Part 23

"Jim 'pears to think Black Dan's gone to Heaven," remarked Saunders drily.

"Ye can't always tell what Jim's thinkin'," retorted Blackstock. "But I'll bet it's a clever idea he's got in his black head, whatever it is."

He scanned the tree anew and the other trees nearest whose branches interlaced with it. Then, with a sharp "Come on, Jim," he started towards the knoll, eyeing the branches overhead as he went. The rest of the party followed at a discreet distance.

Crippled as he was, Jim could not climb the steep face of the knoll, but his master helped him up. The instant he entered the cave he growled savagely, and once more the stiff hair rose along his back. Blackstock watched in silence for a moment. He had never before noticed, on Jim's part, any special hostility toward bears, whom he was quite accustomed to trailing. He glanced up at the big branch that overhung the entrance, and conviction settled on his face. Then he whispered, sharply, "Seek him, Jim." And Jim set off at once, as fast as he could limp, along the trail of the bear.

"Come on, boys," called Blackstock to his posse. "Ef we can't find Black Dan we may as well hev a little bear-hunt to fill in the time. Jim appears to hev a partic'lar grudge agin that bear."

The men closed up eagerly, expecting to find that Blackstock, with Jim's help, had at last discovered some real signs of Black Dan. When they saw that there was still nothing more than that old bear's trail, which they had already examined, Long Jackson began to grumble.

"We kin hunt bear any day," he growled.

"I guess Tug ain't no keener after bear this day than you be," commented MacDonald. "He's got somethin' up his sleeve, you see!"

"Mebbe it's a tame b'ar, a trained b'ar, an' Black Dan's a-ridin' him horseback," suggested Big Andy.

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.

"I hev," said Blackstock.

"An' air ye sure it's a good one--good enough to drag us 'way out here on?" persisted Jackson.

"I'm bankin' on it," answered Blackstock.

"An' so's Jim, I'm thinkin'," suggested MacDonald, tentatively.

"Jim's idee an' mine ain't the same, exackly," vouchsafed Blackstock, after a pause, "but I guess they'll come to the same thing in the end. They're fittin' in with each other fine, so fur!"

"What'll ye bet that ye're not mistaken, the both o' yez?" demanded Jackson.

"Yer wages fur the whole summer!" answered Blackstock promptly.

Long looked satisfied. He knocked the ashes out of his pipe and proceeded to refill it.

"Oh, ef ye're so sure as that, Tug," he drawled, "I guess I ain't takin' any this time."