All at once he realized that he had eaten nothing since the night before and more because he knew how necessary it was that he should maintain his strength than through any desire for food he stopped long enough to swallow a few mouthfuls of bread and cheese, washing it down with water from a small brook which he was about to cross.
“Bob, Oh, Bob!” he shouted at the top of his voice throwing caution to the winds.
It is doubtful if any thought of their mission up there in the wilderness had once entered his head since he had started. His one and only thought was to find his brother. And then his cup of misery seemed filled to the brim when he was unable to locate the next stone. For all of an hour he searched even crawling on his hands and knees a part of the time thinking that it might be covered with the dead leaves with which the ground was carpeted. The thought that his brother was lying, perhaps at the point of death, somewhere in that vast forest, perhaps but a few yards away and that he could not find him was maddening.
In fact, a few minutes later and he was wandering about aimlessly while dry sobs shook his body. Was he losing his mind, he wondered as he finally sank down at the foot of a great pine.
How long he sat there he never knew but he was brought back to himself by the sound of a peculiar whining. Instantly he jumped to his feet. There not ten feet away was a tiny bear cub. Now Jack knew that a cub of that size was not apt to be very far away from its mother and the thought that the old bear had probably killed his brother suddenly, as he afterward expressed it, made him see red. He started for the cub, which turned and scurried away as fast as its little fat legs would take it The boy had a half insane idea that if he could only catch and kill the cub he would be helping his brother.
The thought that he might be running straight toward the mother bear never entered his mind and it is doubtful if it would have made the slightest difference if it had. In his present state of mind he would have attacked a dozen bears and that without thought of his own danger.
It was surprising how fast that fat little cub could run. Jack had all he could do to keep it in sight and once he thought he had lost it. But he caught sight of it again just as it plunged into a thick growth of bushes. Straight through the bushes Jack pushed himself heedless of the scratches he received.
As he emerged from the clump a moment later the cub was out of sight, but as he stopped to get his bearings he saw a sight he never forgot. There, not ten feet from where he stood, lay Bob and stretched across his legs was the body of an enormous black bear. Jack stood for a moment petrified at the sight. He knew instinctively that the bear was dead, but how about his brother?
Fear clutched at his heart as he sprang forward and threw himself on the ground by Bob’s side.
“Oh, Bob,” he moaned.