Encouraged by the words of his young master, Pouchskin approached, nearer to the aperture, and buried half of the pole inside. He then turned the stick and poked it all about, but could touch nothing that felt like a bear. Growing more confident, he crept yet nearer, and pushed the pole up till he could touch the bottom of the cave—once more feeling with its point in all directions, against the further end, along the sides, upwards and downwards, and everywhere. Still he touched nothing soft—nothing that felt as the shaggy hide of a bear should do—nothing, in fact, but hard rocks, against which the stick could be heard rattling wherever he pushed it!
This was very mysterious. Pouchskin was an old bear-hunter. He had poked his pole into many a burrow of Bruin, and he knew well enough when he had touched bottom. He could tell moreover that the cave he was now exploring was all in one piece—a single-roomed house. Had there been any second or inner chamber he would have found the aperture that led to it; but there appeared to be none.
To make sure of this, he now approached quite near to the entrance, and continued to guage the cavity with his stick. Alexis and Ivan also drew near—one on each side of him—and the exploration continued.
In a short while, however, Pouchskin became nearly satisfied that there was no bear in the den! He had groped with his stick all round and round it, and had come in contact with nothing softer than a rock or a root of the tree. As a last resource he lay down on the ground to listen—placing his ear close to the mouth of the cave; and, cautioning his young masters to keep silent, in this position he remained for some seconds of time.
Perhaps it was fortunate for them, if not for him, that they attended to his caution. Their silence enabled them to hear what Pouchskin could not—placed as he now was—and that was a sound that caused the young bear-hunters to start back and look upwards, instead of into the cave.
As they did so, a sight met their eyes that drew from both a simultaneous cry, while both at the same instant retreated several paces from the spot, elevating their guns as they went backward.
Slowly moving down the trunk of the great pine-tree appeared an animal of enormous size. Had they not been expecting something of the kind neither could have told that this moving object was an animal: since at first sight neither a head nor limbs could be distinguished—only an immense shapeless mass of brown shaggy hair.
The instant after a huge hairy limb was protruded below, and then another both terminating in broad ungulated paws, that in succession griped the rough bark of the tree, causing it to rattle and scale off.
Singular as its shape was there was no mistaking the animal that was making this retrograde movement. It was Bruin himself, descending the tree buttocks downward!