CHAPTER XXXVII.

END OF THE TOUR.

It was quite likely that the big brown bear which had thrust itself among the members of the Zero Club so unceremoniously had had its winter habitation somewhere along the top of the cliff, and that the snow, ice and landslide had brought it forth to see the cause of the disturbance.

Evidently, it imagined that the boys had brought about the ruin, for it was thoroughly enraged, and, as soon as it landed, stood up on its hind legs to embrace Harry, who happened to be a trifle closer than the others.

Harry lost no time in leaping out of reach, and then the great bear turned upon Jack, almost knocking him down with a savage blow from one paw.

“Run! run!” screamed Andy. “Run, Jack, or he will kill you!”

With an effort, Jack regained his balance, and then he took Andy’s advice, as did indeed all of the others. They ran in every direction, and in less than half a minute the bear had the field entirely to himself.

At first bruin appeared on the point of following them into the woods, but he stopped short and sniffed the air. The smell of the cooked meat in the cave reached him, and, turning, he disappeared inside of the shelter.

“He has gone into the cave!” exclaimed Boxy to Harry, breathlessly. “Good-by to all our meat!”

“If he only takes the meat and gets out I won’t care,” put in Andy. “My, but he nearly scared me out of my wits!”

“I doan’ want nuffin’ to do wid dat chap,” remarked Pickles, with a grave shake of his woolly head. “He is wuss nor all de wolves an’ wildcats put togedder, ’deed he is!”

“Come on to where we can look into the cave,” said Harry, and they moved to another spot, where Jack presently joined them.

“By the boots! but I had a narrow escape!” said Jack, with a shiver. “That crack from the bear’s paw nearly knocked me silly!”

“What shall we do?” questioned Boxy, after a moment of silence.

“I’d like to shoot him,” replied Harry. “What a prize he would make!”

“Oh, my! I wouldn’t go near him for the world!” exclaimed Boxy.

“Nor I!” added Andy. “Don’t try it, Harry! It will cost you your life!”

“How are you going to kill him?” asked Jack. “Not a single one of us has a gun.”

“Didn’t you have your gun out?” asked Harry, turning to Boxy.

“I had the rifle out, but I--I dropped it when the bear leaped down,” stammered Boxy, in considerable confusion.

“Where did you drop it?”

“About three or four yards from the doorway to the cave.”

“Humph! A fellow might crawl up and grab it,” mused Harry.

“No! no! doan’ yo’ go fo’ to do nuffn’ so foolish!” cried Pickles. “Dat b’ar will come out an’ dat will be de end ob you!”

“That’s so,” said Andy. “Let the bear satisfy himself and go off when he pleases.”

“Ah, I have it!” cried Harry, an idea striking him. “Just stay where you are, fellows; I think I can do up his bearship in a way he won’t be looking for.”

“What are you going to do?” questioned Boxy.

“Wait and see.”

On the instant Harry was off. Instead of walking toward the cave, he made a detour, coming up at one end of the high cliff.

He found a place where he could ascend the icy slope without much difficulty, and this done, he crept along silently until he occupied a spot directly over the entrance to the shelter below.

He looked about him, and soon found what he wanted, a round stone, weighing all of forty or fifty pounds.

He half-rolled, half-carried the stone to the very edge of the cliff, and here set it so that a slight push would send it downward. Then he procured several more stones of smaller size.

This done, he took up a handful of pebbles and rolled them over the cliff, at the same time shouting out loudly.

The echo had hardly died away when the bear made its appearance at the mouth of the cave. He came out almost all of the way and looked around fiercely.

Clatter! crash! down came the big stone, pushed off at just the right moment. It took the bear in the neck, and caused him to fall down with a loud roar of pain.

In great excitement, Harry caught up two of the smaller stones. The first, when hurled downward, missed its mark; but the second caught the beast in the top of the head, directly over his right eye, inflicting an ugly wound.

“Hurrah! you have knocked him!” cried Jack, from the woods. “Give him another!”

“Get the rifle if you can!” sang out the boy on the cliff.

