The conjecture proved to be a just one; for before they had gone half a mile farther, a continuous barking sounded on their ears, which they knew to be that of the dogs. They knew, moreover, by this sign, that the bear had done one of three things—either taken to a tree, retreated into a cave, or come to a stand in the open ground, and was keeping the dogs at bay. Of the three conjectures, they desired that the first should prove the correct one; and from the manner in which the dogs were giving tongue, they had reason to hope that it would.
In effect, so it did; for, on getting a little closer, the two dogs were seen bounding about the roots of an enormous tree, at intervals springing up against its trunk, and barking at some object that had taken refuge in the branches above.
Of course, this object could only be the bear; and under this belief, the pursuers approached the tree—each holding his gun cocked and ready to fire.
When they had got quite up to the tree, and stood under it, no bear was to be seen! A large black mass was visible among the topmost branches; but this was not the body of a bear: it was something altogether different. The tree was one of gigantic size—the very largest they had seen in the whole forest; it was a pine, of the species sylvestris, with huge spreading limbs, and branches thickly covered with fascicles of long leaves. In many places the foliage was dark and dense enough to have afforded concealment to an animal of considerable size; but not one so bulky as a bear; and had there been nothing else but the leaves and branches to conceal him, a bear could not have found shelter in that tree without being visible from below. And yet a bear was actually in it—the very same bear they were in pursuit of—though not a bit of his body—not even the tip of his snout, was visible to the eyes of the hunters!
He was certainly there: for the dogs, who were not trusting to their eyes, but to that in which they placed far more confidence—their scent,—by their movements and behaviour, showed their positive belief that Bruin was in the tree.
Perhaps you will fancy that the pine was a hollow one, and that the bear had crept inside. Nothing of the kind: the tree was perfectly sound—not even a knot-hole was visible either in its trunk or limbs. It was not in a cavity that Bruin had been able to conceal himself.
There was no mystery whatever about their not seeing him: for as soon as the hunters got fairly under the tree, and looked up, they perceived, amidst its topmost branches, the dark object already mentioned; and as the bear could be seen nowhere else in the tree, this object accounted for his being invisible.
You will be wondering what it was; and so wondered our young hunters when they first raised their eyes to it. It looked more like a stack of faggots than aught else; and, indeed, very good faggots would it have made: since it consisted of a large mass of dry sticks and branches, resting in an elevated fork of the tree, and matted together into a solid mass. There were enough to have made a load for an ordinary cart, and so densely packed together, that only around the edges could the sky be seen through them; towards the centre, and for a diameter as large as a millstone, the mass appeared quite solid and black, not a ray of light passing through the interwoven sticks.
“The nest of a lammergeyer!” exclaimed the izzard-hunter, the moment his eye glanced up to it. “Just so!—my dogs are right: the bear has taken shelter in the nest of the birds!”