“Hist! Some one appears to have got there before us,” said Hake, laying his hand on his brother’s shoulder and pointing in the direction of the huts.
“It is not a human visitor, methinks,” observed Heika.
“More like a bear,” returned Hake.
In order to set the question at rest the brothers hastened round by the woods to a spot immediately behind the huts. There was a hill there so steep as to be almost a precipice. It overlooked the shores of the lake immediately below where the huts were, and when the pioneers came to the crest of it and peeped cautiously over, they beheld a large brown bear not far from the hut that stood nearest to the hill, busily engaged in devouring something.
“Now it is a pity,” whispered Heika, “that we brought no arms with us. Truly, little cause have we men to be proud of our strength, for yonder beast could match fifty of us if we had nothing to depend on save our fists and feet and fingers.”
“Why not include the teeth in your list, brother?” asked Hake, with a quiet laugh; “but it is a pity, as you say. What shall—”
He stopped abruptly, for a large boulder, or mass of rock, against which he leaned, gave way under him, made a sudden lurch forward and then stuck fast.
“Ha! a dangerous support,” said Hake, starting back; “but, hist! suppose we shove it down on the bear?”
“A good thought,” replied Heika, “if we can move the mass, which seems doubtful; but let us try. Something may be gained by trying—nothing lost.”
The boulder, which had been so balanced on the edge of the steep hill that a gentle pressure moved it, was a mass of rock weighing several tons, the moving of which would have been a hopeless task for twenty men to attempt, but it stood balanced on the extreme edge of the turn of the hill, and the little slip it had just made rendered its position still more critical; so that, when the young men lay down with their backs against a rock, placed their feet upon it and pushed with all their might, it slowly yielded, toppled over, and rolled with a tremendous surge through a copse which lay immediately below it.