“I will, if the bear will give me half a chance!” returned Jack.

The bear now understood whence came the attack, and staggering to his feet, he looked around to find some way up the cliff. Harry continued to pour down the rocks, and one particularly sharp-pointed one landed on bruin’s nose.

Up went another roar of pain, and the bear danced around, shaking his head from side to side in rage.

“That was a corker!” yelled Boxy, somewhat recovering his courage. “Give him another, and--my gracious! He’s coming this way!”

It was true. The bear had turned swiftly, and was now making for the woods where Boxy, Andy and Pickles were standing. Jack in the meantime had crawled to one side, waiting for a chance to dash in and secure the rifle.

The three boys scrambled to get out of the way, and a second later Jack managed to gain possession of the much-coveted firearm.

The bear went a dozen paces or more and then stopped and turned to the boy with the rifle. He rushed up and stood on his hind legs, and at that moment Jack pulled the trigger.

The bullet passed through bruin’s shoulder, inflicting a dangerous but not fatal wound. The beast was now all but beaten, and yet there was lots of fight in him. Could he have reached one of the boys he would have killed him on the spot.

Seeing the bear so far away from the cliff, Harry slid down to the bottom, and as Jack ran off, with bruin at his heels, he slipped into the cave, and brought out all of the shotguns, each of which was luckily loaded with coarse buckshot.

As Jack ran in one direction, Harry took another, and soon joined Andy, Boxy and Pickles.

“Come with me,” he said, as he dealt out the guns. “We can get the best of that bear now if we only half try. He’s limping dreadfully.”

Off he dashed, and the others at his heels. They caught up to the bear at the instant that Jack yelled to them to come to his assistance.

Bang! bang! went the shotguns in rapid succession. The four doses were too much for bruin. He uttered one growl, sharp and shrill, and then tumbled over--dead.

At first the boys could not realize that their dreadful enemy was dead. They ran back to the cave to reload the rifle and the guns. But it was not needed, and after a wait of fully five minutes they went back to inspect their great prize.

“Talk about wolves and wildcats and deer!” cried Harry, not without pardonable pride. “This caps the climax. Boys, I am done hunting now.”

“And so am I,” returned Jack. “No more of life in the woods for this season.”

“Yes, I jess as lief pull up an’ go back to Rudskill to-morrow,” broke in Pickles. “I couldn’t sleep out heah no moah if you paid me ten dollars an hour.”

“We must have that bear stuffed,” said Jack. “And when we get a regular clubroom we’ll have him stand on one end of the platform as a memento of this glorious outing.”

There was no sleep for any of the boys that night, and early in the morning they set to work to skin the bear as nicely as possible, so that it might be turned over to the taxidermist in Rudskill when they arrived home.

Skinning the bear and getting ready to “pull up stakes” took the whole of the day, and despite their fears of more bears, they slept that night. By daybreak they were on their way across Rock Island Lake.

Twenty-four hours later they reached Rudd’s Landing, where Barton Coils greeted them warmly. The old man was astonished at their success in the hunting line.

A crowd of friends and curious strangers greeted them when the _Icicle_ ran up to the town front of Rudskill and the boys left the iceboat; the bear skin and head were much admired, as were also the other trophies.

“Had a good deal better luck than Sully and his crowd,” said one of the town boys, and the members of the Zero Club and Pickles rather guessed that they had.

The boys were received at their various homes with open arms. It was found that Minnie Woodruff had quite recovered from the effects of her involuntary bath in the river, from which Harry had so bravely rescued her.

The things the boys had brought back from the deserted cottage in the woods were sold before the winter was over. For his old coins Harry received nearly four hundred dollars, while his companions obtained for the other things from sixty to a hundred dollars each.

This grand outing of the Zero Club took place several winters ago. Pickles has now a steady place in Mr. Woodruff’s employ, and the four boys are now in high school and college, and there we will leave them, trusting to meet them again in the near future, and in the meantime wishing them as much success as they had when braving perils by ice and snow.

THE END.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.