Leon laid down to rest after making sure that his gun was in good order; but Sam wandered around, looking for squirrels and "signs of game," until suddenly he heard, away back on the mountain, the bay of a hound. This was a signal that the chase had begun, and he hurried back to the watching-place to be ready for the deer, should the deer come. For nearly an hour the boys stood with guns ready, every minute hoping to see a deer. A squirrel running through the brush would bring their guns to their faces, and at the slightest rustle of the bushes they would start and listen. Meanwhile the hounds were surely coming nearer and nearer, their excited barking proclaiming that they were close upon the game; and at last Sam was sure they were down on the lower runway and, turning to Leon in great excitement, he said, "Let's keep cool and we can kill this deer! Then won't Herb be sorry he went further up?" Both boys felt sure there must be a deer coming, although they had been told that the hounds often came in without anything.
At last they could hear the brush crackling—yes, the hounds were surely down on their runway; and in a minute the dogs and game did come in sight together. But what a surprised pair of huntsmen they were when they saw what the game was! Leon was frightened, while even Sam felt a little uneasy. The hounds had not started a deer at all. Instead they were pursuing an old bear, and two young cubs about the size of a large dog. The old bear was very large and fierce, and whenever the hounds came up with the cubs, that could not run very fast, she would turn around and fight until the cubs ran on a few rods and then she would run again.
Just as the bear and cubs reached the watching place there was a fight, and the great creature caught one of the hounds and hugged him in her arms till he was breathless, all the time sitting up on her hind legs and looking as tall as a man. While she was in this position Sam took aim at her head and fired, and a moment later Leon fired too. Then the bear started to run, and they both fired the other barrel of their shot-guns, though without taking much aim, but a moment after they saw her lying on the ground, surrounded by the pack.
By this time Herbert and the landlord had come down in hot haste to see what the shooting was for, and in great surprise they gathered around the huge creature which the boys had secured. Leon and Sam had really killed a bear, a genuine black bear, a large one too—the landlord said the largest he had seen that year; and there were never two prouder fellows than these two schoolboys, as they surveyed their noble game.
But this was not all. The hounds were sent after the cubs, and in a few minutes they were caught alive. They were taken to the hotel and caged. Very quiet animals they were; in a few days they would eat from the boys' hands, as tame as the fawns in the park, never trying to bite or showing any crossness. With these pets and with their fine bear skin to show, it is no wonder that the boys thought there was never a pleasanter place than the hotel in the mountains; and it is not at all strange that they hated to leave it when their two weeks were up. But they had a new, strong cage made for the baby bears, and took them home to keep in the little yard near the barn, where every boy, and nearly every man in town came to see them, and to hear the story of their capture, and take the dimensions of the handsome black bear skin. At school certainly nothing else was talked of that term, and I fear the boys really believed they were the best hunters in the State. How long their mamma will allow them to keep their pets they do not know, but they hope it will be as long as the two bears live and behave.
PETE'S PRINTING PRESS.
"What do you want for Christmas?" asked Mrs. Downs, in a kindly manner.
"I don't know, mother," replied Pete slowly. "Last year it was a paint-box, bicycle, foils, and you said I could use Dick's foils—and that you couldn't afford bicycles after the new carpet, so it got down to a paint-box and that wasn't much of a Christmas."
"That's the comfort in regularly having Christmases; in time you get what you want," answered his mother.