The Last Three Soldiers

by W. H. Shelton

By the time they had, in their imaginations, dressed the bear and tanned her skin, it began to be light enough to enter upon a more vigorous and offensive campaign. This idea seemed to strike the bear at the same time, for she came out of the door, and, after sniffing the morning air, shambled three times around the cabin, smelling and clawing at the base of the chimney in each passage. Having made this survey of her surroundings, she returned to her post and lay down on the carbines.

These carbines were old smooth-bore muskets cut down for cavalry arms and fitted with a short bar and sliding ring over the lock-plate, which was stamped "Tower—London, 1862." They carried a ball fixed in front of a paper cartridge, and were fired by means of a percussion-cap. The pieces were loaded where they lay, with caps under the locks.

There was a crevice between the logs at that side of the chimney where the door was held in position by the stone, and the wooden spade which Philip had used in his planting could be seen from where the three soldiers sat in the tree, lying across the grave of the old man of the mountain. Lieutenant Coleman and Bromley slipped down to the ground and ran around to the back of the hut. The end of the door could be seen against the crevice, which was just above the level of the floor. The men took care to keep close to the chimney, so as to be out of sight of the bear, and when they had fixed their lever under the edge of the door they easily raised it high enough to let out the cub.

When this was done they mounted to the roof of the cabin, Coleman armed with the wooden spade and Bromley with the ax. The bear came out presently, with the cub at her side, its thick fur gray with ashes. The two were headed to pass between the tent and the chestnut-tree, and when the old bear stopped at the foot of the trunk and raised her head with a threatening growl, Bromley stood up on the roof and hurled the ax, which slightly wounded the bear in the flank and caused her to charge back toward the cabin, while the bewildered cub scrambled up the tree in which Philip sat.

Philip only laughed and called loudly to his comrades to get the guns. At the sound of his voice the she-bear turned about, and, seeing her cub in the tree, began scrambling up after it. At this quite unexpected turn in affairs Philip began to climb higher, no longer disposed to laugh, while Bromley jumped down on the opposite side of the cabin and secured the carbines, one of which he passed up to Lieutenant Coleman on the roof. Now, Coleman had a clear eye and a steady hand with a gun, and would have hit the heart of the bear with his bullet like the handiest old sport of the woods, but as the animal crouched in the crotch of the tree a great limb covered her side and head. By this time Philip was as high as he dared to climb. The cub from the ashes was hugging the same slender limb, breathing on his naked feet, and the old bear, with bristling hair and erect ears, was growling where she lay, and putting out her great claws to go aloft after Philip. This was the critical moment, when Bromley ran under the tree and shot the bear. His ball went crashing into her shoulder instead of between the ribs behind, as he had meant it should. It was just as well, he thought, when he saw her come rolling along the trunk to the ground as if she were thrice dead. If he had only known bears a little better, he would probably have exchanged carbines and kept a safe distance from the animal; and even then, in the end, it might have been worse for him.

He had only broken her big, shaggy shoulder, and as he came near to the wounded brute she rose suddenly on her hind feet and dealt him such a whack with her sound paw as nearly broke his ribs and sent him rolling over and over on the ground. Bear and man were so mixed in the air that even Coleman feared to risk a shot. Poor Bromley, crippled and bleeding at the nose, lay almost helpless on his back under the tree, and in this state the maddened bear charged furiously on him, her foaming and bloody jaws extended. Half stunned and more than half beaten, he had retained his cool nerve and a firm grip on his empty carbine; and as the bear came over him, with all his remaining strength he crushed the clumsy weapon into her open mouth like a huge bit. She was so near that he felt her hot breath on his face, and saw her flaming eyes through the blood which nearly blinded his own. Bromley felt his strength going. The breath was nearly crushed out of his body by the weight of the bear, baffled for an instant by the mass of iron between her jaws. Philip, drawing up his toes from the cub, forgot his own peril as he gazed down in terror at the struggle below. At the moment which he believed was Bromley's last a quick report rang out from the roof, and the great bear rolled heavily to one side, with Lieutenant Coleman's bullet in her heart.

"SHE ROSE SUDDENLY ON HER HIND FEET AND DEALT HIM
SUCH A WHACK AS NEARLY BROKE HIS RIBS."

It is not to be supposed that in the excitement of destroying bridges and killing bears Lieutenant Coleman neglected the signal-station. Morning after morning they waved their flag, and watched the summit of Upper Bald through the glass. No one could be more eager than were the three soldiers without a country to hear some further news of the old government they had loved and lost. They even turned their attention to Chestnut Knob. The entries in the diary show that this duty was continued hopelessly through September, with no reply to their signals from either mountain.