The morning after the three soldiers had pledged themselves to a life of exile, like the (otherwise) practical young persons they were, they proceeded resolutely to take stock of the provisions they had on hand and to consider the means of adding to their food-supply. They had already been nearly two months in camp, which was the period for which their rations had been issued; but, what with the generous measure of the government and the small game they had brought down with their carbines, nearly half of the original supply remained on storage in the hut of the old man of the mountain. It is true that there was but one box left of the hard bread; but the salt beef, which had been covered with brine in the cask found in the corner of the cabin, had scarcely been touched. A few strips of the bacon still hung from the rafters. Of the peas and beans, only a few scattering seeds lay here and there on the floor. The precious salt formed but a small pile by itself, but there was still a brave supply of coffee and sugar, and the best part of the original package of rice. In another month they would have green corn and potatoes of their own growing, and they already had eggs, as, fortunately, they had killed none of their hens.
The tract of ground on the mountain was a half-hundred acres in extent, with an abundance of wood and water, protected on the borders by trees and bushes, and accessible only by the wooden ladder by which they themselves had come up the ledge. Their camp was in the center of the tract, where the smoke of their fires would never be seen from the valleys. Overhanging the boulder face of the mountain, just back of the ridge they had used for a signal-station, was a clump of black oaks, through which something like an old trail led down to a narrow tongue of land caught on a shelf of granite, which was dark with a tall growth of pines, and the earth beneath was covered with a thick, gray carpet of needles, clean and springy to the feet. Along the southern cliff, and to the west of the spring which welled out from under the rock, was a curtain of dogwoods and birches, and elsewhere the timber was chestnut. At some points the trees of the latter variety were old and gnarled, and clung to the rocks by fantastic twisted roots like the claws of great birds, and at others they grew in thrifty young groves, three and four lusty trunks springing from the sides of a decayed stump.
They were certainly in the heart of the Confederacy, but the plateau was theirs by the right of possession, and over this, come what might, they were determined that the old flag with its thirty-five stars should continue to float. They at least would stubbornly refuse to acknowledge that there had been any change in the number of States.
Owing to the danger of being seen, they agreed together that no one should go down the ladder during the day. They were satisfied that they had not been seen since they had occupied the mountain. They had no reason to believe that any human being had crossed the bridge since the night the captain and his troopers had ridden away into the darkness; but still the bridge remained, the only menace to their safety, and, with the military instinct of a small army retreating in an enemy\'s country, they determined to destroy that means of reaching them.
Accordingly, when night came, Lieutenant Coleman and George Bromley, leaving Philip asleep in the hut, armed themselves with the ax and the two carbines, and took their way across the lower field to the deep gorge. They had not been there since the night they parted with the captain and Andy, the guide. It was very still in this secluded place—even stiller, they thought, for the ceaseless tinkling of the branch in the bottom of the gorge. They had grown quite used to the stillness and solitude of nature in that upper wilderness. Enough of moonlight fell through the branches overhead so that they could see the forms of the trees that grew in the gorge; and the moon itself was so low in the west that its rays slanted under the bridge and touched with a ghostly light the dead top of a great basswood which forked its giant limbs upward like beckoning arms. Then there was one ray of light that lanced its way to the very heart of the gorge, and touched a tiny patch of sparkling water alongside a shining rock.
They had the smallest ends of the string-pieces to deal with, as the trees had fallen from the other side. Bromley wielded the ax, which fell at first with a muffled sound in the rotten log, and then, as he reached the tougher heart, rang out clear and sharp, and echoed back from down the gorge. Presently he felt a weakening in the old stick, and, stepping back, he wiped his forehead on the sleeve of his jacket. The stillness which followed the blows of the ax was almost startling; and the night wind which was rising on the mountain sounded like the rushing of wings in the tops of the pines on the opposite bank.
