Blackstock, who was close at Jim's heels, a few paces ahead of the rest, turned with one of his rare, ruminative laughs.
"That's quite an idea of yours, Andy," he remarked, stooping to examine one of those great clawed footprints in a patch of soft soil.
"But even trained b'ar hain't got wings," commented MacDonald again. "An' there's a good three hundred yards atween the spot where Black Dan's trail peters out an' the nearest b'ar track. I guess yer interestin' hipotheesis don't quite fill the bill—eh, Andy?"
"Anyways," protested the big Oromocto man, "ye'll all notice one thing queer about this here b'ar track. It goes straight. Mostly a b'ar will go wanderin' off this way an' that, to nose at an old root, er grub up a bed o' toadstools. But this b'ar keeps right on, as ef he had important business somewhere straight ahead. That's just the way he'd go ef some one was a-ridin' him horseback."
Andy had advanced his proposition as a joke, but now he was inclined to take it seriously and to defend it with warmth.
"Well," said Long Jackson, "we'll all chip in, when we git our money back, an' buy ye a bear, Andy, an' ye shall ride it up every day from the mills to the post office. It'll save ye quite a few minutes in gittin' to the post office. It don't matter about yer gittin' away."
The big Oromocto lad blushed, but laughed good-naturedly. He was so much in love with the little widow who kept the post office that nothing pleased him more than to be teased about her.
For the Deputy's trained eyes, as for Jim's trained nose, that bear-track was an easy one to follow. Nevertheless, progress was slow, for Blackstock would halt from time to time to interrogate some claw-print with special minuteness, and from time to time Jim would stop to lie down and lick gingerly at his bandage, tormented by the aching of his wound.
Late in the afternoon, when the level shadows were black upon the trail and the trailing had come to depend entirely on Jim's nose, Blackstock called a halt on the banks of a small brook and all sat down to eat their bread and cheese. Then they sprawled about, smoking, for the Deputy, apparently regarding the chase as a long one, was now in no great hurry. Jim lay on the wet sand, close to the brook's edge, while Blackstock, scooping up the water in double handfuls, let it fall in an icy stream on the dog's bandaged leg.
"Hev ye got any reel idee to come an' go on, Tug?" demanded Long Jackson at last, blowing a long, slow jet of smoke from his lips, and watching it spiral upwards across a bar of light just over his head.