Back up the hill we went, much faster than we had come down; for we were running for our own lives now, and bears like running uphill best. On and on we went, as fast as we could go. We had no idea at how long a distance man could hit us with the thunder-sticks, but we preferred to be on the safe side, and it must have been at least two hours before we stopped for a moment to take breath. And when a bear is in a hurry, two hours, even for a cub, mean more than twenty miles.
So it was that we first met man. And how absurdly different from what in our terrified imaginations we had pictured it!
[CHAPTER IV]
THE FOREST FIRE
Though we had come off so happily from our first encounter with man, none the less we had no desire to see him again. On the contrary, we determined to keep as far away from him as possible. For my part, I confess that thoughts of him were always with me, and every thought made the skin crawl up my back. At nights I dreamed of him—dreamed that he was chasing me endlessly over the mountains. I would get away from him, and, thinking myself safe, crawl into a thicket to sleep; but before I could shut my eyes he was on me again, and the dreadful thunder-stick would speak, and showers of chips flew off the tree-trunks all round me, and off I would have to go again. And all the time my fore-leg was broken, like Cinnamon’s, and I never dared to stop long enough to wash it in the streams. It seemed to me that the chase lasted for days and days, over hills and across valleys, and always, apparently, in a circle, because I never managed to get any distance away from home. Then, just as man was going to catch me, and the thunder-stick was roaring, and the chips flying off the trees in bewildering showers about me, my mother would slap me, and wake me up because she could not sleep for the noise that I was making. And I was very glad that she did.
Nor was I the only one of the family who was nervous. Father and mother had become so changed that they were gruff and bad-tempered; and all the pleasure and light-heartedness seemed to have gone out of our long rambles. There was no more romping and rolling together down the hillsides. If Kahwa and I grew noisy in our play, we were certain to be stopped with a ‘Woof, children! be quiet.’ The fear of man was always with us, and his presence seemed to pervade the whole of the mountains.
Soon, however, a thing happened which for a time at least drove man and everything else out of our minds.
We still lingered around the neighbourhood of our home, because, I think, we felt safer there, where we knew every inch of the hills and every bush, and tree, and stone. It had been very hot for weeks, so that the earth was parched dry, and the streams had shrunk till, in places where torrents were pouring but a few weeks ago, there was now no more than a dribble of water going over the stones. During the day we hardly went about at all, but from soon after sunrise to an hour or so before sunset we kept in the shadow of the brushwood along the water’s edge.
One evening the sun did not seem to be able to finish setting, but after it had gone down the red glow still stayed in the sky to westward, and instead of fading it glowed visibly brighter as the night went on. All night my father was uneasy, growling and grumbling to himself and continually sniffing the air to westward; but the atmosphere was stagnant and hot and dead all night, with not a breath of wind moving. When daylight came the glow died out of the western sky, but in place of it a heavy gray cloud hung over the further mountains and hid their tops from sight. We went to bed that morning feeling very uncomfortable and restless, and by mid-day we were up again. And now we knew what the matter was.