After another moment\'s rest, Corporal Bromley laid his ax to the other string-piece. Lieutenant Coleman had taken position a few yards below the bridge, with his arm around a young chestnut, where he could detect the first movement of the swaying timbers. Fragments of bark and rotten wood were shaken from the crazy structure at every stroke of the ax, and a tiny chipmunk sprang out of his home in the stones, frightened at the chopping, and fled with light leaps across the doomed causeway. Now the blows fall more slowly, and after each stroke the ax-man steps back to listen. At last he hears a measured crackling in the resinous heart of the old log. He hears earth and small stones dropping from the abutment into the branches of the trees below. The structure lurches to one side; there is a sound like a dull explosion; a few loose sticks dance in the yellow cloud of dust that rises thick and stifling from the broken banks, and the toilsome work of thirty years before is undone in as many minutes.
When the dust-cloud had drifted off, our two heroes, who had retreated for safety, came cautiously back and looked over into the gorge. They were startled at what they saw; for the frame of the old bridge was poised in the moonlight like Mohammed\'s coffin, and swaying mockingly, as if the soul of the old man of the mountain had taken refuge in its timbers. Its slivered planks stood up like the fins of some sea-monster, crisscrossed and trembling, and spread out like the broken sticks of a fan.
"Good!" said Lieutenant Coleman; "it has lodged in the forked arms of the dead basswood; and the mountain people will attach some mystery to its going, as they did to its coming."
He said "Good!" because the more mystery there was between their retreat and the enemy outside, the better. It would be many a long year now before anybody would be likely to come to disturb them; and with this thought in their hearts, they slung their carbines and took the way back.
When they had come as far as the hollow tree into which the cartridges had been thrown on the first night to keep them from the rain, they halted; and George Bromley felt of the edge of the ax as he measured the height of the opening above the ground with his eye. He was not quite satisfied with this kind of measurement, and so, leaning against the old trunk, he thrust his right arm to its full length into the broad, black cavity. He was about to touch with his fingers the spot outside, opposite to which his right hand reached, when something like an exclamation of anger fell from his lips, and he lifted out of the opening a bear cub as large as a woodchuck. Bromley\'s bare hand had landed unexpectedly in the soft fur of the animal, and, with an absence of fear peculiar to himself, he had closed his powerful grip on the unknown object, and lifted out the young bear by the nape of its neck. Strong as he was, he was unable to hold the squirming cub until he had turned it over on its back and planted his knee on its chest.
Behind the tree there was a great, dark hole among the rocks, which was the real entrance to the bears\' den; and expecting an attack from that quarter, Lieutenant Coleman stood quietly in the moonlight, with his thumb on the lock of his carbine. As there was no movement anywhere, he presently returned to the hole in the tree, and prudently thrust in his short gun, which he worked about until the broad, flat end of the hinged ramrod was entangled in the coarse meshes of the sack. The cartridges were bone-dry after seven weeks in the bears\' den, and the young cub was thrust into the bag, where he growled and struggled against the unknown power that was bearing him off.
They had neither chains nor cage nor strong boxes, and when they had come safely back to the cabin with their prize they were greatly puzzled as to how they should secure it for the night. Philip was sleeping soundly on a bed of boughs in one corner, and showed no disposition to wake. They were careful not to disturb him, wishing to prepare a pleasant surprise for him when he should wake in the morning and find the captured cub.
"I have it," said Bromley, when his eyes had traveled around the room to the fireplace; "the cub can\'t climb up the smooth stones of the chimney, and we will find a way to shut it in by blocking up the fireplace."
They unslung the door of the cabin from its wooden hinges, and, after slipping the young bear from the mouth of the sack into the soft ashes, they quickly closed the opening, and secured the door in place, putting the meat-cask against one end and a heavy stone against the other.
After a little disturbance in the ashes all was quiet in the fireplace. Lieutenant Coleman went away to his tent, and in five minutes after he lay down George Bromley was fast asleep beside Philip.
At this time the moon was shining in at the open door; but shortly afterward it set behind the western ridges, and in the hour before daybreak it was unusually dark on the mountain. Bromley was sleeping more lightly than usual, and, following his experience of the night, he was dreaming of desperate encounters with bears; or this may have happened because the cub in the chimney from time to time put his small nose to a hole in the door and whined, and then growled as he fell back into the ashes.
THE MOTHER BEAR COMES FOR HER CUB.
THE MOTHER BEAR COMES FOR HER CUB.
One of the light cracker-boxes stood on end just inside the door, and it was the noise of this object thro............