“H’m! It’s all over,” sighed Little Tim, as he slid down the branch to the ground.
And so it was. The bear was effectually killed, and the poor hunter had to return to the Indian village crestfallen.
“But hold on, stranger,” he said, on meeting the agent; “don’t you give way to despair. I said there was lots of ’em in these parts. You come with me up to a hut my son’s got in the mountains, an’ I’ll circumvent a b’ar for you yet. You can’t take the cart quite up to the hut but you can git near enough, at a place where there’s a Injin’ friend o’ mine as’ll take care of ye.”
The agent agreed, and thus it came to pass that at the time of which we now write, Little Tim was doing his best to catch a live bear, but, not liking to be laughed at even by his son in the event of failure, he had led him and his bride to suppose that he had merely gone out hunting in the usual way.
It was on this expedition that Little Tim had set forth when Whitewing was expected to arrive at Tim’s Folly—as the little hut or fortress had come to be named—and it was the anxiety of his friends and kindred at his prolonged absence which resulted, as we have seen, in the formation and departure of a search expedition.
Chapter Nine.
A Daring Exploit.
To practised woodsmen like Whitewing and Big Tim it was as easy to follow the track of Little Tim as if his steps had been taken through newly-fallen snow, although very few and slight were the marks left on the green moss and rugged ground over which the hunter had passed.