When Bill’s attention was called to this fact he explained that he did not depend so much upon the gun to shoot with as he did for use as a club, with which the bear’s brains could be easily dashed out. The knife was the weapon in which he put more dependence, and he proved that it was a good one by making shavings of fully half a shingle in less than five minutes.
This display of weapons and air of ferocity on Bill’s face so pleased Tim and Bobby that they blamed themselves severely for not having made their own preparations for a fight. That oversight was quickly remedied when Bobby produced an old army musket, the weight of which made him stagger, and a small pistol that had been loaded nearly a year, the charge having obstinately refused to come out.
“You’ll want the pistol, Tim,” he said, as he handed that weapon to his friend, “’cause it’ll be a good deal handier to fire when you’re close up to the bear, an’ you know you’ll have to go pretty snug to him, so’s to keep Tip from eating the skin.”
Tim took the pistol carefully, looked down into the muzzle, as if wondering at which end it would be safest to stand when the weapon was finally discharged, and then secured it by sticking it between the waist-band of his trousers and shirt.
Bobby, with all possible precaution against accidents, loaded the army musket with the powder taken from six fire-crackers, and rammed home five or six small stones in place of bullets. He had no percussion-caps; but he felt certain he could discharge it as well by holding a lighted match at the nipple as if he had all the caps ever made. Owing to Bobby’s mother’s decided refusal to loan two of her carving-knives, they were obliged to get along without anything of that sort, and depend on the one carried by Bill to skin their game when it was killed.
The other hunters arrived in parties of twos and threes, and each new arrival thought it necessary to make another and more minute examination of Tip, in order to be certain that he was in the best possible condition for the hunt. Each of the new-comers was armed, but none could boast of having more destructive weapons than those carried by the three leaders.
Bill was anxious to start at once, in order, as he said, to get the skin nailed up on the barn before night; and as they were about to set out Bobby cried, in tones of horror:
“Here! how do you s’pose we can get any bears if we let Tip go on ahead? Why, he’ll rush off jest as soon as he sees one, an’ we can’t catch him before he eats ’em all up.”
It was almost a shudder that ran through the party as they realized how near they had been to losing their game before it had been caught, and the greatest excitement reigned.
“What shall we do?” asked Bill, completely at a loss to arrange matters; and then, as a happy thought came to him, he cried: “I know now: we can take turns carryin’ him.”