He came within twenty feet of the tree; then, as if deliberately playing with his victim, once more swung round and went back to the "cache." He made no more futile attempts to reach the platform, but, squatting on his haunches at the foot of one of the trees, appeared to sink into a profound meditation upon the difficulties of the situation.
There they were, the bear and the man, each crouching against a tree, each mind busily scheming how to obtain the unobtainable—the man his rifle, and the bear the stores.
Suddenly Rogers realized that he was hungry, and smiled grimly as he saw that this was another point of similarity between them; the bear was also very hungry.
The day was wearing on, and the clouds of mosquitoes that always come with the sunset found in Rogers a victim powerless to resist. The first cloud sounded the glad news in the shrill trumpeting buzz that has no counterpart in sound, and clouds more came hurrying gladly to the attack.
He was just beginning to think that if he did not die of bear he would of mosquito, and that on the whole the bear might be the lesser evil, when to his delight he heard, faint in the distance, the voices of the returning rescue party.
The bear heard them too, and with many grunts and backward looks at the "cache" rolled off into the scrub.
It was now perfectly safe for Rogers to cross the open to the shack, but so shaken were his nerves that he could not have left the shelter of the tree for all the gold in Canada.
He waited till he could see the figures of the returning men moving in the scrub, and then sent forth a long hail.
"Boys! Oh, boys! Come quick and bring a gun!"
A figure halted, listened, then started at a run towards him, slipping cartridges into a Winchester as he came. It was Fox, the Southerner, and as he caught sight of Rogers his natural ironical speech slipped from him.