As quick as the thought and words, he sprang to the open hatch, and heaved it upright on the hinges, to close it. But just as it hung in midway poise, the bear, alarmed by the noise overhead, gave a startled “whoof,” and came scrambling up the ladder. His tawny muzzle was above the floor, when Nathan, with desperate strength, slammed down the hatch, and its edge caught the bear fairly on the neck, pressing his throat against the edge of the hatchway. The trap door had scarcely fallen when the quick-witted boy mounted it and called to his frightened sister to mount beside him, and with their united weight, slight as it was, they kept him from forcing his way upward, till in his frantic struggles he dislodged the ladder and hung by the neck helpless, without foothold.
The children held bravely to their post, hand in hand, while to the gasping moans of the angry brute succeeded cries of anger, that were in turn succeeded by silence and loss of all visible motion but such as was imparted to the head by the huge body still slowly vibrating from the final struggle. When this had quite ceased they ventured off the trap door, and, pale and panting, they stood before the ghastly head as frightful now in death, with grinning, foam-flecked jaws, protruding tongue, and staring, bloodshot eyes, as it had been in living rage. Nathan caught his sister in his arms and hugged her, shouting:
“We’ve killed him. We’ve killed a bear,” while she, in the same breath, laughed and cried, till they both bethought themselves of the dinner-getting not yet begun.
“I can’t get down cellar,” said Nathan, “for I dasn’t open that door. What be we goin’ to do?”
A grunt of surprise caught his attention, and, looking up, he saw the two Indians at the door, staring with puzzled faces on the strange scene. Then one, with a hatchet half uplifted, cautiously approached the grim head, which, after an instant’s scrutiny, he touched with his hatchet and then with his finger.
“He dead. You boy do dat?” And Nathan told him all the adventure. The Indian gave the boy an approving pat on the head that made Nathan’s scalp shiver.
“You big Nad-yal-we-no. Too much good for be Pastoniac. You come ’long me to Yam-as-ka, I make you Waubanakee. Den be good for sometings. Nawaa,” he said to his companion, and the other coming in, the two reached down and laid hold of the bear’s forelegs, and when, by their instructions, Nathan lifted the door, they dragged the limp, shaggy carcass out upon the floor.
When the full proportions of the huge brute were revealed, the boy’s rejoicings broke forth anew, just as his father and the hired man came hurrying in, when he received fresh praise for his deed. The dinner was bounteous, if late, and the Indians, Toksoose and Tahmont, had their full share of it, with a big chunk of pork and as much bear’s meat as they cared to take, which was small, since they liked better the daintier meat of the musquash, wherewith their trapping afforded them an ample supply.
When toward nightfall the mother returned, she was told the story by the victors, and with equal delight was it rehearsed when Job happened to come, and the unstinted praise of the old hunter was sweetest of all. Many a day was the tale rehearsed for the benefit of new listeners. Even when Nathan was an old man, and looked back on the many adventures of his life, not one stood forth so clearly in the haze of the past as this adventure with the bear, wherein he had borne the chief part.