“No,” replied Carington. He was interested in the talk. “No, it is incomprehensible. There are organs in the ear which tell us the point from which sounds come, and the eye is a help; but there is over and above all, this instinct of direction, which guides the bird, or, still more wonderfully, the fish, and to some degree, I suppose, the men who have this capacity. I was once lost in a cave in Virginia. After an hour of turning and twisting in long passages, and among forests of stalactites, two hundred feet underground, the guide of a sudden got altogether bewildered and terribly alarmed. A boy who was with us said, ‘I can get out,’ and, by Jove, Jack, he took us back, and in and out, and at last into the open air. He never paused.”
“That was a scrape. I wish I had been with you.”
“Do you? I prefer not to try it again. Are you rested?”
“Yes.”
“Then come.” And they went over the slope, and began to go down the bed of the scantily fed brook. In a half-hour they came to a small basin whence the water fell into the pool below. Creeping cautiously, they reached the edge and looked down on the muddy shore. The bear had gone. Then Carington took his glass.
“The tracks go to the left,” he said. “Come, but be careful.”
Slowly and in silence they scrambled down to the edge of the underbrush. Suddenly Carington caught the boy’s arm and drew him back.
“Hush!” he murmured. “Softly. There!” and parting the bushes, he pointed through them. A large bear was slowly moving along the curve of shore, not forty feet away. “Your bear, sir; behind the left shoulder. Steady!”
“No—you, sir!”
“Quick! You will lose him. Steady now! Well done!” he cried aloud, as the boy’s rifle rang out, and the bear fell, rose, and fell again. “No! Don’t run in! Load! Now wait a moment!” And, so saying, he moved along the beach. But poor Bruin was dead.