had hunted bears all your life.”
“So I have; but I always had a good horse under me, and plenty of dogs to back me up. You’ll never again catch me on foot around where one of these animals is. I’ve had enough of it to-day.”
The loud baying of the hounds, which had dashed down the path as soon as the cry of the cub fell upon their ears, now echoed through the woods, and Don having by this time loaded his rifle, ran toward the clearing, leaving Bob to help his friend Lester, or not, just as he pleased. Bert, in his capacity of gun-bearer, kept close behind his brother as he ran.
A few rapid steps brought the hunters to the edge of the clearing, and there they stopped to reconnoitre the ground before going farther. They did not want to run into the clutches of another old bear if they could help it. The hounds were standing on their hind legs with their fore feet resting against the body of a small tree, looking up into the branches and baying loudly. Don looked, too, and saw a young bear about the size of a Newfoundland dog perched in the fork.
“O, Bert,” exclaimed Don, “why didn’t we think to bring an axe with us? It wouldn’t be any trouble at all to cut the tree down and take that fellow alive.”
Before Bert could say anything in reply, the hounds suddenly left the tree, and dashing across the clearing, threw themselves against the trap, toward which Don had not before thought to look, and thrusting their noses between the logs, made desperate efforts to reach something on the inside; while whatever it was on the inside ran about and squalled as if greatly alarmed. Then Don saw that the top of the trap was down. He ran quickly to it and looking between the logs saw crouching in the furthermost corner the mate to the young bear in the tree. The huge animal he had shot in the path was the mother of the two cubs.
“We’ve got two of them,” he exclaimed in great glee. “Are we not in luck? Don’t you remember father told us that if we could trap a cub Silas Jones would give us twenty dollars for him? We’ll have forty dollars to give David. We don’t need the money and he does.”