They had not gone far when they came upon a bank of mud, that had formerly been covered with water. So recently had the water dried from it, that, in spite of the hot sun shining down upon it, the mud was still soft. They had not gone many steps further, when they perceived upon its surface, what at first they supposed to be the tracks of a man. On getting a little closer, however, they doubted this; and, now recollecting the resemblance which they had noticed in the snows of Lapland—between the footsteps of a human being and those of a bear—it occurred to them that these might also be bear-tracks—though they knew that the tracks of the American bear would be slightly different from those of his European cousin.
To satisfy themselves, they hastened forward to examine the tracks; but their negro guide had anticipated them, and now called out, with the whites of his eyes considerably enlarged—
“Golly, young mass’rs! dat be de tracks ob um ba!”
“A bear!”
“Ya, ya, mass’rs! a big ba—dis child know um track—see’d um many de time—de ole coon he be arter de fish too—all ob dem a-doin’ a bit ob fishin’ dis mornin’—yaw, yaw, yaw!”
And the darkey laughed at what he appeared to consider an excellent joke.
On closely scrutinising the tracks, Alexis and Ivan saw that they were in reality the tracks of a bear—though much smaller than those they had followed in Lapland. They were quite fresh—in fact, so recently did they appear to have been made, that both at the same time, and by an involuntary impulse, raised their eyes from the ground and glanced around them; as if they expected to see the bear himself.
No such animal was in sight, however. It was quite probable he had been on the ground, at their first coming up to the lake; but the report of Ivan’s gun had alarmed him, and he had made off into the woods. This was quite probable.
“What a pity,” reflected Ivan, “that I didn’t leave the eagle alone! We might have got sight of Master Bruin, and given him the shot instead. And now,” added he, “what’s to be done? There’s no snow,—therefore we can’t track the brute. The mud bank ends here, and he’s gone off it, the way he came? Of course he wouldn’t be out yonder among those logs? He wouldn’t have taken shelter there, would he?”
As Ivan spoke, he pointed to a little peninsula that jutted out into the lake, some twenty or thirty yards beyond the spot where they were standing. It was joined to the mainland by a narrow neck or isthmus of mud; but at the end towards the water there was a space of several yards covered with dead trees—that had been floated thither in the floods, and now lay high and dry, piled irregularly upon one another.