The Ledge on Bald Face Part 13

The floor was naked rock, scantily littered with dead leaves and twigs.

These, Blackstock concluded, had been recently disturbed, but he could find no clue to what had disturbed them. From the further side, however--to Blackstock's right--a palpable trail, worn clear of moss and herbage, led off by a narrow ledge across the face of the knoll.

Half a dozen paces further on the rock ended in a stretch of stiff soil. Here the trail declared itself. It was unmistakably that of a bear, and unmistakably, also, a fresh trail.

Waving the rest to stop where they were, Blackstock followed the clear trail down from the knoll, and for a couple of hundred yards along the level, going very slowly, and searching it hawk-eyed for some sign other than that of bear. At length he returned, looking slightly crestfallen.

"Nawthin' at all but bear," he announced in an injured voice. "But that bear seems to have been in a bit of a hurry, as if he was gittin'

out o' somebody's way--Black Dan's way, it's dollars to doughnuts. But where was Black Dan, that's what I want to know?"

"Ef _you_ don't know, Tug," said MacDonald, "who _kin_ know?"

"Jim!" said the Deputy, rubbing his lean chin and biting off a big "chaw" of "black-jack."

"Jim's sure some dawg," agreed MacDonald. "That was the only fool thing I ever know'd ye to do, Tug--sendin' Jim after Black Dan that way."

Blackstock swore, softly and intensely, though he was a man not given to that form of self-expression.

"Boys," said he, "I used to fancy myself quite a lot. But now I begin to think Nipsiwaska County'd better be gittin' a noo Deputy. I ain't no manner o' good."

The men looked at him in frank astonishment. He had never before been seen in this mood of self-depreciation.

"Aw, shucks," exclaimed Long Jackson presently, "there ain't a man from here to the St. Lawrence as kin _tech_ ye, an' ye know it, Tug. Quit yer jollyin' now. I believe ye've got somethin' up yer sleeve, only ye won't say so."

At this expression of unbounded confidence Blackstock braced up visibly.

"Well, boys, there's one thing I _kin_ do," said he. "I'm goin' back to git Jim, ef I hev to fetch him in a wheelbarrow. We'll find out what he thinks o' the situation. I'll take Saunders an' Big Andy with me. You, Long, an' Mac, you stop on here an' lay low an' see what turns up. But don't go mussin' up the trails."

II

Jim proved to be so far recovered that he was able to hobble about a little on three legs, the fourth being skilfully bandaged so that he could not put his foot to the ground. It was obvious, however, that he could not make a journey through the woods and be any use whatever at the end of it. Blackstock, therefore, knocked together a handy litter for his benefit. And with very ill grace Jim submitted to being borne upon it.

Some twenty paces from that solitary boot-print which marked the end of Black Dan's trail, Jim was set free from his litter and his attention directed to a bruised tuft of moss.

"Seek him," said Blackstock.

The dog gave one sniff, and then with a growl of anger the hair lifted along his back, and he limped forward hurriedly.

"He's got it in for Black Dan _now_," remarked MacDonald. And the whole party followed with hopeful expectation, so great was their faith in Jim's sagacity.

The dog, in his haste, overshot the end of the trail. He stopped abruptly, whined, sniffed about, and came back to the deep boot-print.

All about it he circled, whimpering with impatience, but never going more than a dozen feet away from it. Then he returned, sniffed long and earnestly, and stood over it with drooping tail, evidently quite nonplussed.

"He don't appear to make no more of it than you did, Tug," said Long Jackson, much disappointed.

"Oh, give him time, Long," retorted Blackstock. Then----

"Seek him! Seek him, good boy," he repeated, waving Jim to the front.

Running with amazing briskness on his three sound legs, the dog began to quarter the undergrowth in ever-widening half-circles, while the men stood waiting and watching. At last, at a distance of several hundred yards, he gave a yelp and a growl, and sprang forward.

"Got it!" exclaimed Big Andy.

"Guess it's only the trail o' that there b'ar he's struck," suggested Jackson pessimistically.

"Jim, stop!" ordered Blackstock. And the dog stood rigid in his tracks while Blackstock hastened forward to see what he had found.

"Sure enough. It's only the bear," cried Blackstock, investigating the great footprint over which Jim was standing. "Come along back here, Jim, an' don't go foolin' away yer time over a bear, jest _now_."

The dog sniffed at the trail, gave another hostile growl, and reluctantly followed his master back. Blackstock made him smell the boot-print again. Then he said with emphasis, "_Black Dan_, Jim, it's _Black Dan_ we're wantin'. Seek him, boy. _Fetch him_."

Jim started off on the same manoeuvres as before, and at the same point as before he again gave a growl and a yelp and bounded forward.

"_Jim_," shouted the Deputy angrily, "come back here."

The dog came limping back, looking puzzled.

"What do you mean by that foolin'?" went on his master severely.

"What's bears to you? Smell that!" and he pointed again to the boot-print. "It's _Black Dan_ you're after."

Jim hung upon his words, but looked hopelessly at sea as to his meaning. He turned and gazed wistfully in the direction of the bear's trail. He seemed on the point of starting out for it again, but the tone of Blackstock's rebuke withheld him. Finally, he sat down upon his dejected tail and stared upwards into a great tree, one of whose lower branches stretched directly over his head.

Blackstock followed his gaze. The tree was an ancient rock maple, its branches large but comparatively few in number. Blackstock could see clear to its top. It was obvious that the tree could afford no hiding-place to anything larger than a wild-cat. Nevertheless, as Blackstock studied it, a gleam of sudden insight pa.s.sed over his face.

"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.