“How far did that bear travel before he was treed?” asked Spider.
“I’d say he probably ran fifteen miles,” said the doctor. “It was enough, and lucky for you boys he doubled around, or you wouldn’t have seen him. I’m pretty sore and tired myself.”
“What I don’t get,” said Bennie, “is how Mr. Vreeland and Tom rode right through those pine thickets without getting torn to pieces. Gee, I’ve got to buy a new cap and a pair of trousers and a shirt in Bend before I can gladden the public eye.”
“They know how,” the doctor laughed. “After a while, you learn to estimate how much room there is, as well as the horse does, and protect yourself in advance.”
“It was an awful lot of fun,” Spider continued—“all but shooting the bear. I think it is wicked to kill off all the wild animals, when they are harmless. Pretty soon we won’t have any wild life left. The bears must be harmless, because they don’t shoot ’em in the national parks, and nobody gets hurt, and the other game is thick. Mr. Vreeland thinks I’m chicken-hearted, I could see that. But I can’t help it. It’s not because I’m chicken-hearted. It’s because I love the woods and the wild animals in ’em, and hunting with a gun strikes me as kind of silly and wicked.”
The doctor drove in silence for a minute. Then he said, “I feel more or less as you do. But you must remember this: Vreeland is an old man who was brought up on the frontier. When he was a boy he had to hunt to get fresh meat. Game was as thick as huckleberries then. There were even grizzlies here in Oregon. It seems perfectly natural to him, and he can’t understand why eastern people, or any people, shouldn’t want to hunt. He can’t understand the word conservation at all. But you young fellows, who are born later, into a world where most of the game has been killed off, and most of the forest cut down, don’t want to see less wild animals and less woods—you want to see more. Your point of view is just the opposite of his. Conservation has got to be preached and practised by the young chaps. The old fellows don’t understand it. They think a man is afraid, or chicken-hearted, if he won’t shoot a wild animal. That’s why I want to see the Boy Scouts learn all about conservation, and help in the good work.”
“You bet!” said Bennie. “When that old bear kind of looked at me and groaned, when I hit him, something turned over in the pit of my tummie. I guess he had as good a right to live as I have. But I’ll sure need his old skin to cover me, if the stores are closed when we get to Bend. I got to have some new pants.”
“It’s Saturday. They’ll be open all the evening,” Uncle Billy laughed.
All three of the boys had to buy new khaki breeches when they reached Bend, and new flannel shirts, and Bennie had to get a cap. The doctor gave them some salve and plaster for their cuts and scratches, and after a bath they were ready to eat everything the waitress brought to the table.
“And now,” said Mr. Stone, after dinner, “shall we all go to the movies?”