“What next?—would he turn himself in the hollow, and come down head-foremost? If so, my rifle was empty, and Cudjo might miss his blow, and let him pass out.
“All at once my eye fell upon the two great deerskin coats, that were lying on the ground close by. They would be large enough, properly rolled, to fill the mouth of the cavity. I threw aside my rifle, and laid hold of them. Cudjo assisted me. In a second or two, we had gathered them into a hard ‘clump,’ and wedged them into the hole. They fitted it exactly!
“We saw blood streaming down as we stuffed in the coats. The bear was wounded. It was not likely, then, that he would trouble us for a while; and as one watched the coats, the other brought up great stones, which we piled against them, until we had made all secure.
“We now ran around the tree, looking up the trunk, to assure ourselves that there was no opening above, through which he might creep out and come down upon us. No—there was none, except the bee-hole, and that was not big enough for his nose, sharp as it was. Bruin was fairly ‘in the trap.’
“I knew that Mary and the rest would be uneasy about us; and I ran out to the glade to make known our success. The boys cheered loudly; and we all returned together to the tree, as there was now no danger—no more than if there hadn’t been a bear nearer to us than the North Pole.
“We had him safe, so that there was no fear of his escaping. But how were we to get at him?—for we had determined to take his life. Such a fierce creature as this must not be allowed to get off; as he would soon have settled with one of us, had he met us on anything like equal terms. I had thought, at first, he might be a grizzly bear, and this had terrified me the more—for the killing of one of these fierce animals with a shot is next to an impossibility. When I reflected, however, I knew it could not be this; for the ‘grizzly,’ unlike his sable cousin, is not a tree-climber. It was the black bear, then, that we had got in the tree.
“But how were we to reach him? Leave him where he was, and let him starve to death? No, that would never do. He would eat all the fine stock of honey; if, indeed, he had not done so already. Moreover, he might scrape his way out, by enlarging the bee-hole. This he could do with his great sharp claws. We must therefore adopt some other plan.
“It occurred to us that it was just probable he might be down at the bottom, poking his nose against the coats. We could not tell, for there was no longer any growling. He was either too angry, or too badly scared to growl—we could not say which. At all events, he was not uttering a sound. He might, nevertheless, be as close to us at the moment as he could get. If so, our plan would be to cut a small hole in the tree above him, so that we might reach him with a bullet from the rifle. This plan was adopted, and Cudjo set to work to make the hole.
“In a few minutes the thin shell was penetrated, and we could see into the cavity. Bruin was nowhere visible—he was still up the tree. The ‘taste of our quality,’ which he had had on his first descent, had evidently robbed him of all inclination to try a second. What next?
“‘Smoke ’im!’ cried Cudjo; ‘dat fotch ’im down.’